We all feel really small sometimes..
Last night I was driving home, watching the sheet lightning from the approaching storm light up the sky. I could see a great distance ahead of me, my headlights illuminating the wet tarmac of the bypass a short distance ahead.
There was not another soul on the road save for a car in the very far distance. Over the hills and valleys of the road ahead, I could see its tail lights; like red mist, and the headlights, carving a conical beam of light through the thin fog created by the drizzly rain. It looked tiny in the distance. I wondered if someone was in the distance behind me, observing my car and the little wash of light it was casting in the blackness ahead.
At that moment I felt completely small.
A huge black sky above, occasionally lit up like day with massive flashes of light, the rain beginning to lash down.
It is such a massive World, a gigantic planet, a seemingly endless Universe.
I struggle to get my mind around the sheer expanse of the Universe..
* “What is the total number of galaxies in the universe? Sagan assumed 100 billion. Is that still valid? Recently the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) surveyed, to the faintest levels yet detected, a small area of sky. Extrapolating from the number of galaxies detected by HST to that expected over the whole sky, I calculate 130 billion galaxies, slightly larger than Sagans estimate. Then the number of stars in the universe is 400 billion x 130 billion, or about 50,000 billion billion. A billion billion. That’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. So, grasp the concept of a billion billion, then think of 50 thousand of those. Easy!”
The numbers are meaningless really.. who can truly envision such a number? It belies comprehension.
I slept last night, albeit a light, unsatisfying sleep. Couldn’t help but think about all this. Those questions you sometimes ask yourself. There are bigger things than me. Quite incredible and absolutely amazing to think.
Today was one of my days. I woke up to lovely black skies and the threat of rain. Cooler temperatures and by the time I was making the journey to work, the skies had begun to open up and the rain fell. Showers all day it would be, with some great heavy downpours this afternoon. As I speak, the heavy rain continues outside, a great sound - I can’t wait to slip into bed tonight, warm and cosy while it lashes down outside.
On a completely unrelated note, I found these fabulous pictures this afternoon and couldn’t think of anywhere else to put them!
… Watermelon Art …
… ** Glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly at a 2005 exhibition sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline in Kew Gardens, London, England. The piece is 13 feet (4 m) high …
* Source: To see the Universe in a Grain of Sand…
** Source: Glass sculpture.
