Jump to content
AdonisMale

On Marvels


JoelR

1,078 views

This is an artist's rendition of NASA's Cassini spacecraft before it burned up in the atmosphere of Saturn. 

There is marvel in the universe.  There are great spaces to cross. There are vast unknowns to explore. There are wonders to both humble and elevate us.    

Earlier today, rioters violently stormed the US Capitol and interrupted the counting of the Electoral College, a procedural vote with a predetermined outcome.  The rioting only forestalled the count.  How small.  

How big, magnificent, and uplifting we should be.    

  • Like 1

1 Comment


Recommended Comments

majikthis

Posted

This brings to mind Cassini's picture of the Earth from Saturn, and Carl Sagan's comment on the famous Pale Blue Dot photo taken by Voyager 1 in 1990.

earth-from-saturn.1419979742.0.jpg

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." (Carl Sagan, 1994)

  • Like 2
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...

Adult Warning

Hey there, this site has a lot of muscle and dicks, so make sure you're 18+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We also want to feed you some Cookies, so open wide for daddy.