Why had Professor Harris mentioned her name to Cash if the images wouldn’t mean anything to her?
The longer she stared, the less sense it made. She had studied vast areas of the galaxy and beyond, with the world’s most powerful telescopes. Nothing she was looking at was vaguely recognizable, yet something was familiar.
“Hey , Mom,” said Kyle walking past. “How cool is this plane? There’s even a shower in the loo!”
“Very cool,” she said , looking back to see the restroom was empty. Kyle’s mention of it had suddenly brought her need to use it into focus. She stood up and pointed down at the screen. “Look at this and see if it makes any sense to you,” she said before making her way to the restroom.
Kyle was already back in his seat next to Cash when she returned. Fat help he was, but it was good to see how comfortable he was with his father. Despite everything that had happened, they were both managing to laugh and joke with each other, ably assisted by Rigs.
Sophie sat back down and stared at the screen . She closed her eyes and the dots remained in her view.
“Hey , Mom?” said Kyle, startling her.
“Hey, you . That loo is very cool,” she smiled. “No luck?” she asked, pointing at her screen.
Kyle handed her a magazine that he had gone back to his seat to retrieve.
“A range chart for the Bombardier Global 6000?” she asked looking at the pages he was holding open.
“Look at the map of the world and imagine your circles with dots centered there and there,” Kyle said, pointing to Western South America and Northeast Africa.
Sophie laid the map down and did exactly as her soon to be fifteen -year-old son had instructed. The left hand circle was predominantly South America, the dots disappearing where the oceans surrounded the land mass, while the right hand circle was Africa, Europe and a portion of Asia. Once again, the blackness correlated to where the oceans were.
“That’s amazing, thanks , son,” she said.
“Astronomers,” he scoffed with a smile, heading back to his father . “Spend so much time looking out there, they don’t see what’s right in front of them.”
Sophie was instantly reminded of a similar remark from Professor Harris in relation to archaeologists. The answer wasn’t always to dig deeper and deeper, sometimes to look back, you had to look up.
B oth fields looked to the past for their answers, Sophie considered, although in a very different manner and with very different skills. Ultimately, everyone looked into the past. The time an image takes to travel to your eye is already technically in the past, although due to the small distances, infinitesimally so. However, on the scale of the universe, the distances are so great that the images we see are the images as they appeared in the past. The sun’s image is eight minutes old by the time we see it. The image of the closest star beyond the sun is four years old. Others, from the deepest depths of the universe, are billions of years old.
The more you consider the time and scale of the universe , the more mind blowing it becomes. Sophie’s lectures always began with a number of mind blowing facts, none more so than the scale of the universe. If one grain of sand represented our sun, the star at the center of our solar system, there are not enough grains of sand on earth to represent every star in the universe. Our sun is a million times the size of Earth, but that is nothing compared to the largest sun discovered, VY Canis Majoris, which is a billion times the size of our sun. To put that into perspective, a passenger plane can circle the Earth in just under two days. It would take over 400,000 days, equivalent to 1,100 years to circle VY Canis Majoris.
Sophie snapped out of her teaching mode and back to the image. She now had a reference point. The map in the magazine wasn’t particularly detailed but she knew enough from her basic geography to see that the right hand map centered in Egypt. She
The longer she stared, the less sense it made. She had studied vast areas of the galaxy and beyond, with the world’s most powerful telescopes. Nothing she was looking at was vaguely recognizable, yet something was familiar.
“Hey , Mom,” said Kyle walking past. “How cool is this plane? There’s even a shower in the loo!”
“Very cool,” she said , looking back to see the restroom was empty. Kyle’s mention of it had suddenly brought her need to use it into focus. She stood up and pointed down at the screen. “Look at this and see if it makes any sense to you,” she said before making her way to the restroom.
Kyle was already back in his seat next to Cash when she returned. Fat help he was, but it was good to see how comfortable he was with his father. Despite everything that had happened, they were both managing to laugh and joke with each other, ably assisted by Rigs.
Sophie sat back down and stared at the screen . She closed her eyes and the dots remained in her view.
“Hey , Mom?” said Kyle, startling her.
“Hey, you . That loo is very cool,” she smiled. “No luck?” she asked, pointing at her screen.
Kyle handed her a magazine that he had gone back to his seat to retrieve.
“A range chart for the Bombardier Global 6000?” she asked looking at the pages he was holding open.
“Look at the map of the world and imagine your circles with dots centered there and there,” Kyle said, pointing to Western South America and Northeast Africa.
Sophie laid the map down and did exactly as her soon to be fifteen -year-old son had instructed. The left hand circle was predominantly South America, the dots disappearing where the oceans surrounded the land mass, while the right hand circle was Africa, Europe and a portion of Asia. Once again, the blackness correlated to where the oceans were.
“That’s amazing, thanks , son,” she said.
“Astronomers,” he scoffed with a smile, heading back to his father . “Spend so much time looking out there, they don’t see what’s right in front of them.”
Sophie was instantly reminded of a similar remark from Professor Harris in relation to archaeologists. The answer wasn’t always to dig deeper and deeper, sometimes to look back, you had to look up.
B oth fields looked to the past for their answers, Sophie considered, although in a very different manner and with very different skills. Ultimately, everyone looked into the past. The time an image takes to travel to your eye is already technically in the past, although due to the small distances, infinitesimally so. However, on the scale of the universe, the distances are so great that the images we see are the images as they appeared in the past. The sun’s image is eight minutes old by the time we see it. The image of the closest star beyond the sun is four years old. Others, from the deepest depths of the universe, are billions of years old.
The more you consider the time and scale of the universe , the more mind blowing it becomes. Sophie’s lectures always began with a number of mind blowing facts, none more so than the scale of the universe. If one grain of sand represented our sun, the star at the center of our solar system, there are not enough grains of sand on earth to represent every star in the universe. Our sun is a million times the size of Earth, but that is nothing compared to the largest sun discovered, VY Canis Majoris, which is a billion times the size of our sun. To put that into perspective, a passenger plane can circle the Earth in just under two days. It would take over 400,000 days, equivalent to 1,100 years to circle VY Canis Majoris.
Sophie snapped out of her teaching mode and back to the image. She now had a reference point. The map in the magazine wasn’t particularly detailed but she knew enough from her basic geography to see that the right hand map centered in Egypt. She
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