Look, Up In The Sky

Recently, there was a lunar eclipse. Apparently, the moon turned coppery. I didn't see it. I forgot on to look up. Maybe the eclipse was eclipsed by snow and rain in the city.

Then today, I stumbled on some photographs of Jupiter that the New Horizons spacecraft sent back to Earth last month. New Horizons is actually on its way to Pluto. It's passing by Jupiter and, you know, there was a photo op, so it took these pictures. Amazing pictures.

Jupiter


Jupiter's biggest moon, Ganymede


Positions of New Horizons, Jupiter and the moons


They call these Jupiter Flyby photos, because New Horizons is flying by Jupiter as it shoots them. A fly-by shooting, get it?

What's it like out in space? Is it a chaotic hurling of meteorites, whirling moons, and curling black holes? If you stand on Ganymede, Jupiter's biggest moon, will you be running every which way to avoid being pummelled by space debris or falling into one of the moon's craters?

I think some times we're really quite protected on Earth. Atmospherically, there are still more good days than bad. Inside our protective dome, we conduct the business of living. So engrossed are we by our day-to-days we become oblivious to the existence of the dome. We forget to take care of it, then deny there is anything to take care of.

Maybe that's how we lost god, our sense of the divine, our connection to the numinous. We are so centred on ourselves we think we are all there is.

When you stand back and look at it, the very existence of the internet and its ability to transmit data, photos, sound, and how available the transmissions are to us, is nothing short of a miracle. And now, photographs of Jupiter are being beamed back to us. Miracles all around.