A few thoughts about the source of all our visual astronomy, light: http://deseretnews.com/blogs/1,5322,10000034,00.html?bD=20090326 Many thanks, Joe
Insightful musings, Joe, thanks. Consider, too, that the photon that enters your eye, in many cases, is a tiny piece of the object you are looking at. It's been called the "Photon Connection" by others. Gazing up at M31 under a pristine desert sky, actual particles of M31 itself have entered your eyeball and are absorbed by your body. Photons from an entire galaxy of stars, winnowed and thinned by vast distance, still make it in small numbers. Like cosmic salmon, though many start the journey in all directions, only a few make it across the unimaginable intergalactic depths into the absurdly small aperture of your pupil. There they impact your retina and trigger neurons, bringing you a picture of their stellar birthplace, a community of suns absurdly distant in time and space. And yet, there it is. One can dissect the physical connection with physics and biology, attach caveats and conditions, but the poetry of the process is too elegant to permit it, in polite society. ;o) 2009/3/26 Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com>
A few thoughts about the source of all our visual astronomy, light:
http://deseretnews.com/blogs/1,5322,10000034,00.html?bD=20090326
I like the way you put this Chuck; it's similar to what I like to tell folks at star parties -- "the light from that galaxy just ended it's multi-million year journey on your retina!", words to that effect... --- On Fri, 3/27/09, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Musing about light To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Friday, March 27, 2009, 12:50 AM Insightful musings, Joe, thanks.
Consider, too, that the photon that enters your eye, in many cases, is a tiny piece of the object you are looking at. It's been called the "Photon Connection" by others. Gazing up at M31 under a pristine desert sky, actual particles of M31 itself have entered your eyeball and are absorbed by your body. Photons from an entire galaxy of stars, winnowed and thinned by vast distance, still make it in small numbers. Like cosmic salmon, though many start the journey in all directions, only a few make it across the unimaginable intergalactic depths into the absurdly small aperture of your pupil. There they impact your retina and trigger neurons, bringing you a picture of their stellar birthplace, a community of suns absurdly distant in time and space. And yet, there it is.
One can dissect the physical connection with physics and biology, attach caveats and conditions, but the poetry of the process is too elegant to permit it, in polite society. ;o)
2009/3/26 Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com>
A few thoughts about the source of all our visual astronomy, light:
http://deseretnews.com/blogs/1,5322,10000034,00.html?bD=20090326
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com
Thanks, Rich. But I can't take credit for it, it's an old turn of phrase, and even George Lucas is aware of it. Seemingly "empty" space is actually jam-packed with electro-magnetic radiation, including visible-light photons. As you gaze at M31, take a step to the right. You still see it. Now, take a figurative 10,000 light-year step to the right, and you still see it. Every star in the cosmos is sending out a flood of radiation, at many wavelengths and in all directions, and it only takes a tiny, immeasurably small fraction of it, for humans to not only detect it, but to wrest basic information out of it as to the conditions of it's birth. Wavefront after wavefront of visible-light energy in spherical shells is pumped out into the vastness of space, from every star that shines. A cubic meter of empty interstellar space contains wavefronts of energy from every star and galaxy in the observable universe a with line-of-sight to it. Space itself is full of information cast-off by every emitter in the cosmos. The same information M31 yields to a spectrograph on earth is available to an astronomer on a planet somwhere in M33. We exist amid an ether of information of cosmic places near and absurdly far. We are immersed in it. It flows around us, through us. Gravity is part of it; so yes, it "binds the galaxy together". That's as far as I'll take it, lol.
participants (3)
-
Chuck Hards -
Joe Bauman -
Richard Tenney