“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 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. 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.
Our posturing’s, 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.” – Carl Sagan
Damn what can I say… It has been a really good week!! Ski season has started and life is good!! Got a chance to go up to Loveland Ski area on Thursday, November 1st and the snow was great. I am hoping this winter will deliver a ton of snow. The last couple of years have been on the wimpier side or I have just gotten used to a more abundant snowfall when my kids were little. Not really sure. I have not had a chance to really look at the records myself, but I do know that the “water guys” that keep track of this said that the last couple of years were not good for moisture in the mountains. So maybe we are due? That would be fantastic. I used to get upset if we did not get our usual 50 inches of snow here in Fort Collins, but after living here for 30 plus years I am OK with it not snowing! I guess I have gotten old!? What is that about? Where does the time go? Lol. Anyways – all kidding aside, if it would just dump in the mountains so to speak, then most of the state’s water woes would take care of themselves.
I have been watching a course called “The Search for Exoplanets: What Astronomers Know” and I have to say it is pretty amazing. I did not know that the first serious science proposals of what might be out there in the rest of the Universe started in the 1940s. I was thinking that it was much more recent. But it truly started in the 1940s – at that time the technology of astrometry became good enough to detect planets. Astrometry is the measurement of the position of a star on the sky, and if the star has planets, its position will wobble back and forth. Because the technology was crude in today terms, there was conflicting evidence reported back then, so it did not get a lot of attention. Fast forward to the late 1980s and early nineties, add in a few more techniques for detection and things start to get really serious. In 1995 and on, the discover of exoplanets began to grow exponentially, and scientist from around the world were able to corroborate each other’s results. This made a huge difference with the acceptance and birth of “Exoplanetary Science.” What was once Science Fiction has now become accepted scientific fact. It is well worth the money for the course. It is about 12 hours of lecture divided up into 24 mini-lectures. You can find it at the Great Courses: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-search-for-exoplanets-what-astronomers-know.html and you can find used editions on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Search-Exoplanets-What-Astronomers-Know/dp/1629972037/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1541360656&sr=8-4&keywords=the+search+for+exoplanets+what+astronomers+know, you can do this course as a audio book or as DVD or Online streaming.
I wanted to post the above quote by Carl Sagan. I think it really hit home with me after finishing the course. We truly are just a speck of dust in a sunbeam. And my guess, is that as we look for more exoplanets, we will find that we are not that special or unique. Very, very sobering indeed.
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet that orbits a star other than the Sun. Over 2000 exoplanets have been discovered since 1988. Specifically, 2098 planets in 1342 planetary systems including 509 multiple planetary systems as of 24 March 2016.
Well that is about it for me on this post. I think that the Ultra season for me this year has come to an end. Even though I did not successfully finish the Run Rabbit Run 100. I still feel pretty good, after all it was 50 miles when I timed out and as someone much wiser than I am at times said, 50 miles is still 50 miles. So, time to get ski season on and enjoy the snow while it is there. I do plan on racing some shorter runs for the remainder of the year and the start of next year, mainly to work on speed. I will let you know how it goes!
A late evening Fall afternoon in Fort Collins.
Take care my friends and maybe I will see you out there on the trails or at the ski slope!!
