Classes just started again, and for the first time in three years I find myself in a science classroom. I love science. I always have! I mean, how awesome is it that there is all this stuff in the universe and it just exists...because of science? We as a human race know so many things about ourselves, the world we live on, and light years beyond it because of science. We not only know how things move, but in what direction, how fast, and why!
My major only requires one science lab, so I signed up for astronomy, because who doesn’t want to get four credits for staring at stars?! I was pretty stoked to get into this class and heard nothing but good critiques from my peers.
The first day of class was packed full of mind-twisting info and ideas. My brain hurt so badly I think I actually forgot how to breathe for a while. The professor started off the semester by describing to us just how small we are in comparison to all of the other bodies of the universe. (This includes planets, stars, galaxies, dwarf planets...everything.) The distances across space are so wide they have their own units! We learned that the next nearest galaxy to us, Andromeda, is 2.5 million light years away. That means that the light that we pick up from Andromeda is light that was emitted by the galaxy 2.5 million years ago. If we sent a message to that galaxy, even at the speed of light it wouldn’t reach them for 2.5 million years! This seems insane, but to Astronomers that is a relatively small number and one of the easier concepts to grasp in the universe.
All this talk of these huge numbers and how all the light we see from stars has been traveling for millions and billions of years really got me to thinking...I am so tiny. My life is so small and so short compared to all of these bodies in space. Even if I live to be a hundred Earth years old, there are planets out there that have single days longer than that! And then I thought...if I am so small and am only going to be in existence for such a short period of time, then do I even mean anything? I admit, I left that class feeling pretty bummed out. I am tiny and I am here for a time span that is literally a sneeze in parts of space. What’s the point? Why do we even exist?
A few classes later, another lecture on sizes in the universe again had my mind spinning about how tiny and insignificant I am in comparison to the universe around me...until it was presented in a different way. In all of the universe, among billions of light years of space and matter and dark matter there is you. Only one you. That matter could have gone anywhere in the universe and become anything...but it became you. In a specific time and place. Within the short time of Earth’s existence, you get to be one of the humans that walks on the crust of the only planet in our solar system that has everything to support human life. So, maybe we are small, ridiculously small, but maybe we are also incredible. Simply because among billions and billions...and billions of objects in the universe, you get to be one of them. Now, that is pretty amazing if you ask me. It is up to each of you to decide if you believe that a greater being was involved in your placement. I’m deciding that for myself too, but we can all agree that the science we use to discover all of these things is pretty darn cool...and so are we.
