Solar eclipse gives earthlings a chance to reflect on future
Perhaps the only disappointing aspect of today’s coast-to-coast solar eclipse is that Carl Sagan isn’t around to provide color commentary. Sagan, the famed astronomer who died in 1996, had an unparalleled ability to communicate the wonders of the universe and Earth’s place in it.
About that place: “We live on a hunk of rock ... that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion ... that make up the Milky Way galaxy ... one of billions of other galaxies. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that’s well worth pondering.”
When our moon passes directly between that humdrum star and our home planet, the juxtaposition will create an awe-inspiring spectacle for those in the path of totality stretching from Oregon to South Carolina. The Great American Eclipse represents an opportunity to step back from temporal concerns. It’s a chance to look up from our smartphones, peer at the sky, and reflect on the bigger picture.
About that bigger picture: In 1990, when the Voyager spacecraft was departing the solar system, Sagan persuaded NASA to adjust the cameras for a final, backward glance. In that famous photograph, Earth appeared as a tiny pixel of light, a pale blue dot.
“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena,” Sagan said of the picture. Then he added
a message that the world’s leaders, particularly those with nuclear arsenals, should take to heart:
“Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. ... 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,” Sagan said.
“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. ... It underscores our responsibility ... to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot.”
These days, the dot is threatened not just by warfare but also by human-induced climate dis- ruption. Efforts to prevent catastrophic warming have been impeded by the moneyed interests and scientific illiteracy that Sagan warned about in his final book, completed two decades ago. The increasing power of science, combined with widespread ignorance about it, “is a prescription for disaster,” he wrote in The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark.
In a passage that looks prophetic, Sagan added: “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away ... when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues.”
If nothing else, the American eclipse will be a dramatic demonstration of the predictive power of science. You don’t hear much about eclipse skeptics, or eclipse deniers. The event will occur exactly when and where the scientists say it will. So will the next U.S. total solar eclipse (April 8, 2024), and the one after that, and the one after that.
The only unknown is how many people will be around to witness future eclipses and experience the sense of wonder they inspire. That’s up to us earthlings.