Our ancient affinity with the night sky
“Do you know what I like best about the night sky, Poppy?,” my 10-year old granddaughter Scarlet asked one night when we were looking at the night sky.
“And what would that be, my little fallen star?,” I asked in reply.
“Just how big and beautiful it is,” she said.
Leave it to the young to see and appreciate what we, their elders, often overlook or take for granted.
As they say, “from the mouths of babes ...”
Humanity's affinity with the night sky had its origins in the mists of ancient time, when primitive homo sapiens lived in caves and other shelters. To them, the night sky, filled with countless stars and other bright objects, was a place of mystery, a place in which terrifying events sometimes took place.
Imagine what thoughts and fears meteors, comets, lunar phases, aurora and eclipses generated in the minds and dreams of these people.
They may not have felt at ease until they began to notice these events didn't result in disaster and that, in fact, to some had certain regularity and a pattern. Is it a wonder that those members of the tribe who took note of these timings and patterns, and who were able to predict when they would next occur, came to hold such honour and high status in the tribe?
Through the ages, as humankind advanced intellectually and socially, these early shamans, or wise ones, became astronomers; people who made it their life-work to study the heavens above and, when necessary or required, interpreted the heavens' events for their rulers.
Certain celestial phenomena, such as lunar and solar eclipses and comets, were often seen as powerful omens of a forthcoming disaster or victory, depending on how it was interpreted. The appearance of Comet Halley in 1066 was interpreted by Duke William of Normandy, France as a God-given sign of victory for his planned invasion of England.
Ironically, in September of that year, William defeated the English forces under King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in southern England and William became King William I of England.
Nowadays, of course, we know that the vast majority of celestial events, aside from the potential devastation from a large asteroid impact or the effects of a massive X-class solar flare on our planet's atmosphere (and our satellites, radio communication, and power grids), hold no danger for our planet or its population. And, despite what the astrology community would have us believe (and pay for), these celestial events have no bearing on our personality, who we will fall in love with, whether we will get the promotion at work we believe we deserve or if/when we will win the lottery.
However, that is not to say that these events do not, in some manner, impact the human psyche. In addition to kindling a sense of wonder and imagination in some individuals, they also inspire certain talented individuals to create beautiful works of art — paintings, music, poetry, and prose — that, in turn, touch the minds and spirits of their fellow humans. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever created. Fictional books and comics about spaceships, aliens and space travel have long held the imagination of those, myself included, who have wondered if we are alone in the universe, or is there life on other worlds?
As a young child, I would spend countless hours looking at the faraway stars, imagining being the first human to set foot on some distant planet and the first to meet an alien race; Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were my heroes in those long-ago days.
For many young people growing up during the ‘60s and ‘70s, the TV series Star Trek, with its “space, the final frontier” theme, instilled a curiosity about and yearning for future space travel. Nowadays, the cinematic magic of Hollywood movies engages our attention and imagination with exciting sagas about time travel, other worlds and alien encounters.
For the past 60-plus years, we have been sending spacecraft to investigate the other planets in our own solar system and have even sent two space probes — Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 — beyond the edge of our solar system's theoretical boundary into interstellar space.
The now fully functional James Webb space telescope, launched in December 2021, will enable us to see farther into the vastness of space than we have ever seen before, even letting us view the very early stages of the universe's creation. Already, we are actively planning manned missions to Mars, a return to the Moon and robotic probes of other planets.
While it is true that the majority of humankind could probably care less about going into outer space, there is a significant number who have expressed an interest in making such a trip; a call from NASA for people interested in making a one-way trip to Mars to establish a colony there received over 200,000 responses.
One can almost bet that, once space travel technology has proven to be safe and that the selected destinations are, or can be made, habitable for humans, that there will, in all likelihood, be a massive migration of people from Earth to these new worlds, a migration on a scale unseen since the historical migrations from Europe to the New World of North America in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Humans, for the most part, are a species of travelers; once we traveled across vast oceans, prairies and mountains in search of new places to live and we will do so again, this time across the vast oceans of outer space to even more-distant lands.
While this will probably not take place within the lifespan of most grownups alive today, it could, perhaps, occur during the lifespan of our grandchildren or great grandchildren.
There are a great many problems facing our planet today — environmental, social, political, and economic — many of which could short-circuit any plans to travel into space. However, there is always the possibility that things will reach such a disastrous state here on Earth that humankind will have no option but to seek a new home elsewhere in the cosmos. However, future space voyagers get there, by choice or necessity, it is to be hoped that they will have learned from past mistakes and that they will create a place where respect for the environment and the values and beliefs of other races, including any they meet, will be paramount. Whether we are drawn to the night sky because it is "big and beautiful" or because it stirs our imagination about the possibility of future space travel, matters not; it matters only that we recognize and honour our affinity with the night sky in our minds and hearts.
THIS WEEK'S SKIES
Mercury (magnitude. -0.3, in Taurus — the Bull) sits around two degrees to the lower right of the waxing crescent moon in the westnorthwest sky as dusk gives way to darkness around 8:30 p.m. Saturn (magnitude +0.9, in Capricornus — the Sea Goat) rises around 3:30 a.m., reaching a height of around 16 degrees above the east-southeast horizon by the time it fades from view about 5:15 a.m. as dawn approaches. Mars (magnitude +0.9, in Aquarius — the Water-bearer) rises in the east-southeast around 4:30 a.m., reaching only 10 degrees above the horizon before it, too, is lost with the approach of dawn. Jupiter (magnitude -2.1, in Pisces — the Fish) and Venus (magnitude -4.1, in Pisces, to the lower left of Jupiter) both clear the eastern horizon around 4:40 a.m., but remain fairly low to the horizon before they both fade with the break of dawn around 5:35 a.m.
The pre-dawn hours of May 6 will, weather permitting, see the peak of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. The Eta Aquarids, whose radiant (the apparent point of origin in the sky) lies in the constellation of Aquarius — the Water-bearer, are named for the brightest star in that constellation — Eta Aquarii. The Aquarids are one of two meteor showers associated with the famous Comet Halley, the other being the Orionids in October, and are visible in the night sky from April 19 - May 28. Expect to see about 50+ bright meteors under a dark sky away from city lights during the pre-dawn hours of 3-5 a.m. on the morning of May 6, as the shower's radiant will be at its highest point in the pre-dawn, east-southeast sky during that period. The waxing, crescent moon will set around 1:30 a.m. on the 6th.
Until next week, clear skies.
EVENTS
■ May 5: Moon at apogee (farthest from Earth); 405,285 km
■ May 6: Eta Aquarid meteor shower peak; pre-dawn, ESE
■ May 8: First quarter moon