In pursuit of science and the stars

This archived article was written by: Nathaniel Woodward

I truly appreciate all the questions that have been coming in lately from readers, whether on Facebook, Messenger or Email its a great boost to my moral. While there is a slight backlog please don’t think Ive forgotten you, some of your queries were doozies and I’m taking my time researching the answers. But I wanted to take a short break from answering your questions, great as they are, and write a little bit about some things that have been on my mind recently.

Ive recently written about my concern with the science anxiety that seems pretty prevalent in our modern world, while this is not a new thing, it seems that the trend of those who have influence and power continuing to hold us all back is not a concept we are too eager to get past. I don’t want to spend my time lambasting any particular politician or figurehead, even the ones with “bigly” responsibilities, rather I would like to spend this short column asking a favor of each of you.

In the few quite moments you find in the evening, even if they only come few and dear, could each of you take a little time and look up. Take a moment and look at the stars, turn off the television, leave your phone in your pocket, forget your responsibilities and spend a second looking into the vastness that surrounds our little planet. Up there is everything that ever was and everything that ever will be, wandering outward as our universe continues to expand. There will come a time when the galaxies are so far apart that they won’t be able to see the light from any other one. If a civilization were to arise in such a galaxy at that time, they would have no clue as to the vastness of their cosmos.

We do not exist in such a time, the universe is readily accessible to us, we need only to reach out for it. Unfortunately we do live in a time where a great number of important and influential people do not see that need or necessity of exploration, advancement or progress, instead they strive to satisfy their ignorance with comforting myths and lies, telling all that there is nothing else to discover. One of the greatest tragedies of the human experience is such complacency, when we stop looking up and wondering what is out there. There is no shame in wondering, there is in thinking we have all the answers.

My friends, the sky is calling us home and we need to answer that call. I echo what Dr. Carl Sagan pleaded, the iron in your blood, the calcium in your teeth, all of the complex atoms in your body were forged out there in the vastness of space, within the hearts of dying, exploding stars. We are literally made up of star dust and its high time we start acting like it. Its time we stop caring about silly imaginary borders on a map and start caring about progressing our species.

Once again I ask of each of you to take some time and look at the nights sky in wonder. The stars are calling us home. Are we going to answer their call?