For those of you who may not know, the photo at left is far more important an historical moment that the election last week. It is, in fact, the first visible-light photograph of a planet in orbit around another star.While I didn't grow up reading science fiction (that was my older brother's thing; as such I tended to seek out my own thing), but was certainly a big fan os Star Trek. Until I was in college and took an astronomy lab course (Alfred University actuall has a small observatory with four telescopes; taking that class in the spring semester of 1984 was cold; out of a sixteen week semester, we had ten clear nights, eight of them in January through early March) that I realized astronomy actually had no evidence there were such things as planets around other stars. There were certainly plans, even then, for the kind of thorough search no going on; we just didn't have the kind of technology then we do now.
As such, the confirmation of the existence of extra-solar planetary systems was pretty important. Now, we have confirmation that our surmises were correct. Actual photographic evidence of a planet in orbit around another star.
I think this is so cool.
To understand the photo, the little dot at the center is the star; the box in the lower right hand corner are photos taken at discrete time periods of the planet, showing the planet itself as well as the elliptical nature of its orbit, just as it should be.
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And so, at His command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses and this fragile earth, our island home.
Those words come from one of our Eucharistic Prayers, and evoke the words of Scripture: Psalm 8: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon, the stars You have set in their courses, what is man that You are mindful of him? V. 4-5a)
And yet, He is mindful of us! Amazing!
First, let me welcome you, Monk-in-training. I am humbled by the presence of one such as you.
Second, may I say that is the true miracle and meaning of creation. Not the nonsensical "creationism"; but the simple fact of this finite, curved Universe expanding for billions of years, with all its miracles and terrors still to discover and secrets to unlock, God has taken notice of . . . me. That doesn't make me proud. It makes me feel small, yet truly loved.
Psalm 8, along with Psalm 136, are my favorite. Thank you so much for reminding me of the beauty of the praise of God through contemplation of the work of the Divine Word of Creation.
Thank you for your welcome, sir. I am no one to be humbled by! A simple man, striving for illumnation, and stumbling along life's path.
I found your blog via Eurudite Redneck. If you are on facebook, lets be friends!
First, yes I am on Facebook, just look up my name as it appears here.
Second, while I am happily Protestant, one of the things I admire most about the Roman faith is the ongoing disciplined life of contemplation practiced in monasteries and convents. I have attended a few prayer services at several different monasteries of different orders. One of the most amazing things, for this humble Christian, is to consider that somewhere around the world, at every hour of the day, prayers of praise, of petition, of guidance, and intervention are being lifted to God. It is even happening at this very moment.
There is a part of me that loves the rootedness in the past of the Catholic faith (and, by extension, the Orthodox faiths as well). To be in the presence of a brother, an abbot, a sister, or a mother, is to be in the presence of someone whose life is one that makes no sense to our contemporary standards and ways of thinking; yet, still it exists, and therefore fulfills some deep human need as well as part of the Divine Plan.
It's Psalm 121 for me. And as we lift our eyes up to the hills and to the heavens, it only becomes more and more beautiful.
Imagine the day that man gets to do a fly-by of Fomalhaut b.
Doc,
That is a psalm we say often in our Noonday prayers, termed one of the psalms of ascent. What a lovely interpretaion of it, thank you!
Geoffry,
I will facebook you tonight. Again, thank you for your kindness. However I want you to know that I am not Roman. I am Episcopal. I am a postulant in the Brotherhood of St. Gregory, a vowed religous Order of the Episcopal Church. In several years, should God be gracious, and I faithful, I will be a Friar. The 'monk' in training nick name was bestowed on me in a theology class by a class mate. It stuck.
I am happy to be on your blog, I hope you visit mine a well.
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