http://images.gizmag.com/hero/hubble-andromeda.jpg
--a glimpse of the immense scale of our nearest galactic neighbor!
Get ready to feel very, very, very tiny.
Absolutely mind blowing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udAL48P5NJU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Also watch: Tour of the Andromeda galaxy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWxBTHVhc3I&feature=youtube_gdata_player
How long before the Milky Way fuses with Andromeda?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LwWdfxUuuY&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WEI8WBJkKk&feature=youtube_gdata_player
The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.
ReplyDelete--Carl Sagan, Cosmos
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
ReplyDelete--Richard P. Feynman
"The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.
ReplyDeleteCarl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
"A new consciousness is emerging that sees humanity as a single organism...and an organism at war with itself is doomed."
ReplyDelete--Carl Sagan
"An extraterrestrial visitor examining the differences among human societies would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities.Our lives, our past and our future are tied to the sun, the moon and the stars. We humans have seen the atoms which constitute all of nature and the forces that sculpted this work and we, who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, have begun to wonder about our origins – star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth.Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet.
ReplyDeleteOur obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring.
We are one species. We are star stuff harvesting star light.”
– Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996)