Monday, January 07, 2013

The perihelion was last week, but although the day strung itself out all clear and cold and dry we had all come down with the New Years plague and hunkered down instead warm inside rooms.

I wondered how the sun felt about the Venus transit, since the next time it plays host to such a show will be when almost certainly no one currently alive will be able to see it. How it spent all of the last year reaching loops of plasma out toward us which we captured time and again in photos even if we're unsure what it was offering. I wondered how it felt about us sending robots to Mars and under our ice and into the bottom of our seas, if it realizes how many thousands of years it takes for one photon of its own to reach its surface and fling itself out toward us. And if it minds that those photons would never be able to find their way back in.

The sun shrugged and continued turning, rolling back through its track in the universe, prepared to pay more attention when we decide to send robots to it.

2 comments:

jon said...

I have no opinion on the sun's opinions (I think it's usually thinking something like "Ow, hot!").

This comment is just to say hi because I've been reading your blog for a few weeks, and though I don't remember how I found it, I rather enjoy it.

However, I think that if you go over a month reading a blog without commenting, by the time you finally comment you already know way too much about the person and it's creepy.

samantha said...

Hi! I fully support going this way instead of the creepy way.