We know our sun, and the planets circling around the sun. But can you imagine how small we are, if you see these pictures??
ANTARES
IS THE 15TH BRIGHTEST STAR IN THE SKY .
IT IS MORE THAN 1000 LIGHT YEARS AWAY. Seeing this we come to think about our humble existence on a planet too small to be important compared to the sun. Our sun is in its turn very insignificant next to Antares.
HOW BIG ARE YOU?
AND HOW BIG ARE THE THINGS
THAT UPSET YOU TODAY?
Let's see everything in perspective.
Click to enlarge.
Sky Watch is hosted by Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Fishing Guy & Louise
Thank you so much for this great meme, it's always a pleasure to participate, and see all the other skies around the world. If you want to see some real skies please click on the logo in the side bar.
31 comments:
Love all the information and always something that you can learn!! Thanks for sharing your side of things....Also, thanks for coming to the blog..
Brilliant reader wil. I do so agree that it is important to get things in perspective - one's health is far more important than wealth or the other silly things we tend to worry about. Very good post.
Reminds me to say that it has crossed my mind that we will be given advance warning when a comet is going to strike Earth. We might have a month or a year to plan for that catastrophic event. I wonder how many would pull up a lawn chair, drag out a case of beer and set back with sunglasses on and watch it hit them? Or, how many would kill themselves? That sort of thing has happened in the past and will, no doubt about it, happen in the future. It is akin to that giant pool of lava building up under Yellowstone. It has happened before and blew everything into kingdom come and it is well on its way to happening again. When this one blows the earth is filled with people and property and the resulting caldera will be monumental and life on earth next to impossible. The Discovery Channel did a disturbing piece about it not that long ago. We are such a small place and insignificant at best, so if this planet has been here for an unfathomable 450 million years already and species have come and gone, for a variety of reasons, we will disappear altogether as did the dinosaurs and the cave people and the Pharaohs in Egypt in most recent times. Unless you are a deeply religious person, I don't see any way out of doom. Not to mention being sideswiped by the Moon or some unknown black hole.
That was a new take on Sky Watch - and an impressive one at that. It put the whole thing in perspective. As a pendant I might mention than Pluto is no longer considered a proper planet, but is now considered to be one of the largest icy objects of the Kuiper belt.
As to Abe's musings I agree with most (except that he missed the age of the Earth by about one order of magnitude). However, I'm afraid that the danger of the Human species destroying themselves is the largest one.
Dit is eens een hele andere
sky watch :)
Hoe bent U op t idee gekomen.
Mijn complimenten.
Ik heb nog iets geleerd hier hihi..
Bedankt :)
What a wonderful SWF post, thank you for all this great information.
A new take indeed! And so very interesting! Excellent post, Wil! It does give a new perspective and these days we can all use that -- whether it's skies or anything else on this planet of ours!
Have a lovely weekend!
Sylvia
Great writeup and visual representation.
As an amateur astronomer, I really enjoyed this post.
A++++++
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Troy and Martha
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Troy and Martha
Back in the blog groove again...
Trying to catch up with everyone.
So small and so many problems to solve : it's a challenge (for me this seems a bigger challenge than spending millions in space).
Rather makes one wonder why we are so puffed up about our importance.
Wonderful perspective.
Kind of makes one feel considerably less important . . . a very good reminder that not only does the Universe revolve around us -- it wouldn't even notice if we disappeared.
All the more reason, perhaps, to treasure each moment, each bird, each drop of water, each passing cloud . . .
Thanks for the lesson of life you cleverly disguised as skywatching post :)
Happy weekend.
What a great post....thanks!
Hello again Wil,
I read your reply comment on my blog and appreciate it a lot. I read with a smile on my face, "why should we worry about it..." because after all of these years I am almost finished with Spandau. The book by Albert Speer who was Hitler's Armaments Minister. In it he talks about Hess and the others and Hess was always saying that. "Why should we worry about it?" I don't remember the subject but he was an odd character as they all were.
The one odd problem about war is the Victors get to set all the rules.
happy thursday
so enjoyed the post and fab information today. nothing so big as to shatter my world so to speak. as i get older i so much realize that some things are just not that important to get all upset over. amazing how we change over time
have a most wonderful weekend.
hugs
A great post and a great lesson to see everything in perspective, so true...you must have been a very good teacher...wait...I guess you still are...
You're dishing up some food for thought today, Wil.
You share a rich imagination with us, Wil.
aloha-
Comfort Spiral
How wonderful. A new perspective.
Very informative post here Wil and great shots. Groetjes!
Kan hier eindelijk nog eens langskomen en dan zie ik hier een postje staan dat ik heel interessant vind.
Is zelf een hobby van me en regelmatig zit ik tijdens de nacht door mijn telescoop te kijken naar al die wonderen in het heelal.
I enjoyed this post, thank you.
...and we are less than a microscopic pinprick on this, our earth! Yes Wil, it is good to remember how important we are in the scheme of things, I could wish our polititians read your post.
wow it does put things into perspective. Great post Will
Dat zijn leuke foto's, knap gevonden om op deze manier naar 'boven' te kijken.
It is interesting to look at the universe through those powerful telescopes. I sometimes too wondered if anyone is out there besides us, human. When I was a young child, my late mom (a Taoist) used to pray to the moon and she told me, there's a fairy "Chang Er" and her rabbit lived on the moon.But as I grew, I read in the papers that man has landed on the moon, so I told my mom, the men did not find any fairy or rabbit on the moon...lol. After some years, my mom dont pray to the moon anymore.
And I always tell this story and even wrote it my essay about the moon when I was in Primary 5 and I score an A for my composition..hehehe.
The best thing was late Mom who was uneducated, make sure all her children are educated no matter how hard she had to work to put us in school. Sorry for being long winded. :)
Excellent post, Wil, to make every one pause a moment to consider our position in the universe. I believe there is other life in the vast expanse of the universe.
Very beautifully put together the very nice information. Superb
A good reminder for us, Wil. A fine presentation. And thanks for the moral of the story.
I answered your question about the golden dome.
Your presentation is so visual that it really shows us that we are very small – in everything. I used to have a globe of the world near my desk and when I got mad at something/someone I would first find the USA, then the South, then Georgia, then the town where I live and by then I had realized how tiny I was in all of this and how stupid I was to get upset. I also like to read all the great comments you get on your blog.
I live in Jupiter, Florida, but not on the huge planet of Jupiter...
The universe sure is an amazing place and we are not even a speck, when compared to the size of it.
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