Comments on: Just a Pale Blue Dot

By: DB Cooper

DB Cooper — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:53:19 +0000

I pull back farther and look down at the entire sprawling spiral of the Milky Way Galaxy and am awed by the billions of stars that make up my home. Still I pull back farther as the Andromeda Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds begin to take form in my vision. The Milky Way shrinks as my vision is filled with the dozens of galaxies that make up my super cluster, other super clusters of galaxies visible as just small points of light in the distance. Numbers lose meaning. Billions of trillions of stars.

Then I fall. From my super cluster to my galaxy, to my arm, to my star, to my planet, to my state, to my city, to my apartment complex, to my body and I am humbled. I am reminded that the entirety of existence is so great, so much more than what I call 'home', that my problems are washed away as the trivial meaningless moments they are.

Sorry for high jacking your blog post but it reminded me so strongly of this experience.

By: DB Cooper

DB Cooper — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:52:56 +0000

Here I pick up speed, the solar system falling farther and farther below me until the Sun is all that I can still distinguish, all around me small white dots multiply until my vision is nothing but a small yellow ball with a long thin white line coming out of it set against a blanket of twinkling stars. The sun itself eventually turns to a small white star itself as the fringes of my vision begin to take on a deep black.

This deep black grows to dominate the entire left and right hemispheres of my mind’s eye as the center turns into a column of twinkling lights. I realize that I am looking down on a flattened vision of the arm of the Milky Way that we exist within. My white line has all but lost meaning, drifting down below me into the distance

By: DB Cooper

DB Cooper — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:52:35 +0000

I keep rising and now ocean becomes visible at both edges of my vision as manmade objects lose focus and my white line connects me still to my distant body. I start rising faster. The whole of Florida is visible now, other states and vivid ocean beginning to dominate my minds presence. I rise above the clouds as the entire Unites States becomes visible. Near the edges of my vision the deep blue gives way to a deeper black as the entire Earth begins to take form.

Here I take pause. The entire earth is visible as a glowing circular jewel, and I am awed by its majesty. My white line is anchored to such a small, seemingly insignificant part of the world. Then I start to rise again and at the corners of my mind Mars and Venus take shape. The journey continues until I pause again, staring down at a flat representation of our solar system. Dominated by a star, one hundred million times larger than that glowing blue gem in the distance I'm tethered too.

By: DB Cooper

DB Cooper — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:52:01 +0000

Humbling indeed. For years now I have used a mental exercise in times of deep depression, anxiety, or even the occasional inflated sense of importance. I sit in my chair, close my eyes, and imagine myself floating directly above my body. As I look down at my body resting so peacefully I imagine a white line anchoring my conscience to my body, like an endless fishing line that will keep reeling longer and longer as I move away.

I then float through the roof of my house and gaze down on the immensity of my apartment complex. I slowly float upward into the sky as my scope of vision increases, ever aware of the white line connecting me back to my body. With time the entire city that I live in becomes visible, a sweeping sprawl of humanity checker boarded with remnants of nature.

By: Errday

Errday — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 03:28:46 +0000

http://media.photobucket.com/image/carl%20sagan%2…

By: Nikolai De Leo

Nikolai De Leo — Wed, 05 May 2010 04:39:26 +0000

I think that is a great point. If more people grasped this concept we could rid the world of a lot of violence and hatred. We all came from one source and we are an outgrowth of that unknown source. In that respect we are all connected in some way, even though we tend to see the world as a lot of different "nations".

By: Christopher Howard

Christopher Howard — Tue, 04 May 2010 13:35:46 +0000

We have settled on this Island called Earth, but we are not marooned. This is not the beginning. We traveled all across the universe before finally stopping here to grow.

I learned in my astronomy class that all of the elements in the universe first formed in the cores of developing stars. Through the fusion process, small hydrogen and helium atoms combine to form heavier elements like carbon, oxygen, and iron, and all of the elements that ever existed. When stars become supernovas and explode, these elements are launched into space where they collect in huge clouds of dust and material. These great clouds contain the seeds of life. Stars and planets form in these giant clouds of dust, as did the Sun and the Earth billions of years ago. It is miraculous to think every atom that makes up our bodies and the Earth was once in the core of a star thousands of light years away.

We are all made of Stars, and we’ve been in the making for billions of years.