This entry was posted on 7/25/2009 11:33 PM and is filed under Footnotes.
Once the world looked up at the moon and stars with awe.
This week in the USA we were celebrating 40 years since the landing of man on the moon.(1) In 1969 I was not yet ten years old. My mother asked me recently if I could remember where I was at the moment when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon's surface. I thought I recalled seeing the whole event on our black-and-white television set at home, except that my mother recalled watching it through the window of a caravan (trailer) when we were on vacation. My mother is probably right and I have likely confused it with a later moon landing. It seemed there were a so many landings when I grew up that they became almost commonplace events on TV. Yet the last mission was Apollo 17 in 1972 – only three years after the first walk on the moon. Apollo 17 broke several records set by previous flights, including longest manned lunar landing flight; the longest total lunar surface extravehicular activities; the largest lunar sample return; and the longest time in lunar orbit. Alas by then, public interest in the moon programme had already waned, as Time Magazine reported in September 1970.(2)
As American television celebrated achievements of years past, in Asia, people looked to the heavens in the present with a mix of fear and awe as the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century occurred.(3) The path of the eclipse began in India and crossed through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar (Burma) and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path crossed over Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curved southeast through the Pacific Ocean. This was the longest total solar eclipse that will occur during the 21st century. Totality, as the moment when the moon covers the sun is called, lasted for up to 6 minutes and 39 seconds. “It will not be surpassed in duration until June 13, 2132,” advises the NASA website. I am confident I will not be around to witness it.
The ‘mechanics’ of solar and lunar eclipses are well understood, but this does not in any way diminish the impressive spectacle.(4) I witnessed one several years ago when visiting San Francisco. Around midday or early afternoon, I walked out on the balcony of my hotel overlooking Union Square wondering why the sky darkened and the temperature had cooled. It was only the first eclipse I have witnessed in my lifetime. The other was when I was in restaurant in Taos, New Mexico. What was interesting this week was to learn about was the different responses of ordinary people in the countries witnessing the eclipse. In some cultures, eclipses are considered bad omens.(5) Among the common people there was genuine fear about what might happen.(6) Chants and prayers accompanied the darkening sky in China and India, countries which, in a curious clash of ancient tradition and modern progress, now have their own space exploration programmes.(7)
In the west we seem to have lost the sense of wonder and awe from looking at the heavens. Perhaps our scientific investigations of the planet and stars through manned and unmanned missions have diminished our sense of wonder. It was not always so. In ancient Europe, eclipses, meteor showers and comets were considered messages from the gods that mortal men should heed.(8) Comets were commonly viewed as omens, both good and bad, because of their unusual shape and sudden appearance. A comet appearing in 44BCE shortly after Julius Caesar was murdered was thought to be his soul returning. In 10CE a solar eclipse was interpreted to foretell the death of Emperor Augustus.
Even then there were even people who dreamed about men setting foot on the moon. Lucian, the Roman author from Samosata in Syria, wrote in the second century CE what could be the oldest surviving sci-fi novel, a ‘true story’ about his trip to the moon:
Lucian and a company of adventuring heroes sailing westward through the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar) are blown off course by a strong wind, and after 79 days come to an island. This island is home to a river of wine filled with fish, and bears a marker indicating that Herakles and Dionysos have traveled to this point.
Shortly after leaving the island, they are lifted up by a giant waterspout and deposited on the Moon. There they find themselves embroiled in a full-scale war between the king of the Moon and the king of the Sun, involving armies which boast such exotica as stalk-and-mushroom men, acorn-dogs ("dog-faced men fighting on winged acorns"), and cloud-centaurs.(9)
It would so easily form the storyline of a mini-series on the SyFy channel!
Sci-fi literature is alive and well. Space and space travel still fuels our imagination, but today we go to the cinema to find our space themed thrills, as the recent box office success of Star Trek movie proved - the franchise has thankfully been renewed for new generation. Perhaps the roller coaster ride of special effects has jaded our appreciation of the real cosmos.
Or perhaps it is because we cannot actually see much of the sky. Street lighting makes it harder to see the stars.(10) When you find a place in the country where there is no 'light pollution', as the phenomenon has been called, the view can be astonishing. You connect again with the sense of awe our ancestors felt when they turned their eyes upward. When I was visiting Whistler in British Columbia a few years ago walking back to my hostel at night I looked up into the sky and was amazed by the celestial scene. Pinpoints of light scattered across the great arc of black sky as far as the eye could see, photons that had travelled for eons across millions and millions of light years. I had no idea there were so many stars! A few years later a friend set up her telescope and pointed it towards Saturn. For the first time I saw the majesty of the rings of the planet with my own eyes instead of as a photograph in a book. It was a moment I still remember.
So go out into your backyard tonight, let your eyes adjust to the darkness and gaze in wonder at the night sky.(11) Feel the awe.
7/26/2009 11:34 AM
SL wrote:
Is this the same blog that gets e-mailed to me? If so, it was a good read...especially if SyFy does create a mini-series with the ancient Roman's story of dog-faced men on flying acorns on the moon! Reply to this
