Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Through The Looking Glass


As a teenager I had an avid interest in astronomy. Somehow I got my hands on a 6" reflector. Used it almost every night. Often I would point it off in a random direction, hoping to see something interesting.

One evening, it paid off. I spotted something amazing. It was a tight globular cluster. 50,000 suns tightly bound in all by itself, just hanging there in space, little else around it.

I was amazed because as I peered through the scope, I could only imagine the multitudes of planets, life forms, and civilizations that might live there. What their night sky would look like! Not a few thousand stars as we have in our sky, but 50 or a 100 thousand suns, all around like living inside a star itself.

I could only think, I don't know what cluster this is... I'll probably never see it again. I wonder who lives there?

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