Sunday morning perspective

August 18, 2024

Happy Sunday, everyone! The Comment section is open to all until 2:00 pm Eastern or until the first troll appears. Please be respectful!

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Below is a series of photos I took in an attempt to isolate a quintet of galaxies (Stephan’s Quintet) that helps bring perspective to Earth’s place in the grand cosmos.

First photo: Tiny patch of the night sky, showing one prominent galaxy (not part of Stephan’s Quintet:

Photo two: Same patch of the night sky with stars removed using a software program. How many galaxies do you see?

Photo three: The above photo is annotated to show 11 galaxies. The abbreviation “mly” is “million light years” from Earth.

Photo four: The photo is cropped to magnify Stephan’s Quintet. Four of the galaxies locked in a gravitational tug-of-war and are on a collision course.

Photo five: Stars have been added back into the photo after the exposure of galaxies was adjusted to highlight them against the bright stars. In the single photo below, there are (at least) eleven galaxies, each roughly the size of the Milky Way, ranging from 39 million light-years to 340 million light-years from Earth.

So far as we know, life exists on only one planet in one galaxy in the Universe.

Although it seems improbable that life does not exist elsewhere in the Universe, given the vast distances between stars and galaxies (and the speed limit on information transfer explained by Special Relativity), the probability of finding other intelligent life during the existence of intelligent life on Earth is approximately zero. (See the Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox.)

Here’s my point: Our working hypothesis should be that the only intelligent life in the Universe we will ever know exists on Earth. We should do our best to protect and preserve it.

We can do so by creating and maintaining a system of governance that allows civilization to flourish, promotes knowledge and scientific inquiry, and values human dignity. From a distance, that is the grand endeavor in which we are engaged. Try to maintain that perspective as we work our way through the challenging days and months ahead.

Talk to you on Monday!