The sun was sinking behind the red, girdled Utah mountains. On top of the hill in Capitol Reef national park, perched the station; the coolest station ever. It is environment friendly, wells water are distilled and processed, solar energy batteries, minimization of light and noise pollution, high windows in the east side to let in the energetic sunshine, especial black walls to obsorb heat in the winter, huge telescope. It was heaven for a group of young, dreamy, super, and curious students.
After settling down and listening to the instructions and the history of the place, we met in the outside yard to star-gaze!
I saw the fucking milky way! We watched that gigantic chunk of stars (about 100 billion of them actually) cross the sky from south to north. The center of the milky way was obstructed by so far yet so enormous clouds of gas -nebulae. I just love nebulae. We went through the constellations in the sky- the dipper, summer triangle, the kettle, the swan. It was marvellous.
That night I pondered the sky and roamed intently into the depth of this great creation. Look how small we are, only a meager part of such a huge expanding universe. The mere notion is ridiculously awesome. I remembered Robert Frost’s poem:
“They can’t scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars–on stars where no human race is
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my desert places”
I smiled unconsciously, the realization was fascinating as much as it was scary. As Lewis Thomas once said “The greatest of all the accomplishments of twentieth-century science has been the discovery of the human ignorance”. And isn’t ignorance a validation of the existence of another wider and deeper knowledge?. These endless skies smirked at my own notions and gullible self. Why are you so worried? even I, the sky sitting there and watching the stars!
That night after almost everyone went to bed, some of us stayed outside waiting to see the aurora that supposed to happen that night. Yet, instead of slaking our thirst for curiosity to observe the aurora, we talked about life, politics and religion. It was indeed amazing to hear other people’s perspectives.
My great professor Renee taught us something amazing; how do you tell the difference between petrified wood and dinosaurs? you lick them! if your tongue sticks then it’s a dinosaur. And yes I licked a dinosaur, and yes it tasted good.
AICHA BINT YUSIF 