Orion was high in the west last night before I went to bed. Jupiter, the brightest object in the sky right now with only a very thin crescent Moon waning towards new, was up too, and almost directly overhead was Mars. I know a lot of people think of Mars as our next step into the universe now that we’ve been to the Moon, though we haven’t been back in more than five decades now. In so much science fiction Mars is inhabited, or at least habitable, a home away from home for terrestrial life, but last night looking toward the brighter planet I thought about how Jupiter is really the New York of our solar system: if we can make it there we can make it anywhere. Not that Jupiter even has a surface we could land on, and if it did the gravity would crush almost anything we’d send down, but it’s got dozens on moons we could settle on if we could overcome a few challenges like creating a breathable atmosphere, producing food, dealing with the intense radiation—Jupiter spews out more energy than it receives from the sun—and also hauling almost everything we’d need more than a billion miles through space. Getting to Jupiter makes the Oregon trail look like a hop, skip, and a jump.
Then I turned toward Orion, the constellation of the hunter, the second constellation I learned to recognize after Ursa Major. I was never very good at connect-the-dots puzzles but there’s a certain clarity about constellations. After seeing a picture of the Orion constellation in a book I just looked up one night at the right time and there it was, literally right before my eyes, a distinct figure, not quite pareidolia but close.
Winter is hunting season, when herds are culled and freezing temperatures and snow mean meat’s on the menu so it’s fitting Orion is high in the sky. But Orion is at its peak I also know it means winter’s coming to an end, the grass and hibernating animals will be waking up, the spring birds will be coming back. The squirrel nests, big clumps of dry leaves taking up space in the empty branches of trees, will be replaced by green leaves. The horizon I can see now will be obscured by greenery, and the sky directly overhead, so clear right now, will get hazy with humidity.
It was a warm night for late February and I stood out there for a long time thinking about the planets, the stars, and also how all of us, even when completely still, are always in motion.
So beautifully said❤️
mydangblog recently posted…Un Bon Chien
I love watching the stars with you, Chris, and thanks for reminding me to finish watching “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.”