stardust

When we look into the stars, we are looking into the past.

At first, I was sceptical but after further research it's true! Yet in hindsight, it does make sense.

Since the nearest stars are billions, perhaps even trillions of light years away, the light of the star that we see when we look into the night sky at this very moment, originated billions and trillions of years ago. Therefore, it is possible that the stars that are seen at this very moment mayhap burnt out and what we are seeing, is an illusion of a universe that may no longer exist. In other terms, because by the time the light eminating from a star is reached by our eyes, the occurence that is being viewed happened millions of years ago. Although their radience twinkles, these same stars might in fact be no more than dully glowing embers or they might no longer exist.

To look into space is to look back into time. When we look into the sky beyond the sky, we look into the deeps of time.

This also leads to a belief that we are fashioned from stardust. Joni Mitchell once sang We are stardust; we are golden. We are billion year old carbon. This implies that we are made of the same elements that stars are made of. Old stars die, new stars are born. The death of a star gives rise to life, for it is the dying stars, the supernovae, that manufacture all the heavy elements. Living stars make sulphur, and the iron that reddens our blood, and the calcium from which our bones are reconstructed and the salts that propel impulses along the paths of our body. From dying stars, the issue of silver and cobalt, aresenic and iridium, copper and zinc. The energies of the universe remix them into infant stars, new worlds perhaps galaxies, plants and living creatues. Supernovae are our forebears. We are all made of stardust.