Brian and I went to The Denver Museum of Nature & Science last weekend. A gal from my work gave us free tickets, and Sunday afternoons we try and have a date, so it was time to go visit the DMNS.
The Gates Planetarium has a number of Space-related movies they show in their planetarium, and we watched Black Holes, narrarated by Liam Neeson.
It was so cool to see how scientists have been working on trying to see the formation of black holes in space, and how Albert Einstein's theories about black holes have held up over time. With digital technology, they flew us into space and showed us how Black Holes are what's left of collapsed stars, how many stars there are in just our galaxy, and how lucky we are to be in a relatively "quiet" end of the Milky Way.
There's something oddly comforting about space travel movies like that. As they took us out into space and back home again, I found myself thinking about how incredibly small we are, how vast the Universe is, and how violent and yet beautiful space is.
Due to our recent loss, I've thought a lot about death and dying, and why some of us live on for years while others have such a short time. Watching Black Holes made me feel like I understood better the grand scheme of things -- or the lack of a grand scheme, and how we each have precious little time on this planet.
It just gave me amazing perspective. On one hand, I feel like a blip of human matter in an unimaginably large Universe. On the other hand, I felt the significance of our lives on this planet hurtling through space, and the importance of making the best of whatever time we have.
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1 comment:
I learned far more about God in my astromony classes than I ever did in any bible class, theology class, or church. The Universe is, well, there aren't really words to describe it adequatly. I'm glad you had this experience. I can imagine it is parallel to not having any words to describe how you are feeling most days.
Keep looking at the stars. They can be very centering and hopeful. I feel like they see both past and future. (I can't ever see them from my home in the city. I miss them.)
Blessings.
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