On Remembrance Day 2019, the transit of Mercury will occur, when the tiny planet passes between the Sun and the Earth. In context to astronomical time, this occurs semi-frequently. This is, in contrast, to the transit of Venus: the last transit took place in 2012, and the next one is due in the year 2117, roughly ninety-eight years from now. That transit, which I was able to witness myself, is literally a once in a lifetime event.
It got me thinking about something a bit dear to me and to many of you folk: our connection to the universe, and whether we are truly alone. Read on for some prose on the subject, which I found even more evocative writing it than I imagined.
As an amateur astronomer (I haven’t done much in quite some time), I recognize the sentimentality and emotional connection between us and the universe. I was watching live streams that day, and people in observatory control rooms were weeping. You may think that the words “grow up” might come into play, but before you make that judgment, think about this: the solar system has been around for billions and billions of years. For most of the time humans have been on the planet, there have been only a handful of times Venus has passed between the Sun and our own world. When you take into account the size of our worlds and our orbits, you begin to imagine the true scale of just how large our solar system is. It is vast and timeless.
The universe is, to put it mildly, big. Billions of stars, billions of potential planets, and, I’m positive about this, the potential for billions of habitable worlds; worlds which someone like you and I are walking around. Worlds which you and I are formalizing our taxes. Worlds in which you and I are preparing for battle against the forces of evil, or where you and I are fighting against the forces of light.
We humans have an inherent connection with the rest of the universe, whether you realize it or not. Enhanced images of outer space, images of nebulae and other galaxies—they enrich our minds, they fuel our imaginations. Whenever we hear news about a new discovery of a new exoplanet that has water, artist renditions of what the landscape or view from space would look like. We put the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, and born is a world from the depths of the very heart of our imaginations, regardless of accuracy.
I find it fascinating that we still have not fully understood our own planet, yet we are more than willing to create imaginary places that do not exist. We want them to exist. It is the inherent need for stimulation and exploration. We are curious animals. We want these worlds to exist; and there is a possibility that some of these places may truly exist, be it a world of dragons and dwarves, or elves and elementals, or spacemen and space stations.
I don’t believe we truly are alone in the universe. It’s a bit selfish and lonely to say we’re the only ones here, in a vast, infinitely-expanding vacuum of darkness. We reach out to the cosmos to seek those creatures and worlds who may truly be out there; and we think, and we imagine, that one day, we may visit a real-universe Middle Earth, or a civilization equal to our own. Even then, when we discover that many of their elements of life and society are the dreams and inspirations of countless artists and writers and poets for hundreds of years, we will find out that, on each of these worlds, they too have done the same thing. They too have had their artists and writers and poets who, for countless generations, thought of a world like ours, with their ideas of who we are, with their ideas of our civilizations, our landscapes, and our music.
The imagination is a truly amazing concept, but so is the universe; and it is reassuring to know that, when we imagine what those aliens and other civilizations look like, they are looking right back us doing the same thing. A universe so vast and cold; yet, it is comforting to think that it is a place not so lonely after all, even if we are completely unaware of each others’ existence.