Tonight in Los Angeles it was clear and cold, and more than the usual few stars shone above.
I was out with our big goofball of a dog, taking in the night air and trying to work off some of the Holiday largess. It wasn't going so well since we seemed to stop every 20 yards for a long sniff or a pee. (The Dog, not Me).
It was during one of the longer of these stops that I happened to look up and see Jupiter and Mars. Not stars of course, but all the brighter for it. And then I found myself commenting on those planets' beauty to the Dog, as if he could see and comprehend the wonder.
He just burrowed his nose deeper into the unkempt winter growth and spared not a glance above.
Just then it dawned on me that perhaps alone of all Earth's creatures, Man both sees and appreciates the Stars.
Sure some birds navigate at night using stars, or so I've read (somewhere), but they don't think 'how beautiful' while navigating, do they? I'll bet Magellan's navigator did.
We humans not only see Stars and find them beautiful and memorable enough to cast as mythological Gods, we yearn to understand what makes them tick, and maybe one day visit them. Jupiter and Mars have already been buzzed or landed on by robotic human craft. If we don't blow ourselves up, or burn through all our resources too quickly, it's only a matter of time before humans visit in person.
So what of the Dog? Since he can't smell the stars, he couldn't care less. But there's a better than even chance that, should humans establish a permanent presence on another planet, there'll be Dogs with them, sniffing and peeing every twenty yards or so, nose pressed into whatever passes for unkempt winter growth.
I was out with our big goofball of a dog, taking in the night air and trying to work off some of the Holiday largess. It wasn't going so well since we seemed to stop every 20 yards for a long sniff or a pee. (The Dog, not Me).
It was during one of the longer of these stops that I happened to look up and see Jupiter and Mars. Not stars of course, but all the brighter for it. And then I found myself commenting on those planets' beauty to the Dog, as if he could see and comprehend the wonder.
He just burrowed his nose deeper into the unkempt winter growth and spared not a glance above.
Just then it dawned on me that perhaps alone of all Earth's creatures, Man both sees and appreciates the Stars.
Sure some birds navigate at night using stars, or so I've read (somewhere), but they don't think 'how beautiful' while navigating, do they? I'll bet Magellan's navigator did.
We humans not only see Stars and find them beautiful and memorable enough to cast as mythological Gods, we yearn to understand what makes them tick, and maybe one day visit them. Jupiter and Mars have already been buzzed or landed on by robotic human craft. If we don't blow ourselves up, or burn through all our resources too quickly, it's only a matter of time before humans visit in person.
So what of the Dog? Since he can't smell the stars, he couldn't care less. But there's a better than even chance that, should humans establish a permanent presence on another planet, there'll be Dogs with them, sniffing and peeing every twenty yards or so, nose pressed into whatever passes for unkempt winter growth.
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2 comments:
The sysiphian Dung Beatle may have a desire for the stars: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21570674-insect-steers-milky-way-stars-their-eyes
Leave it to the insect world. They've been around long enough to know every trick in the playbook. I suppose one of these eons they will be rolling what's left of us up hills, using the light of a slightly dimmer Milky Way as guidance.
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