rgj...Then one evening, as you were looking up at the night sky, it smashed right into your forehead. And you didn’t notice Soon countless stars and galaxies began to illuminate the Cosmos. From time to time, a star would consume all of its gaseous fuel and explode as a supernova. For a brief period, it would outshine an entire galaxy, and cast gas and dust back far into space. Still the photon traveled on at its constant speed. It traveled for billions of years, as some stars exploded as supernovae and new stars formed from their remnants of gas and dust. Some of the gas and dust formed into planets and asteroids and comets. Solar systems became common, and a few of their planets happened to form in habitable zones, distances from their stars where liquid water could exist. Not too hot and not to cold. On at least one of these worlds, but perhaps upon millions of them, life appeared. Still the photon traveled, on and on, for more than 13 billion years. Once, it passed within a few hundred thousand light-years of a galaxy, and the mass of the galaxy deflected the photon, tugging its slightly off of its previous path, an effect known as gravitational lensing. The direction of the photon changed just enough that it began to travel directly toward one rather unremarkable galaxy. A barred spiral galaxy around 100,000 light-years across. This ancient photon traveled as the first humans walked upon the Earth. It traveled as civilizations rose and fell. It traveled on the day you were born. On and on, year after year. Then one evening, as you were looking up at the night sky, it smashed right into your forehead. And you didn’t notice.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 22:47:16 +0000
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