Moon, Stars and Beyond   A Chronicle of Fact, Fiction and Fantasy

Credit: ee.princeton.edu

Here’s another wonderful video from Dennis Overbye at The New York Times.  In it, he explains how time and light partner up to offer a show from nature centuries after it occurred.

Light, in space, is literally a living memory of events long past.  There’s a profound statement at the accompanying article’s end, stating that even the light on our face shine forever.

Can you imagine?  That glorious day at the beach where you smiled at the sun as it reflected on the waves and your face?  That’ll live on, in the shape of light rays.  And so, whatever light touches, it has the ability to record and send off our particular experiences.  Using light to record humanity?  There’s been speculation with sound waves and how others out there will find us via our words, sounds, broadcasts.  How would they make sense of our pictures?  They’d arrive apart, since light travels so much faster than sound ever could.

Now imagine if both the sound and light waves intersected, but with completely different meanings.  Light from the 16th century paired with sounds from this one – this jumbled mess as message.  Who would read it?  How might it be interpreted?

Light is absorbed when it encounters obstacles, such as black holes.  Light waves, from a fairly concentrated source on Earth traveling outward, face the possibility of reaching entirely different destinations.  Some of those particles risk absorption, but others fly free.  A patchwork image received by an off world interpreter might wind up with a Swiss cheesy image not entirely accurate of what it was meant to represent.  Perhaps, too, that’s what we might receive here at the home planet.

Darkness is the absence of light.  What gives some light waves the ability to survive while others terminate, creating darkness?  Or is darkness merely another form of light?  Is it light that the eyes on this planet have not evolved to discern?  What forms out there might interpret our version of light as darkness?

Just a little something for your minds to unravel as you attempt to rest your weary brains for the night.