“Our stars come from Ireland,” says Wallace Stevens in the title of a poem. And if you watch the stars from night to night you will indeed see how they come up out of the Atlantic horizon like the running lights of emigrant ships, slung from tall masts and burning brightly.
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The Three Wise Kings, Catalan Atlas, 1375, fol. V (Public Domain)
Photo by Matt Gross on Unsplash
The rock asks that its story be read
Every rock, every pebble, every grain of sand has a story to tell of the evolution of the earth. Every blade of grass is a poem of the past. Our own bodies are museums of our history, our cells are the scrapbooks of our microbial ancestors, we breathe the exhalations of bacteria that swam in ancient seas. The story of the earth is waiting to be read.
Great Blue Heron • Photo by Steven Fine (CC BY SA 4.0)
Stalking the great blue heron
Even before I saw him I felt the shove of his huge wings. There was a sound of air moving. I turned and there he was, his zeppelin bulk rising inexplicably into the air, his long legs dangling behind like mooring lines. The great blue heron.
Artist's rendering of a quasar • ESO/M. Kornmesser (CC BY 4.0)
Looking back to the beginning
In the beginning there was light. That is the conclusion of physicists who have attempted to reconstruct theoretically the first moments of the Universe.
Photo by Gage Smith on Unsplash
Novas: Brilliant destroyers of life?
One Friday evening in August of 1975, while working late, I heard a radio report of a new star in the constellation Cygnus the Swan. I rushed outside, where it took but an instant to recognize the intruder.
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
Feeling at home in the Milky Way
On the night of an August meteor shower, my son and I slept under the open sky. It was a night of exceptional clarity, far from the lights and haze of Boston. Meteors flashed against a background of stars so numerous the heavens seemed more light than dark.
The 1066 visit of Halley's Comet as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry (Public Domain)
Waiting for Halley’s
In 1948 Halley’s Comet turned the dark corner of its ellipse far out beyond the planet Neptune. Recorded only by the astronomers’ calculations, it leaned into its sunward curve, in the words of poet Ted Hughes, “like a skater on the thin ice of space.” Today it is gliding past the orbit of Saturn, gathering speed in its fall toward the sun.
Artist's rendition of early Earth (Public Domain)
Up from the pond
Life is almost as ancient as the earth itself. Precisely how, when and where life made its debut on planet Earth may never be known. But most contemporary scientists agree that the first living cells arose from spontaneous arrangements of non-living matter.
Wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) • Photo by Tom Raymo
Consider the miracle of the wild columbine
For almost 20 years I have ranged the woods and fields near my home in eastern Massachusetts. Most of the plants and animals have become familiar friends. By paying close attention to the weather, I can predict almost to a day when the first red-wing blackbird will reappear along the brook, or when the first cinnamon fern will unfurl its fiddleheads near the pond. There is a pleasure in the familiar, in the recurring patterns of the seasons.
Remnant of Supernova 1572 seen in X-ray light • NASA/CXC/Rutgers/J.Warren & J.Hughes et al.
Stellar shock-wave: Maker of stars
On the evening of November 11 in the year 1572, the Renaissance astronomer Tycho Brahe, as was his custom, contemplated the stars in the clear evening sky. Suddenly he noticed, almost directly over his head, a new star, surpassing in brilliance all the others.