I’ve been watching reruns of Discovery Channel’s series How the Universe Works on the Science Channel lately. It’s totally blowing my mind!
I did take physics in high school and college, but I don’t remember it being anywhere as awesome as this program is. Maybe I’m just late to the party, but being a physicist is probably one of the coolest jobs in the world…or the universe (second only to writing, of course!).
The other night I stayed up late to watch an episode about supernovas (exploding stars) and then a second one about stars in general. I learned something that made my skin tingle: We are all made of stardust.
That’s right. When you look up in the sky at night and see those twinkling burning balls of gas, you came from that. Are you wondering How is that possible? I could try and explain how when a star explodes it shoots out the elements that create pretty much everything in the universe, but the Discovery Channel does a much better job of it in this video.
As if it weren’t enough to realize you’re a star-child, here’s another video about just how tiny we are relative to the largest known star. We’re talking size on a level that I can’t even really imagine (and I have a pretty endless imagination).
Okay, now that my mind has been blown apart, I wonder what kind of beings its dust will create?
The video was thought provoking, Katie. One of these days I will get back to the parnormal WIP that is in waiting.
I feel you, Mary. Shouldn’t I be writing instead of blogging and replying to blog comments?
I love this concept! (Also, being married to a physicist makes for some really interesting dinner conversations!)
Oh, I bet you and your husband have great dinner conversations. What fun!
I’m disappointed in you KT… I guess you’ve never listened to some good old Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D05ej8u-gU
And if being stardust blows your mind, then I don’t want to know what happens to the writer in you when you consider this one… you are also Shakespeare! http://jupiterscientific.org/review/shnecal.html
I can always count on you, Sir William, for both a backhanded insult and an important contribution to the conversation. “The universe is in us” indeed. (As is Hitler apparently!)
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust… 😀
Apropos, Ann. 🙂
Kind of makes you feel humble and exalted at the same time, doesn’t it?
Great post, Katie.
Warmly, Lisabet
It absolutely does. That’s one of my favorite things about the universe, and nature and science in general: the contradictions.