The European Space Agency has discovered yet another planet, this one a ball about 11 light years away and labeled Ross 128 b.* It’s very close to its sun, but that sun is a stable red dwarf, so the planet might not be baked. Too bad, we’ll never really know much about it. Can’t get there. And that’s about it, folks! Have a nice day.
Really, the reality is that we are virtually alone because the distances among stars and planets are great. And you aren’t going to warp spacetime and travel faster than light. You’ll have to plod along, even if you go a million miles per hour. Let’s see, if I multiplied correctly (186,000 mph X 60 seconds X 60 minutes), at a million mph you would fall short of light’s one-hour trip by 668,600,000 miles, a distance termed one light hour. That newly discovered Ross 128 b is about 65.5 trillion miles away (11 X 5,869,713,600,000 miles, or 11 times one light year). Even the closer Proxima Centauri b, which is about half that distance, is too far away to image in detail.
That distance means we require an artist to depict the planet. Our most powerful telescopes, both radio and light receivers, can’t give us a photographic image we’re used to seeing. We get some data. The artist turns it into some image based on astrophysicists’ best guesses and the painter’s imagination.
We’re very far away from everything outside the Solar System, and even Earth’s sister planets require difficult travel, so far so difficult that we haven’t sent anyone to Mars. We—you specifically—are isolated physically. You are physically alone in the universe except for the crowd of similar and near-similar organisms on this planet. But the astronomers and astrophysicists tell us that the discovery of these distant worlds is “significant.”
“There’s nothing new there,” you say. “We all know that Earth is isolated from the uncounted other planets in the galaxy and throughout the universe. I get it. What’s your point?”
There are two ways of looking at our isolation. First, we can see the vastness around us and say we are insignificant. We live on a little planet that circles a sub-average star of middle age. Even small variations in that star’s energy output can makes us kaput in a blink, and as far as we know, no conscious being on some other world would care. We have a very tenuous hold on existence. If the universe is 13.8 billion years old and our planet is 4.6 billion years old, then we’re not only isolated in space, but also in time, specifically, the last 300,000 years. Even if other intelligent beings developed elsewhere, their existence might not coincide with ours—as in Star Wars. Being so isolated in time and space is a depressing set of circumstances for some. Second, we can see the vastness around us and say that because we can somewhat understand the universe, we are its most significant entities. This little planet is, for all our looking, the only place where the universe is conscious of itself. And you, yes you, are the center of that consciousness—at least for now. This moment is special because of those who are presently conscious of it. As long as you are alive, the universe knows it exists.
Some people find despair in the former view of our isolation; some find joy in the latter. What do you find in your isolation? But before you answer, remember that “finding” itself favors the potential for the latter. Insignificance and significance are both reflections of your consciousness. You don’t need an artist’s depiction of an imagined world. You have an artistic consciousness that literally makes the world around you, as well as Ross 128 b, in your image. You determine significance, and significantly, you also determine insignificance . So, you have a choice—also an indication of significance—but either way, in despair or in “significance,” you are the artist who depicts the world both far and near.
Never being able to travel to another solar system isn’t necessarily a handicap. Maybe other conscious life-forms inhabit the universe. Most likely, they, too, are isolated. No one has yet demonstrated that travel among solar systems is possible for finite individuals. Both Newton and Einstein have instilled in us that the universe probably works the same way everywhere. The thermodynamics of a distant galaxy and solar system are most likely the same thermodynamics that operate locally. And the four fundamental forces in the universe prevail. That’s why we accept an artist’s depiction of a distant world orbiting a red dwarf as reasonable. It’s a “best guess” depiction, but it could only result from a conscious being applying the working of the local universe to the Universe at large.
Maybe there is a canvas on Ross 128 b that depicts your world. You’ll never see that painting. Pick up your canvas and palette; you have worlds to paint and paintings to appreciate. Therein lies, as far as you will ever know, the demonstrable significance of a distant world: It lies in you.
* https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2017/nov/15/potentially-habitable-world-found-just-11-light-years-away-ross-128-b
Really, the reality is that we are virtually alone because the distances among stars and planets are great. And you aren’t going to warp spacetime and travel faster than light. You’ll have to plod along, even if you go a million miles per hour. Let’s see, if I multiplied correctly (186,000 mph X 60 seconds X 60 minutes), at a million mph you would fall short of light’s one-hour trip by 668,600,000 miles, a distance termed one light hour. That newly discovered Ross 128 b is about 65.5 trillion miles away (11 X 5,869,713,600,000 miles, or 11 times one light year). Even the closer Proxima Centauri b, which is about half that distance, is too far away to image in detail.
That distance means we require an artist to depict the planet. Our most powerful telescopes, both radio and light receivers, can’t give us a photographic image we’re used to seeing. We get some data. The artist turns it into some image based on astrophysicists’ best guesses and the painter’s imagination.
We’re very far away from everything outside the Solar System, and even Earth’s sister planets require difficult travel, so far so difficult that we haven’t sent anyone to Mars. We—you specifically—are isolated physically. You are physically alone in the universe except for the crowd of similar and near-similar organisms on this planet. But the astronomers and astrophysicists tell us that the discovery of these distant worlds is “significant.”
“There’s nothing new there,” you say. “We all know that Earth is isolated from the uncounted other planets in the galaxy and throughout the universe. I get it. What’s your point?”
There are two ways of looking at our isolation. First, we can see the vastness around us and say we are insignificant. We live on a little planet that circles a sub-average star of middle age. Even small variations in that star’s energy output can makes us kaput in a blink, and as far as we know, no conscious being on some other world would care. We have a very tenuous hold on existence. If the universe is 13.8 billion years old and our planet is 4.6 billion years old, then we’re not only isolated in space, but also in time, specifically, the last 300,000 years. Even if other intelligent beings developed elsewhere, their existence might not coincide with ours—as in Star Wars. Being so isolated in time and space is a depressing set of circumstances for some. Second, we can see the vastness around us and say that because we can somewhat understand the universe, we are its most significant entities. This little planet is, for all our looking, the only place where the universe is conscious of itself. And you, yes you, are the center of that consciousness—at least for now. This moment is special because of those who are presently conscious of it. As long as you are alive, the universe knows it exists.
Some people find despair in the former view of our isolation; some find joy in the latter. What do you find in your isolation? But before you answer, remember that “finding” itself favors the potential for the latter. Insignificance and significance are both reflections of your consciousness. You don’t need an artist’s depiction of an imagined world. You have an artistic consciousness that literally makes the world around you, as well as Ross 128 b, in your image. You determine significance, and significantly, you also determine insignificance . So, you have a choice—also an indication of significance—but either way, in despair or in “significance,” you are the artist who depicts the world both far and near.
Never being able to travel to another solar system isn’t necessarily a handicap. Maybe other conscious life-forms inhabit the universe. Most likely, they, too, are isolated. No one has yet demonstrated that travel among solar systems is possible for finite individuals. Both Newton and Einstein have instilled in us that the universe probably works the same way everywhere. The thermodynamics of a distant galaxy and solar system are most likely the same thermodynamics that operate locally. And the four fundamental forces in the universe prevail. That’s why we accept an artist’s depiction of a distant world orbiting a red dwarf as reasonable. It’s a “best guess” depiction, but it could only result from a conscious being applying the working of the local universe to the Universe at large.
Maybe there is a canvas on Ross 128 b that depicts your world. You’ll never see that painting. Pick up your canvas and palette; you have worlds to paint and paintings to appreciate. Therein lies, as far as you will ever know, the demonstrable significance of a distant world: It lies in you.
* https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2017/nov/15/potentially-habitable-world-found-just-11-light-years-away-ross-128-b
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