Earth Day–It’s All About You
Earth Day was April 22nd. I think our home planet, Earth, is a good thing to honor–especially compared to some of the other things we remember or commemorate. In my replica edition of the first Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1771, it states a scientific fact about Earth and the Universe, in an interesting way:
“Astronomy discovers to us such an inconceivable number of suns, systems and worlds, dispersed though boundless space, that if our sun, with all the planets, moons and comets belonging to it, were annihilated, they would be no more missed by an eye that could take in the whole creation than a grain of sand from the seashore. The space they possess being comparatively so small that it would scarce be a sensible blank in the universe.”
You can see an interesting, short animation about where Earth fits into the solar system and where the solar sytem fits into the Milky Way galaxy and where that galaxy fits into the Universe, here.
Another fact: On Earth there are over six billion people and two million identified species of life (with probably another twenty million species not yet identified.) So, you are on a planet with billions of living things—among them six billion people. Our planet is a dot in our solar system, which is a dot in our galaxy, which is less than a dot in the universe.
An experiment: Think about your life and the people you love. Think about the best things that have happened to you and smile as you remember some of those things. If you could make a video of you in space and time you would see this: Infinite Universe, zooming closer to show billions of galaxies, zooming closer to show the Milky Way, zooming into our solar system, zooming to the surface of Earth, zooming to your country, then your state, then your city, then your part of the city, then your location, then to you as you smile and think about the people and events that mean the most to you.
In all of the Universe, your life is important and you matter–not only for your own sake but because of what you can bring to the lives of others on this dot in the Cosmos. When you celebrate Earth you celebrate you, too.
