“The windows of a spaceship casually frame miracles. Every 92 minutes, another sunrise: a layer cake that starts with orange, then a thick wedge of blue, then the richest, darkest icing decorated with stars. The secret patterns of our planet are revealed: mountains bump up rudely from orderly plains, forests are green gashes edged with snow, rivers glint in the sunlight, twisting and turning like silvery worms. Continents splay themselves out whole, surrounded by islands sprinkled across the sea like delicate shards of shattered eggshells.”
~ Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield
- Be sure to read full post at Brain Pickings: Astronaut Chris Hadfield on Success and the Meaning of Life
- Image Credit (Sunset over Pacific Ocean)
I can’t imagine the awesome magnificence of such visuals. It’s so much bigger than anything I can wrap my head around. Yet to see it, must change a person on a very fundamental level
Yes, wonderful put Mimi. The word “sublime” immediately comes to mind:
or perhaps: Ethereal:
Both are perfect..
this sounds so incredibly beautiful and overwhelming in it’s impact and magnitude.
It really does…
I remember, the first time I saw a picture of Earth as depicted in a photograph taken in space, feeling shocked by a sense of overwhelming vulnerability. For what I think of as certain, for all its nail-biting uncertainty, is still just a tiny little orb floating in monstrous nothingness. College, business, war, environmental degradation, kindness to others, meals for the starving, wars, redstate/bluestate…all playing out on that blue gem. Which is, essentially, nothing. Floating in a sea of nothingness.
Amazing perspective Lynne. I was floating along with your comment. Beautiful
I can understand how this incredible view would inspire such lovely narrative. How surreal it must be to experience the workings of our universe. Thank you for sharing this!
And what does one do next to top this experience. Here’s another quote from Astronaut Hadfield:
Wow…
Exactly!