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Glimpses into the past

? Useless knowledge ?




I recently read the following sentence in a book:
„When you look up into the starry sky
- then you’re looking into your past "
I can’t let go of this notion.
It’s true - and we’ve all learnt this
That the highest possible speed known to us is the speed of light
at 300000 km per second
and sunlight takes 8 minutes and 19 seconds to reach us.

Assuming that

Any star or galaxy
are 2 billion light years away-
We’ll only find out what it looks
like up there in 2 billion years –
at the earliest.

Yet it’s also true – when I say:

If we had the possibility –
aided by a trick or so
- in other words, by bypassing the speed of light
that limits us -
to have a look into space,
then the night sky as we know
it would look very different.

The "crazy " aspect of this notion is – for me -
that I can think this thought,
while admitting to myself that
that we will never be able to verify this.

Consequentially:

" ? Is our planet – our solar system
not that important
or is this unimaginably huge universe
actually very important or valuable? “


 Maybe as valuable as a blade of grass in a meadow
as a tree in the jungle
as a grain of sand in the desert.

There may be billions and billions of
suns in the solar system:

But our sun is and remains our sun
It gives us light - life - warmth




? Is it worth it for you – to think about it?
...Even for just a moment?

I mean

It is worth it

Around 7 billion people live on our Earth.
I am one of them.
And I have
a unique worth
just like every person.




Fotos and text by Albert Jäger
translation by Tamara Girke