These are the days
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry - Paul Simon, The Boy in the Bubble, Graceland
I can't tell you how many times I listened to this album and I had all of the words down. The song "The Boy in the Bubble" was one of my favorites. I was reading a post from one of the amateur astronomers on a mailing list I belong to and he posted this (emphasis mine):
Having been in astronomy off and on for 50 years, one of the wonderful things about this hobby is how rich it is, and there are always new and exciting things to see and do. Mars in August 2003 was absolutely spectacular, but not _that_ much different from Mars in 2005 or 2007. Well, maybe not 2007, since the current global dust storm on Mars is making it a literal washout, just like it was in late 2001. In some ways (provided the dust clears) the 2007 apparition should be better for us northerners than 2003 was, since Mars will be high in the sky for a change. What good is a nice big disk when it's mired down in the worst atmospheric turbulence?
Can you believe that we know at this point that there is a global dust storm on Mars? Spirit and Opportunity may not make it through the storm, but we still have the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter operating and a planned mission to the Martian arctic set to launch in August 2007. Truly, our knowledge of the solar system is expanding and we are in an age where this "final frontier" is becoming more and more well-known.
And we haven't even begun.
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry - Paul Simon, The Boy in the Bubble, Graceland
I can't tell you how many times I listened to this album and I had all of the words down. The song "The Boy in the Bubble" was one of my favorites. I was reading a post from one of the amateur astronomers on a mailing list I belong to and he posted this (emphasis mine):
Having been in astronomy off and on for 50 years, one of the wonderful things about this hobby is how rich it is, and there are always new and exciting things to see and do. Mars in August 2003 was absolutely spectacular, but not _that_ much different from Mars in 2005 or 2007. Well, maybe not 2007, since the current global dust storm on Mars is making it a literal washout, just like it was in late 2001. In some ways (provided the dust clears) the 2007 apparition should be better for us northerners than 2003 was, since Mars will be high in the sky for a change. What good is a nice big disk when it's mired down in the worst atmospheric turbulence?
Can you believe that we know at this point that there is a global dust storm on Mars? Spirit and Opportunity may not make it through the storm, but we still have the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter operating and a planned mission to the Martian arctic set to launch in August 2007. Truly, our knowledge of the solar system is expanding and we are in an age where this "final frontier" is becoming more and more well-known.
And we haven't even begun.
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