Arthur Clarke once wrote,
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Allow me to rephrase that:
Any sufficiently advanced technology will befuddle an individual and make him/her suspect supernatural influence and/or alien presence.
Had I been exposed to the following NASA images very early in my life -- prior to being better educated -- I very well may have been befuddled. And who knows what I would have done in reaction to that befuddlement.
(particle collidor)
(shuttle cockpit)
(unmanned explorer on Mars)
P.S. I am currently still on semi-hiatus, doing a ton of non-writing work and attempting to convert my latest book from one type of code into another type of code suitable to Kindle devices. Again, decades ago I may have suspected that my potential readers and their non-paper 'books' were from out-of-this world. Or at least "out of MY world."
This is the "street view" (no-street view) of one of the many undeveloped areas of . . . Mars. The only development on that planet might be the recent addition of rover tracks. Was that unmanned rover sent by Google?
Where human eyes now go -- it's amazing. Thanks to technology. If anything ought to be praised . . .
[image thanks to NASA]
NASA's unmanned Dawn spacecraft took this picture of the asteroid Vesta. Upon analysis by experts, it seems the asteroid has had landslides on it. A landslide on an asteroid! Holy craters! What a wild and fantastic universe we live in. And thanks to NASA we are discovering more and more about it.
Landslides on Earth, sure I can easily comprehend that. But a landslide on an asteroid?! I don't know about you, but that causes something of an intellectual mind-slide within me.
To wax a bit philosophical here: What is the Earth but a massive asteroid running circles around the sun, completely caught by its gravitational field? Cut the the gravitational tether to the star at the center of our solar system and . . .
Yikes. I've got to sit down. That thought just about blew my mind.
I need to get out more. Out of doors . . . out of my mind, insofar as my mind might be described as 'habitual thoughts.'
Doing the first can facilitate the second.
Consider these stunning peeks of "out there." Do you feel the walls of your mind coming down, just a little?
[all below photos of planet Earth thanks to NASA]
Shouldn't you be looking at and appreciating your own planet? I'm talking to you, you with your peepers to any sort of lens trained on the beauty beyond. What kind of pervert are you?
Me, I'm a pervert of the astronomical variety (for one). Thanks to the Internet and sites such as NASA's Picture of the Day, I get to feast my eyes on heavenly bodies like the handful of pin-up worthy pics below. Have you the moral fortitude to look away in fidelity to your own planet? Or does no such black/white choice exist?
My recommendation: Peep away.
Hyperion. She's gravitationally attached to Saturn. So don't get any ideas.
The Sun. Talk about hot.
The asteroid Vesta. Unattached. Kinda dangerous. Might some day wreck your home.
The south pole of Mars. You like? You dirty, dirty man. Or woman. What, you say you are just curious? Admit it -- you are a voyeur. Welcome to club. Support group begins at 7:00.
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