We have left our mark on the face of the heavens

[steuard]

We live in a remarkable era. If you brought an ancient Greek astronomer to the present day and dropped him off in a field somewhere, he would be awestruck, and maybe terrified. (Heck, it probably wouldn't even need to be an astronomer: I think that most people were quite familiar with the night sky until recent times

Comments

[steuard]

(I clearly get oddly philosophical when I'm up late at night.)

[beth_leonard]

And what stories might we tell about ourselves, as we alter the face of the heavens so deeply without ever pausing to think what an astounding achievement that is?

:-)

--Beth

[kirinn]

Yeah, I only had a little while to stand outside on meteor shower night, and the only thing I saw for sure (other than a very distracting tree-height firefly roaming around) was a satellite.

I wonder about your fourth paragraph. I feel like you have to get pretty incredibly remote today to find people without at least enough passing contact with travelers to have a decent idea of what sorts of things mankind is up to. Like, a few pockets of (increasingly scarce) deep forest? Not sure what else. There are certainly other peoples (say, around the Mongolian steppes for example) that still lead very traditional lifestyles, but I think most know about the outside world. Plus, from most places you're likely to see planes which provide an intermediate point of reference. I'm guessing we're both speculating out of our asses without time to actually research the topic, though. ;)