Star-gazing in San Pedro

The jeep ride to San Pedro was terrible, and cold. The only thing that kept me warm was my thick grey poncho and the small bottle of rum that I clutched underneath it, tiny sips from time to time keeping my belly defrosted.

Brooke, Tony and I went star-gazing. I saw my Andromeda (a princess in ancient Greek mythology, who when I was little I revered and wanted to be), with a chain wrapped across her chest in a Z shape, and her mother Casseopeia below her, seen in the shape of an M. I think she might be down on her hands and knees, pleading for Posseidon’s forgiveness, though it’s hard to tell. The story for those who don’t know it is that Casseopeia boasted her daughter’s great beauty to Posseidon, God of the sea, who as punishment for her vanity (no mortals can be as beautiful as the divinities) forced her to sacrifice her daughter by having her chained on a cliff face above the ocean, to be devoured by a great sea monster. Luckily Andromeda was rescued by Perseus, flying past on a winged horse with the head of Medusa in his grip, so hideous that the sea serpent was turned to stone. It was my favourite Greek myth when I was little. And there they all are, immortalised forever for the rest of time, in the sky.

I saw what looked like a star on fire, though apparently the star looks ablaze because the heat and the cold in the atmosphere mixes and creates a mirage. Or something like that.

Did you know that we see the same stars that the ancient Egyptians saw? Isn’t that fascinating?

I also learnt that the furthest galaxy astronomers have been able to see is thirteen billion light years away. It’s so hard to comprehend. Once upon a time, when it was believed that the earth was flat, it was also believed that there was just one galaxy, the one we are in.

We listened to a talk by a very passionate French astronomer, over hot chocolate. We asked a lot of questions (does planet X exist? Is the universe really expanding? What is dark energy?) and went outside again to look through the telescopes. Words can’t really describe the ethereal beauty of the star clusters. Some of them formed recognizable shapes, like a spider or a dove. I identified a G-String. I don’t think the Egyptians would have mapped that one as an official constellation somehow. We all got a good laugh and had fun playing with the astronomer’s laser beam. On a serious note though, I realized that night how much time we spend busily going about our lives minding our own earthly business. We could continue this way or we could look up every now and again and ponder what is up there. There’s no harm in a curious mind.

That’s all for this entry. See you on Mars?