The Storied Stars in the Sky

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal of the U.K., has some interesting things to say about the cosmos in the special Winter 2007 issue of Discover magazine:

We realize how incomplete our optical picture [of the universe] has been, just as our pictures of Earth is incomplete if we have seen only the famous NASA image of the lights at night from the continents. Not everything that's interesting shines, and that's as true of the cosmos as it is of Earth.

... we've come up against a great mystery, which is that most of the stuff in the universe doesn't emit radiation of any kind--neither optical nor infrared or X-rays. One of the big surprises of the last two decades or so has been that ordinary atoms, whether they're in stars or diffuse gas, amount to only 4 percent of all the mass of the universe. The rest is in more exotic forms, called dark matter, or some even more exotic form of energy--dark energy--latent in space itself.

(Whatever "space" is.) Interesting image he gives: All you see on earth from space are the lights at night (on the dark side obviously), and you have to guess about what else is there. The lights tell you something, indeed, but not everything. You can probably figure out where there are some coastlines and where there are vast expanses of water, assuming you know that the earth has land and sea.

I was surprise at what Rees later says:

There are planets orbiting a very large number of the stars visible in the night sky. Twenty or 30 years from now, we'll be able to tell our children not only about the planets of our own solar system but we'll also be able to tell them stories about the planets orbiting other stars.

I think his enthusiasm for his chosen specialty has carried him away a bit here. The "stories" for children just aren't there. I mean, eventually we will be able to say all sorts of things about our neighbor planets that we couldn't say before, how some methane or ammonia cloud got there or how some craters were formed or what lurks in the core of Mercury and so on. Just like geologists can now tell us about how various rocks were formed and more about the Earth's composition, various mineral deposits, and so on.

But this is not the stuff of stories. Are kids excited about geological stories? Sedimentary rocks and the composition of the ocean bottom? (Few are even really excited about fossils as they are--you have to turn them into 3-D skeletons and perhaps fill in even more blanks to make them come alive, then show them in books and movies). So what stories can we tell about the night sky that will capture the imagination of children?

Imagine: staring up into the night sky and telling stories about its points of light. Haven't we already done that? I'm thinking Orion and Cassiopia and Ursa Major and Minor and so on. My guess is those stories will endure, all the same.

Rees notes:

When we look up at the stars, we see the same vista that our ancestors did. The night sky has been observed by people of all cultures and of all ages. It's the only part of our environment that has been common to all humans, wherever and whenever they've lived on this Earth. So that makes it rather special. Whenever we scan the sky, we are partaking of one of the very few things that we share with all other human beings.

Perhaps that's something worth pondering. Without those huge distances of light years and vast expanses of space, we wouldn't have that common experience. So, what's it all for? Sometimes there are true stories up there: the story of the one Star that brought magi from the East to a manger in Bethlehem, magi looking for one born King of the Jews. Now there's a story about the night sky to remember. And it has been and ever will be.

Comments

[Jonathan]

Thank you for this distinction of story from the background of nature. A star has no story itself, except its being part of a larger one.

I, for one, do not think that there will ever be stories proceeding from outer space, unless people go out there to make them.

After all, it takes a Person to make a Story, and a Trinity to make the Sky that tells it.

[Christopher]

"It's the only part of our environment that has been common to all humans, wherever and whenever they've lived on this Earth. So that makes it rather special. Whenever we scan the sky, we are partaking of one of the very few things that we share with all other human beings.":

Overstated. Human nature, the basic needs, birth, death, etc. are all things that are common and shared. So also "the law written on the heart", etc. He is a modern dreamer trying to fill his life with naturalistic stories...

[Ethan Cordray]

Some children like stars and scientific stories about them. Usually they go on to be astronomers. Of course, geology is where all the really cool kid science is. Dinosaurs, volcanoes, earthquakes--yeah, geology's got it all.

[Caryl Johnston]

I agree with the poster who said "He is a modern dreamer who is trying to fill his life with naturalistic stories."
But there is also a lot more that could be said. For example, this "dark matter" business, which was invented as a way of saving Big Bang theory. The idea that there is something out there you can't see, measure or know is a type of scientific mysticism - or perhaps sheer obfuscation. But it fits with the new profile of "science," which has become a kind of club. Because a lot of the real stories are hidden underneath the apparently uniform appearance of modern astronomy. But the question of whether the mathematization of space actually means anything in terms of empitirical reality is a vital question.
Has science progressed since Newton? Newtonian physics is still the main engine for calculating forces and their interactions. And geocentric reckoning is still used in NASA probes. Then, there is the theory of the ether-- still a vital question - and maybe it's really "ether" and not "dark matter" that Martin Rees is talking about (by not talking about). But why wouldn't he want to talk about it? Because to do so would put all of his modern astronomy into question and expose the club for what it is - a self-perpetuating group of elite mathematicians, many with an axe to grind against competing theories, especially those favorable to religion. Well, then how about the electric universe idea - which is a whole new way of looking at energy and its transmission?
Hey, Christians, get a grip! We need to reclaim the mind -- and the cosmos -- and not just be grateful that Martin Rees threw us a little crumb for "stories."
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