REVELATIONS

One man took a photo of the moon. I was there that night, and looked at it too, but later seeing the image became surprised - the moon had appeared somehow more beautiful to him than to me. Was that, what made us see the sky in a different way, hidden in our eyes that looked, our mind that thought or our heart that felt? Or perhaps three things at a time?

That man, a scientist, now retired, had worked on five satellites during his career. One of them is still somewhere out there orbiting around the Earth.

I asked: Do constellations exist?

He said: No. This is an illusion - those stars are not connected to each-other, in reality they stand too far away.

I said: So somebody just tried to create an order, grouped the stars then named the groups, and that is what we perceive when we look at the night sky?

He said: Exactly.

I looked at the South Cross trying to "disconnect" the stars from each other.

I asked: So there is no order in the positions of the stars?

He said: No.

I asked: What is the next big step for humanity?

He said: Man will walk on Mars.

I asked: Is there life on other planets?

He said: There are many galaxies and I could imagine that in one or many of them there could exist a planet with the proper mass and climate for life to develop.

I asked: Do you believe man could reach one of those planets someday?

He said: I don't think so.

I asked: Why not?

He said: Because the highest speed known to man is the speed of light and travelling with that speed man's lifetime would not be enough to reach another galaxy.

I asked: So what exactly is the man looking for "out there"?

He said: The past.

I was puzzled.

He added: We study something that in matter is out of reach - all we perceive of it is the light. Light coming from very far away. While the light travels, the source of it perhaps is not even there any more - in other words what we see is the past. We cannot go much closer, a dream to reach one of these sources of light is an impossible dream. Yet we are creating technology to see better, to see further: that is further into the past. Perhaps one day we will be able to see into the very Beginning.

I asked: Is there something that you know for sure?

He said: That IT is infinite.