1/. “How is it that all scientists are not mystics?
Cosmologists not poets?
Biologists not shamans?
How is it that those to whom the Universe reveals such wonders, are not enraptured each day?
And each night, how do they close their eyes on this?”
2/. This👆clip shows the journey of the Hubble telescope ending at the Pillars of Creation - part of the in the Eagle Nebula - 6,500 light years away from earth
It’s so named because the pillars of hydrogen & dust are in the process of creating new stars
(Photo @NASAHubble 1995)
3/. The Sun is the star at the centre of our solar system
The solar system orbits the Milky Way, the spiral galaxy we call home
The Sun is just one of around 200 billion stars in the Milky Way
And the Milky Way is one of trillions of galaxies in the Universe
Let that sink in.
4/. Looking heavenward on a clear night from a desert , ocean or mountaintop, you’ll see a swathe of stars, shrouded in clouds of dust & gas, arcing across the sky
The Milky Way
100,000 light-years in diameter with a black hole at its core that sucks in everything...even light.
5/. Vast in size & beautiful to behold,
nebulae are interstellar clouds of gas & dust formed from matter thrown out by the explosion of dying stars
They often then became nests where new stars are born
A cycle, as in all things in nature
There are thousands in the Milky Way.
6/. Beyond the Milky Way, there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies
Each is a vast system of dust, gas, dark matter & between a million & a trillion stars, all held together by gravity
My favourite are a group of 5 distant galaxies that share my name: Stephan’s Quintet.
7/. It’s common for galaxies to collide
These collisions create of new galaxies & trigger starbirth
In about 3.75 billion years, the Milky Way looks set to collide with Andromeda to form a new elliptical galaxy
Triangulum might also join in the merger
Each of us is a planet in our own solar system in our own galaxy - most of which we will never know or even be aware of until...until
Until our galaxy collides with another
If we are lucky - or it is meant to be - they will merge
“Remember when you're feeling small & insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent somewhere up in space
Cos there's bugger all here down on earth." @EricIdle & Terry Jones
10/. The obvious next question:
What lies beyond the Universe?
Millions more universes or a "super universe” extending to infinity?
There is no ‘edge’ or ‘outside’
“Lost somewhere between immensity & eternity is our tiny planetary home.” (Carl Sagan)
11/. But you don’t have to go to the edges of the Universe to see the infinite
Last weekend, I was in Wytham Woods home to:
900+ species of beetle
800+ species of butterfly & moth
700+ species of bees, wasps & ant
580 species of fly
200+ species of spider
12/. Like a Russian Doll, a grain of sand is made of atoms which are made of protons & neutrons which are made of quarks
Physicists describe the smallest particles as tiny "strings", that have a finite length, but an infinitely small width (String Theory)
13/. If you’re a man, you will have about 200 million sperm in your testes right now
Each sperm capable of producing a human life
Each life containing a soul
Each soul containing a universe
Tonight, while you sleep, you will produce another 200 million
14/. “I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine & I’ve tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway over the flux” (Russell)
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love” (Sagan)
15/. “Remember to look up at the stars & not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see & wonder about what makes the universe exist”
Stephen Hawking also said if we were to find out why the universe exists "then we would know the mind of God."
16/. “I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further — for time is the longest distance between two places” (Tennessee Williams)
The universe bound together by an elusive invisible glue: “dark matter”
It cannot be seen, but it can be felt
It is everywhere
17/. “Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once & it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. Then I relax & it flows thru me like rain & I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life”
18/. The surface of Mars captured by @NASA’s Curiosity Rover
Deep a Martian crater, @MarsCuriosity found evidence of an oasis dating back 3.5 billion years
Scientists believe that the oasis was once filled with water, like a heart once brimful of love.
19/. “In the universe there is nothing single, nothing born unique & growing alone. You must therefore admit that the sky, earth, sun, moon, sea, & all else that exists are not unique, but in numbers beyond numbers”
(Lucretius, on the plurality of worlds)
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Julian Assange is scheduled to appear in a federal court in Saipan, a US commonwealth in the Pacific, where he’s expected to plead guilty to one charge under the Espionage Act & be sentenced to 5yrs
Given he’s already served this time, he should walk free
The public have a right to know what their govts do in their name
Julian #Assange’s prosecution represented a grave threat to press freedom, undermining the key role of journalists & publishers in scrutinizing govts misdeeds & creating a chilling effect
2/. From the start of the pandemic the govt had given #Palantir, a US spyware company with reported links to #CambridgeAnalytica, access to NHS health data
3/. Palantir worked on the NHS data store with #FacultyAI - a company with ties to Cummings
In 2020, @amnesty warned that Big Tech firms might use the COVID crisis to hoover up genomic data, obliterating the last frontier of privacy: our biological selves
1/. “It is the greatest mass-killing in recorded history; & it goes on daily, hourly, as regularly as the ticking of your watch”
Arthur Koestler’s 1944 essay expressing frustration at the failure of the world to acknowledge Nazi atrocities resonates today wethescreamers.com
2/ “There are a few of us…yelling at you in newspapers…Now & then we reach your ear…But it only lasts a minute. You shake yourself like puppies who’ve got their fur wet; then the screen again descends & you walk on, protected by the dream-barrier which stifles all sound”
#Gaza
3/ Koestler notes maniacs lose contact with reality so “perhaps it’s we, the screamers, who react in a sound & healthy way to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotics who totter about in a screened fantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the facts”
“They got me!” Liz Truss tells far-right kingpin, Steve Bannon, before going on to explain that, to have effectively tackled “the deep state” that runs Britain & its institutions, she would have “needed a bigger bazooka”! #LizTruss #BritanniaUnchained
"I was just saying it like it is & that’s what people respect me for"(!)
Liz Truss’ compares her premiership to a one night stand & says she was just “fattening the pig” for slaughter & that she should have gaslit the public like Rishi Sunak is doing (!)
"I faced the most almighty backlash...from the usual suspects in the media” Liz Truss
“Truss's decline is simultaneously tragic & horrifying but the claim that the media conspired against her can't go unchallenged. There are front pages praising her to the rafters” @mrjamesob
2/. It’s clear that the bomb blasts in Kerman on the 4th anniversary of #Soleimani's assassination by the US, could lead to a quick ratcheting up of dangerous tensions
After Oct 7, the US sent two aircraft carrier groups to the region
3/. Three US soldiers were killed & two dozen injured in an unmanned aerial drone attack on US forces stationed in northeastern #Jordan near the Syrian border, President @JoeBiden said