These pages chronicle the work and ruminations of Carolyn Collins Petersen, also known as TheSpacewriter.

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I am CEO of Loch Ness Productions. I am also a producer for Astrocast.TV, an online magazine about astronomy and space science.

For the past few years, I've also been a voice actor, appearing in a variety of productions. You can see and hear samples of my work by clicking on the "Voice-Overs, Videos and 'Casts tab.

My blog, TheSpacewriter's Ramblings, is about astronomy, space science, and other sciences.

Ideas and opinions expressed here do not represent those of my employer or of any other organization to which I am affiliated. They're mine.

Visit my main site at: TheSpacewriter.com.

**Comments are welcome; I do moderate them to weed out spam.

Contact me for writing and voice-over projects at: cc(dot)petersen(at)gmail(dot)com

I Twitter as Spacewriter

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The Seven Wonders of the Universe: Part 6

July 30, 2007 at 13:16 pm | Leave a Comment

The Night Sky

In her column in Parade Magazine, a writer named Marilyn vos Savant made a list of “Questions too Funny to Answer.” Some of the questions were truly funny, belying people’s mis-understanding of science. Sad, in a way.

But, the saddest question, one that I didn’t find to be funny at all (and I’m surprised she listed it as “funny) was this: “Where did all the stars go? In the ’50s, the sky was loaded with them.”

It really isn’t even a dumb question. It’s a query that reflects a changed perception of the sky: we’re not seeing as many stars as we used to. Back in the ’50s we didn’t have much light pollution as we do now. Populations were somewhat smaller, and we were scattered more. Less light pollution per square meter, you might say.

Today, we light the night sky up with photonic pollution that tells the universe, “Look here! These people have money to burn!” Because, of course, when we light the night sky unnecessarily, we’re wasting money. And harming the environment in more ways than one.

If you ever have a chance to be in a truly dark-sky site, you’d see why I label the night sky as one of the seven wonders of the universe. To quote David Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey,, “My god, it’s full of stars!”

And that gorgeous scattering of distant starlight is what set our minds wondering throughout the centuries. They caused us to wonder about what they were, how they got there, what makes them shine, and what will happen to them in the future. The science of astronomy, followed by astrophysics, augmented by physics, planetary science, atmospheric physics, and so many others, flowed from our wonder about the night sky.

This blog a wholly pwnd subsidiary of Carolyn Collins Petersen, a.k.a. TheSpacewriter.
Copyright 2008, Carolyn Collins Petersen
Inama Nushif!
Image of Horsehead Nebula: T.A.Rector (NOAO/AURA/NSF) and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)

“It is by Coffee alone I set my day in motion. It is by the juice of bean that coffee acquires depth, the tongue acquires taste, the taste awakens the body. It is by Coffee alone I set my day in motion.”

TheSpacewriter

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The Seven Wonders of the Universe: Part 6

The Night Sky