“Roads?
Where we’re going, we don’t need — roads.” – Doc, Back to the Future II.
One of
the more challenging visualizations for me is to imagine looking at the Solar
System from a point above it in outer space, far enough out that the Sun is but
a bright point of light below. With no inhibiting sunlight, the stars are bright
all around us; we see deep into the Cosmos wherever we turn. The Milky Way’s
misty path forms an incredible ring encircling us completely, from its thick,
dense core region in one direction to the thinnest stretches on our opposite
side.
Suspended
above the Solar System, there is no day or night for us, and time can almost
stand still as we hang here in space. But there is movement around the little
Sun below us, and where there is movement, there must be time.
The Solar System is tiny from way out where we float but as we move slowly closer
we begin to see the planets as points of light, each following its own
elliptical tour around the Sun. They trace their paths, carving their life
songs like grooves on the cosmic record. From distant Pluto, planet or not, so
far away on the outskirts that it takes almost 250 of our years to complete its
circuit, down to little speedster Mercury, the closest to the Sun, which,
comparatively, careens crazily round and round in its quick 87-day orbit for
the shortest year of all the planets.
We watch the planets traveling unceasingly along their paths beneath us. Follow them
with your mind’s eye. Each one is a point of brightness orbiting the Sun,
marking time by its passage like the many hands of a great cosmic clock — and
indeed this is exactly that, a cosmic clock. Unhurried, we marvel at the beauty
of our little Solar System and its wonderful intricacies.
Moving
in more closely, we see that the planets are more than mere points of light,
they are globes. The sunward side of each is brightly illuminated, while the
side opposite is forever cast in shadow. Imagine for a moment standing on the
sunlit surface of one of the planets: The sky is an impenetrable dome of light
dominated by the blinding brightness of the Sun. You can see nothing through it.
But place yourself on the darkened, night side of any of the planets and the
sky becomes a clear window looking far into the Cosmos, revealing a myriad of
stars, planets and other celestial phenomena. But you cannot see all of space
from here, for the night side is a window that only faces in one direction.
From
back in our position above the Solar System, we can see that the night side of
any of the planets always faces opposite the sun, while for us, hanging here in
our privileged position outside of the Solar System, we enjoy a view deep into
the universe, equally brilliant and detailed in every direction. We could
become lost in the beauty of the infinite Cosmos from here. But down on a
planet’s surface, the view from the night side is limited to only that part of
space which is opposite from the Sun. Deprived of most of the view as they are
forever to be, a sadness heavies our heart for the planet-bound.
But
looking down at the Solar System, seeing the planets circling the sun, we take
heart knowing that in half a year, the planet-bound people will be on the other
side of the sun where their nighttime window opens in the opposite direction to
an entirely different view. And, of course, incrementally in between, the view
changes ever so slightly night by night.
Wait,
though — there may be another wrinkle to imagining the night-side view, for
with our phenomenal powers of sight, we discern that the planets are not
necessarily spinning on axes parallel to their orbital axes. Take Earth, for
instance, the third planet out from the Sun. From our place out here above the
Solar System, we see that the axis of Earth’s rotation is tilted about 23 degrees off
from the axis of its orbit. This gives it a topsy-turvy view as it orbits, with
its northerly side facing the sun for half of the year and its southerly side
facing it the rest of the year. On the opposite side of the planet, the night
side window for anyone on the surface is similarly scanning the heavens in an
up and down motion, changing only minutely each night, as it sweeps the sky
during the course of a planet’s full revolution around the sun. The view shifts
almost as if Earth were a bobber bobbing in space, relative to the sun. It’s
why the sun rises and sets farther to the south in the winter and farther to
the north in summer.
You see
that, don’t you?
From
early May through late fall, Earth’s nighttime window for the Northern Hemisphere opens onto a breathtaking view straight to the very center of our
galaxy. We see the Galactic Core as the most richly detailed stretch of the
Milky Way, which is that misty band for which our galaxy is named that
stretches across the sky. Gazing out through that window each night, it is
plain that the true picture of the universe is greater than any visualization
of which we are capable.
To keep abreast of David Wilson’s most current
photography or purchase a print, visit or contact him at his website mindscapefx.com or follow him on Instagram
at @david_wilson_mfx and on Twitter @davidwilson_mfx .
This article appears in Surrounded.
