#astronomy

So fantasy was fine early on, and when I discovered science fiction, I was very happy with it, because my first interest in science fiction came with an interest in astronomy. ↗

— Octavia Butler

#because #came #discovered #early #fantasy

The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church. ↗

— Ferdinand Magellan

#church #religion #faith

At every level in our inventory, nothing seems special about our Earth, our Sun, our Galaxy, our Local Group. Evidently, mediocrity reigns throughout. Such is our niche in the Universe. ↗

— Eric Chaisson

#earth #galaxy #sun #universe #age

... the blast signatures of a detonated supernova and that of a nuclear bomb are identical. ↗

— Eric Chaisson

#nuclear-bomb #supernova #age

The others would then fall silent and she would continue about doped gallium arsenide detectors, or the ethanol content of the galactic cloud W-3. The quantity of 200-proof alcohol in this single interstellar cloud was more than enough to maintain the present population of the Earth, if every adult were a dedicated alcoholic, for the age of the solar system. The tamada had appreciated the remark. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#astronomy #humor #science #age

Though we might like to think so, humankind is not at any special, unique or privileged location in the gargantuan, perhaps infinite, Universe. ↗

— Eric Chaisson

#earth #humankind #universe #age

For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. (on commenting the text of Genesis 1:6) ↗

— Jean Calvin

#astronomy #calvin #genesis #art

Stars are beautiful, but they must not take an active part in anything, they must just look on forever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. ↗

— J.M. Barrie

#curses #beauty

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#beauty #heavens #nature #night #night-sky

And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don’t even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in you life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means they are so small you don’t have to take them into account when you are calculating something. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#cosmology #life #science #life