It isn’t very often that I get to say things like that in a public place!
No, I’m not a visitor from another planet or anything, although my Inner Alien is already disagreeing loudly with that statement. My Inner Superhero is also quite vocal, which is quite strange (I always thought that my Inner Superhero’s powers were imbued by some kind of Earth substance, like water vapour or something).
What I mean, is that I am fascinated by the Universe. The Cosmos – everything in it! I could dream for years of travelling to wonderful far away worlds, exploring Super Novae, surfing on the tail of a comet (although I’m not sure I would actually be able to do this as I have never surfed – wind or water – before in my life… and web doesn’t count!) or looking into the night sky on Saturn – or Venus.
Speaking of Venus – look into the sky and you can see the planet shining brightly, very close to Jupiter in fact. I hope the two planets are visible from anywhere on Earth, but they look pretty spectacular from my vantage point in the north of the United Kingdom. Both planets will be in this amazing conjunction for a few more weeks, apparently, and will remain visible until May.
Looking at them, they do not twinkle as stars do, and that is how you can tell they are planets. Looking at one of them through binoculars will reveal something else – the four Moons of Jupiter. Unfortunately, I don’t own any binoculars, so I will have to rely on my imagination once again. The images my mind conjures up are probably nothing like the real thing, but they are equally spectacular, I don’t mind saying.
We were treated to another astronomical phenomenon over the weekend. Well, some lucky people dotted around the UK were… I missed it. A meteorite travelled the whole length of the country, crashing, it is believed, into the sea between the UK and France. This was, apparently, a one-off, which means it wasn’t connected to any of the usual meteor showers that we are treated to at various times of the year. Although, I can’t help wondering about this. We’ve had two very close near misses with huge meteors over the past few months, and now this meteorite. Our planet seems to be moving through a rocky part of space right now – but safely, I hope.
Whether I’ll see a meteorite anytime soon remains to be seen. I’ll just have to keep looking out into the night sky during a meteor shower, and I may get to kill two birds with one stone. Hopefully not literally.
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