The Cosmos is rich beyond measure - in elegant facts, in exquisite
interrelationships, in the subtle machinery of awe. The surface of the
Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of
what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen
our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean
calls. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. We long to
return. These aspirations are not, I think, irreverent, although they may
trouble whatever gods may be. The dimensions of the Cosmos are so large
that using familiar units of distance, such as meters or miles, chosen for
their utility on Earth, would make little sense. Instead, we measure
distance with the speed of light. In one second a beam of light travels
186,000 miles, nearly 300,000 kilometres or seven times around the Earth.
In eight minutes, it will travel from the Sun to the Earth. We can say the
Sun is eight light-minutes away. In a year, it crosses nearly ten trillion
kilometres, about six trillion miles, of intervening space. That unit of
length, the distance light goes in a year, is called a light-year. It
measures not time but distances - enormous distances. The Earth is a place.
It is by no means the only place. It is not even a typical place. No planet
or star or galaxy can be typical, because the Cosmos is mostly empty. The
only typical place is within the vast, cold, universal vacuum, the
everlasting night of intergalactic space, a place so strange and desolate
that, by comparison, planets and stars and galaxies seem achingly rare and
lovely. If we were randomly inserted into the Cosmos, the chance that we
would find ourselves on or near a planet would be less than one in a
billion trillion trillion* (1033, a one followed by 33 zeros). In everyday
life such odds are called compelling. Worlds are precious. * We use the
American scientific convention for large numbers: one billion =
1,000,000,000 = 109; one trillion = 1,000,000,000,000= 1012, etc. The
exponent counts the number of zeros after the one. (Carl Sagan) {empty
means unoccupied space and vacuum denotes the atmospheric panchabhutas in
place). AND TODAY HUMAN POPULATION ON EARTH IS 742 BILLION; JATHAGA CHARTS
THAT CAN HAPPEN WITH JUST 7 +2 =9 PLANETS IN THE 12 SQUARES OF PERMUTATION
AND COMBINATIONS MATHEMATICALLY IS 541643 MILLION TRILLION TRILLION (WITH 30
ZEROS). THEN ARE EACH INDIVIDUAL IS EVEN A SPECK? KR IRS 18922
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