The Universe and Me

Every Monday through Thursday afternoon, I sit in a huge lecture hall sparsely filled with the only people disciplined enough to show up for class. Every Monday through Thursday afternoon, I sit in a huge lecture hall for about 30 minutes before I fall asleep.

It’s an awful habit. I should be utilizing my hard-earned (and non-existent) tuition dollars and peel my eyelids open for at least an hour to listen to things that don’t seem to suit my interest or concerns whatsoever — no matter how remarkably monotone my teacher is.

The realities of my mentality set in when I got my grade back from my first test. B. Whoa — I know it doesn’t sound bad, but this is Introduction to Astronomy. I’m not particularly apt at science, but it’s not a hard class. This grade is not acceptable. It wasn’t even a high B — 83 percent is too close to C for comfort.

So I stood up on my soap box and proclaimed to my best friend that I was a changed person. I was turning over my trite leaf. I am going to go to class, stay awake, read the chapters, and who knows, maybe even take notes. She laughed, “Sure you will.”

This was a challenge.

This proclamation was two weeks ago, and as I write this article instead of preparing for my exam, I wanted to warn you — there will be blood. I’m already 130 textbook pages more prepared on solar masses and Kepler’s Laws than I was for my last test.

But as I delve deeper into my book and the universe, I’m finding more than the prospects of academic success. I’m finding black matter and supernovas, god and humans, what we are, what we’re made of.

It is mind boggling how much of the universe is reflected here on earth. For example, if you look at a picture of a white dwarf before it dies, it releases shells of helium into the universe, processes slightly, and looks just like the rings of a tree. You can see the span of a star’s white dwarf stage, and count the years a tree has been alive, both by counting those rings.

When the universe was created there was only helium and hydrogen present in the universe. But with time and nuclear fusion, there was carbon, oxygen, lithium and iron. Collisions, explosions and tempers. There was a galaxy, then a solar system, then an earth, and then you, then me. There are clusters, there are vacuums, there are voids, and there is loneliness. Just think — everything we are was made in a star, and eventually our sun will hit the height of its career as a red giant and retire to the main sequence as a sage white dwarf.

When I look outside my window at night, I’m blinded by a streetlight that keeps the night at bay. It’s amazing that for millennia we have searched for meaning, for lessons, for an answer: why? But our purpose, I’ve found, is in the myriad that lies beyond.

This is not a religious proclamation. If anything, I think that these scientific realizations only confirm our religious beliefs. How did we happen? Is it a coincidence that earth is only of the only appropriate distances it could be from the sun for life as we know it to thrive? Is there life on other planets? What is black matter? You decide.

I think many people feel overwhelmed when they try to tackle the universe with our feeble minds. But, I find it comforting to know that I’m part of something bigger. That I’m the same as you, I’m the same as the grass, I’m the same as our atmosphere, I’m the same as a star, I’m the same as the universe. It helps to know that when things seem so trivial: I need a summer job, oh my god did you hear what Julie said to Jack? I don’t want to go out tonight, blah, blah, blah. For all that headache, we are nothing more than pawns ambling on a rock that’s circling a star. We are nothing more than magnificently arranged elements making our way along the main sequence — a cloud of dust that’s yet to settle — an A that is yet to be earned.