It's About Time

Has time lost all meaning for you as much as it has for me? I can’t get enough of those calendar memes with all the extreme feels/images for any month after June because they are just TOO REAL. Sometimes it feels like eons since the before times and yet at the same time it feels like my weeks are rushing by and when did it become mid-September?

Lucky for us astronomers, we know all about how time is relative. Being an astronomer means getting a feel for all sorts of time frames, from milliseconds to millenia to the age of the Universe. Being an astronomer means, you know that one person’s time is measurably different from another person’s time (#becausephysics), like the famous example of watching a friend fall into a black hole.

But astronomers aren’t the only ones who can explore time. Every time you go out and look at the night sky, you’re looking back in time - each twinkling light your eye sees represents countless photons that began their journeys hundreds, thousands, or millions of years ago.

So the next time(ha!), you can’t remember what day it is or if March ever ended, step out into the night and look up. Leave the present behind, even if only for a moment. 

--Summer