Our Life In The Scope Of A Galaxy

Every person that has ever lived in the history of existence, whether they lived under a principal of tyranny or love, conquered nations or built them, lives for a brief moment on a rock in an indifferent Galaxy. The unescapable reality of the sheer size of our Universe is daunting, harrowing, and petrifying. Despite all of this, it is one of the most inspiring and compelling investigations of our existence – and the most humbling. To learn why we are here, whether we are truly alone, or to facilitate the growth of humanity into the great unknown – these are the questions our future faces.

Will we ever find life? It isn’t unlikely- as there are two planets that have created controversy on the topic within our own Solar System. But the idea of intelligent, sentient beings may forever be unknown. Could we communicate? Currently, it’s unlikely, as the Earth is only listening for radio signals. Or could we show how we’ve amassed arsenals of culture and understanding? The world has a past of unexplainable cruelties – would the Galaxy see us as a threat? The thought that we have made it to the point of our timeline where questioning our ability to travel and colonize the Solar System is beyond belief, and has bled the lines between our world and science fiction.

Elon Musk has claimed we can reach Mars in the next decade. Tom Delonge – better known as the lead singer of Blink-182 – has created a company designed to create light-speed travel. NASA has made plans to send a probe to Titan, where it will study the Methane oceans for existence of Hydrogen-based lifeforms. The next era of Humanity has already begun, and Star Trek is closer to reality every day. This constant discovery we find in space leads to the development of philosophical questions regarding our life in the scope of a Galaxy we will never explore in our lifetime.

Questioning the purpose of a single Human life amongst 7 billion – in a Galaxy that contains between 150 and 250 billion stars. Each of these stars has the same potential to surround itself in Planets, Moons, and Gas Giants – making us an iota of a fraction of the Milky Way, which itself is only one of millions in the scale of our universe. While on first glance, it is isolating, and reveals the futility of life – it also shows how much we have to discover. This is what differentiates our study of space from anything else – rather than to improve the present, or remedy the past, it is a study of what waits for us in space.

Whether it is a vast emptiness of dust and debris, or a waiting collection of life and light, it will be the next chapter in evolution, and shape the way our society will view one another. Rather than me being lost in the idea of the Universe, I would say it is more accurate that we are lost in the Universe – struggling to find our way in what I believe is only the beginning of an eternity of life across the cosmos.