If We Only Saw the Stars One Night Every 100 Years

We lay and looked up at the sky and the millions of stars that blazed in darkness. The night was so still that we could hear the buoy on the ledges out beyond the mouth of the bay. Once or twice a word spoken by someone on the far shore was carried across the clear air. A few lights burned in the cottages. Otherwise, there was no reminder of other human life....

It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century or even once in a human generation, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night perhaps they will never see it.

Notes:

Everyone would come out to wonder at them. Instead we never look at them.

Folksonomies: nature wonder astronomy

Taxonomies:
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/technology and computing/consumer electronics/camera and photo equipment/telescopes (0.491640)

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Entities:
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The Sense of Wonder

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Carson , Rachel (1998-05-11), The Sense of Wonder, HarperCollins, Retrieved on 2011-06-12

Folksonomies: education wonder children

Triples

12 JUN 2011

If Seeing the Stars was a Rarity

If the Stars Only Came Out One Night in 1,000 Years > Similarity > If We Only Saw the Stars One Night Every 100 Years
Emerson and Carson both imagine a world where the stars are not something perpetually overhead, where humanity would not take them so easily for granted.

Folksonomies: wonder astronomy stars milky way galaxy universe cosmos

20 MAR 2013

Taking the Stars for Granted

If We Only Saw the Stars One Night Every 100 Years > Contrast > Hypothesizing on a World Without Stars
Asimov and Carson speculate on worlds where they cannot see the stars.

Folksonomies: science fiction stars perspective