On Space Telescopes and Sunday Walks

Letters From Josh, Vol. 91

Happy Monday!

What a weekend! I avoided one intellectual brawl in the art gallery, walked smack into another in the used bookstore, but was able to peacefully resolve the situation (sort of) and make some new friends. Later that day I badly lost two games of eight ball, and sloppily won one to a new buddy after the gig at the retirement home, all the while good-naturedly joking. And that was just on Friday. I truly love people.

Perhaps I should stop watching Mike Tyson boxing videos before sleep.

Point is, folks - there’s some electrifying interactions to be had with our fellow humans, aren’t there? Speaking of fellow humans, here’s the weekly Letters from Josh.

Letters from Josh

A Million Miles Away                                                       Letter 91  7/18/22

Howdy, folks! What do you think of those new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) pictures?! A lot of my buddies were impressed…but were left scratching their heads. “Just what am I looking at?” First, let’s set the stage: The JWST lurks a million miles from Earth, out in lonely darkness, as massive as an elephant, and as big as a tennis court. It pointed a special camera out into the blackness, and got a photo of: a bunch of little blurs. “Oh, nice job, guys. Whatcha call that, gnats by a candle?” No, no, wait, you’ll dig it. For starters, each little “blur” is an entire galaxy, each one containing billions of stars. The farthest ones away are over 13 billion light years away. (Light year: distance light can travel in 1 year = about 6 trillion miles.) This also means that their light started out just after the Big Bang, and has been traveling ever since, finally reaching the telescope. We’re looking back in time to the dawn of the universe!

Next time you see the photo, notice that the blurs seem to be bent around the brighter blur (galaxy) in the middle of the frame. What gives? This is caused by a weird and wacky thing called gravitational lensing. The big galaxy is closer than some of the faint ones. It’s so massive (and has a few other buddies nearby, too), it’s warping space, and it acts like a giant magnifying glass. Light from behind it gets bent around it, just like a telescope lens refracts light. Picture a bowling ball sitting on a trampoline. If a marble is rolled near it, it will follow the dip caused by the bowling ball. As strange as it sounds, the same thing happens with light as it follows the “fabric” of space. Really big stuff (like stars and galaxies) warp it, causing these strange effects. Ol’ Einstein came up with this, so if your head hurts, blame him. (I do all the time.) Keep an eye on what the JWST is up to. We’re in for many treats.

A bit closer to home, I took a Sunday walk. It was supposed to be a jog, but it “slowed down considerable”, as we say ‘round here. Just like the JWST, it might as well been a million miles from the city. The early morning sun bathed the green grass in amber light. Purple Martins flitted off the telephone line, and a waning moon hung in the azure western sky. The land was peaceful, the silence broken only by a distant car off to church. A mockingbird eyed me, pausing on the way back to feed his chicks. The road unfolded before me, and I felt grateful for a chance to pause and breathe. There’s many problems to face, and things to fix - but how nice we’re all afforded a Sunday moment to stop and feel grateful in our own way. Be it ancient starlight captured by space telescopes, or sparrows chirping from the fence, I sure am glad of the little reminders to stop and say thanks. I hope you had a peaceful one, too. - Josh

Here comes Trouble. I snapped this photo in Roanoke on Friday, right before the series of interactions.