From our Spring 2015 issue. Subscribe here to have the next 4 issues delivered.
NASA granted permission to feel like your problems are very small and easy to let go of this January by releasing the largest photograph ever taken. The 1.5 billion pixel image is of the Andromeda galaxy, our closest galactic neighbour.
YouTube user daveachuk created a video (watch below) from the image that takes you deep into and across the galaxy, eventually pulling back to reveal it in its entirety, its place in relation to Earth, and finally its place within the night sky as we see it. Similar to the Pale Blue Dot speech by Carl Sagan, which appeared in the 2014, TV show ‘Cosmos a Space Time Odyssey’, NASA’s image is not only visually captivating and blissfully glittery, but expansive and inspiring, taking us on a journey through our very real and beautiful heavens.
I don’t know about you but it makes me less worried about deadlines or whether I ate the right food or not today, and more concerned with this tiny gem we live on and our very simple, basic responsibility to look after it and each other. In a universe so big and bold and gorgeous and breathtaking, what could be more important than making sure we take care of all its ingredients? Turn off lights you don’t need, walk to work, take the time to be lovely to someone and smile, because somewhere in a galaxy a scrillion light years away, someone might be taking our photo this very second too.
