Information Related to "An Incredible Universe"
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It
had been an extremely long day, and I was exhausted. I wanted nothing
more than to collapse into bed and dream for a few hours. However, on
that extremely cold night in November, I dragged myself and my reluctant
roommate out of our cozy dorm room. Armed with blankets, pillows and
about 12 layers of clothing apiece, we waddled out and made a nest in
the middle of the soccer field adjoining our dorm.
We
settled down to wait. It was late November, and, being a self-proclaimed
astronomy dork, I was excited: the Leonid meteor shower was to take place
that night—well, morning I should say, much to my sleepy roommate's
chagrin. My professor had reminded us of the event for weeks, but we
were probably the only college students on our campus actually willing
to brave the freezing temperatures to watch it, out of complete fascination
and curiosity or complete stupidity. Probably a combination. But there
we were, alone, waiting.
Payoff! The first meteor streaked across the sky, and my roommate and I cheered. This was followed by another ... and another ... and another. They were of assorted color, duration, and altitude, a variety I never knew existed. Dusty greens, fiery reds, golden hazes, bright whites ... I remember one shooting star that lasted seemingly forever, leaving a trail of sparkling gold dust behind it across the sky. They began to appear more quickly, and, invariably, the moment I would look away, my roommate would "ooo!" or "ahhh!" to announce the sighting of another. We lost count after the first 10 minutes and simply enjoyed the show.
A few hours after we had been out I remember lying there on the field, my eyes filled only with the night sky, I suddenly had a peculiar sensation. Instead of the usual feeling of being planted firmly on the ground with the heavens suspended above me, I had instead the dizzying sensation that I was simply suspended in the middle of that sky, in the midst of the stars, as I truly am. After all, I am resting on the earth, but the earth is resting on ... nothing.
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