It Just Makes Sense

“I wonder how much trouble you get in for busting a worldgate.” // “How can I save her?”

A mix for Kit Rodriguez: Loyalty, Bravery, Empathy incarnate. He will cross time, space, and neighborhoods for those he loves and those he must protect.

 Titanium by David Guetta // Sugar, We’re Going Down by Fall Out Boy // The Cave by Mumford and Sons // Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon // Boys Are Back in Town by The Hitters // and ten others

Listen  (15 tracks, 55 mins)

White dwarfs polluted with planetary debris

The Hubble Space Telescope has found chemical evidence for the building blocks for rocky planets in an extremely unusual place: the atmospheres of two burned-out stars. Called white dwarfs, these stars are small, dim shadows of stars that would have once been like our sun, and they reside 150 light-years from Earth in the young star cluster of Hyades. Hubble’s spectroscopic observations identified silicon and low levels of carbon, both of which are strong indicators of a rocky material similar to that which makes up Earth. “When these stars were born, they built planets,” said Jay Farihi, lead author of the study, “and there’s a good chance they currently retain some of them… Based on the silicon-to-carbon ratio in our study, we can actually say that this material is basically Earth-like.” The material is thought to have ended up in the atmosphere of these stars after they collapsed into white dwarfs, and the larger planets in their solar system nudged asteroids into star-grazing orbits. The stars’ gravitational pull tore the asteroids apart, and the pulverised debris fell into a ring around the white dwarfs and were eventually funnelled inwards to pollute the stars themselves. The discovery suggests that rocky planets may commonly assemble around stars, and may help us to understand what will happen to our solar system in five billion years, when our own sun burns out.

Ocean Ramsey and her team encountered this 20 ft Great White Shark near the island of Oahu, Hawaii. It is believed to be the biggest ever recorded

Astronaut tweets

NGC 4725, NGC 4747, and NGC 4712

see, the thing about the young wizards series is

the thing about diane duane is

she infuses everything with so much life. she gives everything thoughts and feelings and personality. she makes you care about them, makes them matter. from grass chorusing “grow grow grow” to planets explaining how they show affection towards fellow celestial bodies by resonating

it’s beautiful, and it’s vital in the truest sense of the word. and I love it. it’s important on a level that I can’t even fully comprehend. it’s almost spiritual

I never thought of myself as a spiritual person, never felt moved by something larger than me. but the things I’ve read about in this series? the intention and compassion and wonder for all things

that’s something I can believe in

Orbital Mechanics by Tatiana Plakhova 

What is an Ocean but a Multitude of Drops?

I’ve been pondering the recurring notion in Young Wizards—introduced in the first book—that “even…unmagical-seeming actions” have importance in the fight against entropy. Whether it’s turning the lights off when one leaves a room, having a kind word for someone in need of encouragement, or just using the bus for transport to an alien mall crawl (“Wizards are supposed to use public transport—it’s ecologically sound!”), these little choices are no less important than galaxy-spanning fights with the Lone Power. And indeed, it’s often the little things—like Nita’s space pen or Ponch’s squirrels—that make the big victories possible.

It’s a concept that recurs in several of my other favorite works of fiction, as well. Rory’s father, Brian, from the most recent season of Doctor Who springs immediately to mind. A down-to-earth sort, Brian spends his screentime changing lightbulbs, carefully watching alien artifacts for days on end, and throwing golf balls for nearby dinosaurs to play fetch with. Unlike most of the Doctor’s associates, he doesn’t progress from these humble beginnings into something “remarkable”—he never becomes immortal or the Bad Wolf or anything like that. But instead, his very mundane habits are exactly what’s needed to save the world on multiple occasions. And when the Doctor offers to let him travel across time and space full-time, his response is simply, “Somebody’s got to water the plants.”

I bring this up because it’s a rather uncommon line of thought, on the whole. Far more common is the desire to change oneself, to journey forth from humble origins and grow into something great, to leave a mark on the world. But examples like the ones I mentioned above suggest that perhaps we’re not on the way to doing something remarkable—we already are, from one day to the next.

In the final lines of Cloud Atlas, both the book and the film (I heartily recommend either, incidentally), one of the protagonists ponders the notion that his efforts to change the world only amount to “a single drop in a limitless ocean.”

"But what is an ocean," he concludes, "but a multitude of drops?"

The same, I think, applies to all of us. We may not all be heroes or luminaries who command the destinies of millions, but within the smaller confines of our individual lives, every choice we embark upon makes a difference. And ultimately, the whole of human history is comprised of nothing else but people making decisions, many of them seemingly unimportant, one day at a time. Taken all together, though, it adds up to something remarkable. No man is an island, and every rock idly tossed into a pond produces ripples.

It’s both encouraging and terrifying to think about.