I remember looking up at the sky when I was a kid and had no idea what the thousands of dots in the sky were. They looked like tiny pin pricks which showed bits of some holy daylight from beyond the otherwise dark night sky. And that was probably the beginning of a four-year old’s fascination for the night sky; the thousands of bright pinpricks –the twinkling little stars. For all of you out there, who feel or have felt even the tiniest of inklings of awe and wonder for the vast dark night sky at some point of time; I’m sure you have your own story to tell.
Throughout man’s existence on the planet, since the time of the early Neanderthal man, he has tried to explain what the sky, the pinpricks meant; what they implied. We had our share of men –astronomers and physicists who strived to solve the mysterious unexplained, right above them in the sky.
“Where does it come from? This quest, this need to solve life's mysteries, of the simplest of questions can never be answered. Perhaps we'd be better not looking at all, not delving, and not yearning. But that's not human nature, not the human heart. That is not why we are here.”
We will keep looking. We will keep searching for answers. We will always be awed by the mahakaash. We will keep looking at the constellations, the stars, the planets, the nebulae, the thousands of pinpricks and wonder. And be amazed now, tomorrow, for many many years to come.
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Men came and went. Theories came and went. Models of the Universe explaining why the night sky is the way it is, were given. Few of them accepted. Even they went. The only thing that stayed the way it was, was the sky and man’s fascination for the unexplained.
For the thousands of bright pinpricks in the sky...
-Pramit
