Subject: Re: When they landed, we sent our best to meet them.
Author:
Posted on: 2019-02-08 15:30:00 UTC
This is wonderful, thank you. I can’t quite put a finger on why, but something about it caught me in such a way that I genuinely spent five minutes or more just reading and rereading it. It’s... hopeful, maybe?
(Also, I love the government-mandated small talk. It’s perfect.)
I’ve lost the article that linked me to it, but have any of y’all seen the (relatively) recent photograph of the Andromeda galaxy from NASA? It’s stunning. It’s the sharpest ever image of the Andromeda galaxy, and if I remember correctly, it’s something like 1.5 BILLION pixels, so warning, this is not necessarily data- or mobile-friendly. You may need to wait for things to load every time you zoom in, but give it time - it’s absolutely worth it.
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/zoomable/
Personally, one of my favorite spots is the bright red dot at the very top edge, at about a quarter to a third of the way in from the top left corner.
Oh wow, this picture is absolutely stunning! I love space. I really like a relatively bright red dot more to the low right.
After all the government-mandated small-talk - you know, 'are your intentions hostile', 'will you trade us your spaceship', 'are you now or have you ever been a supporter of the Communist party' - one of the scientists piped up: "Where are you from?"
The alien spokesbeing pointed up at the night sky, picking out a hazy light. "We believe your people call our galaxy 'Andromeda'."
"We know that," the scientist said, "we've been tracking you." She reached into her bag and pulled out a roll of paper, black and speckled with gold and white. "I meant, which star?"
~hS
This is wonderful, thank you. I can’t quite put a finger on why, but something about it caught me in such a way that I genuinely spent five minutes or more just reading and rereading it. It’s... hopeful, maybe?
(Also, I love the government-mandated small talk. It’s perfect.)