An Astrophysicist's Viewpoint

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Some people say, Why are you so into this?

Do you really want to realize your own insignificance?

Do you really want to think about how miniscule you are

amongst this gigantic sea of galaxies and stars?

Do you want to understand that your life’s just a blink,

That your past, present, future’s so much shorter than you think—

That your love for your sister, your mom and your dad

Is as fleeting as a quarter-page newspaper ad?

 

I shake my head sadly, say You’ve got it all wrong.

Your problem is the ego you’ve been clutching all along.

Astronomy is letting go of thinking that you’re big,

that the universe knows who you are, or what you did.

Once you understand your smallness, you move on to bigger things

and begin to understand the beauty that space brings.

 

Seeing vast distances we cannot understand,

Theorizing ‘bout strange laws, in even stranger lands.

Relatively, time can be different to every man

The faster we go, the slower the second hand.

Galaxies and nebulae and stars shining bright,

temperatures past 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit—

All of it’s incredible, no matter dark or light,

And there’s so much more than what you see in the sky at night.

 

Mass and energy are not destroyed nor created,

so, in truth, your body is incredibly outdated:

you’re formed from molecules from really old stars

or dust from other galaxies, near or far.

We’re all made up of particles from different places,

And right now, the energy from previous faces

flows through us. Now isn’t that breathtaking?

We’re all interconnected, even more than we think.

 

Energy and mass are not created or destroyed,

so once you die, your body doesn’t go into some void:

You’ll decompose, and then your molecules will go

into new creations, future life and future souls.

You’ll exist forever, just in a different state,

and your energy will play a part in someone else’s fate.

So if you deeply look into the universe and time,

Astrophysics gives you hope that is truly divine.

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