Outer Space

Do you ever feel like you just are not that smart?

Last night I went to a lecture at the University of Utah about "The Search for Earth-like Planets Around Other Stars." It was given by Ronald Walsworth, who is the Senior Physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

I was a little apprehensive about going. Especially with really smart people that actually know words or phrases like "16 Cygni B" or "hot planet" or "5jun" or "nuclear fission" or "femtosecond." Those things are just not in my vocabulary. If I come across stuff like that in a book, I just skip until I find familiar words and make up the rest in my head.

Ron did a fabulous job communicating and presenting on this subject. I was in awe. That is true genius, to make things so complex seem so understandable to the weak ones. Basically, there are planets out there in space, and the Kepler telescope is taking pictures. But in order to get better pictures, they invented the "astro-comb" that takes a lot of interference out of the pictures, cleans it up. And from there, they are trying to find planets that have similar properties to Earth. Obviously, the big planets, or gas-giants are found first because of sheer size, and that's important, because if there's a big planet, there might be a smaller planet nearby, like in our solar system.

That is just skimming the surface I'm sure of what he was really talking about. That's what I caught. I'm amazed that there are laws that these Scientists trust and believe in to find greater things out there. Gravity, biochemistry, orbits, etc. Scientific laws are unchanged throughout the galaxies. There really are patterns to things. All things denote there is a God.

I have a lot to learn. I feel like I live far below my privilege or brain capacity.