Exploring our Cosmos from Earth: The First Steps of a Great Journey
By Hani M Bathish It takes a native of a very small country with a very limiting and stifling medieval culture to truly appreciate the vastness of the Cosmos and value its ability to change perspectives and realign priorities… As the late Carl Sagan, astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and populiser of science, said in his ground breaking documentary Cosmos, looking at the Earth from orbit it is hard to see national or religious boundaries and you begin to realize that the planet is one organism and an organism at war with itself is doomed. At the time Cosmos was aired in the 1980s, the world was at serious risk of being destroyed by a full nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union, today, the threats to our world and our lives and those of our children hasn’t diminished but increased and multiplied. So, when your Earthly troubles get too much to bear and your outlook gets decidedly bleak and dark, like mine did, pack up your telescope in your old ki...