We’ve believed for years that there are planets outside our own solar system (science fiction writers have known it a lot longer than anyone else, wink.) Recently, scientists have been able to see Doppler and infrared images of some of those extra-solar planets, which was very exciting and made all the SF writers sit up a little straighter.
But we’ve never had an actual picture before.
Check it out — the first “show me” evidence of other worlds. Maybe I just haven’t had enough caffeine, but seeing these little planets busily spinning around their star makes me need to go off and wipe my eyes. I’ll never see those places for myself: but someday, someone will. And right this second, I feel amazingly connected to her, whoever she may be.
First of all, I just finished listening to your interview with Jim Fleming on NPR. It was enlightening, it was wonderful, and it was amazing to finally hear your voice. Do you sing soprano or alto? I know you love music and lyrics, so I assume, perhaps wrongly, that you sing, even if it’s only in the shower.
As to the astronomer’s discoveries, poets have always known that we cannot touch a flower without influencing a star, or that our many inner worlds are a clue to the multiplicity of other outer worlds. It’s amazing to actually have the pictures.
Christopher Paul Carey, P.J. Farmer expert, recalls that Fomalhaut was the setting for Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. LeGuin. I just checked, and he is correct. Rocannon’s World is Fomalhaut II. Oh to visit there.
Thanks, Barbara, I’m glad you enjoyed the interview. I do not sing well at all — my singing voice is thin and a bit flat — but when it’s there, it’s alto.
I did do several musicals in college that I really enjoyed — it turns out I am good in a chorus, because I don’t tend to flatten out when there are other voices to guide me, and I’m always enthusiastic about creating a “character presence” in a chorus (and when all the actors do that in a chorus situation, it makes the overall play experience a lot deeper for the audience).
Pierce, how cool about Rocannon’s World. There are so many places in books I yearn to visit.