one little thing
One recent morning, I awoke determined to do something positive with the day. The world is a shitshow garbage fire, worsening by the hour. External and internal factors seem to be getting more challenging, too. But I knew I could do one small thing, one tiny thing, to make the world a slightly better place.
A basil plant I’d bought earlier sat waiting on the catio. So I potted it. And I felt a little better.
Since then, I’ve started a few mornings trying to identify one small task I could accomplish that day, for the same purpose: to bring myself some relief while making a minute improvement to my surroundings. This has largely involved activities like making a healthy homemade soup for me and my partner, M; offering stalks from our abundant rhubarb plant to a neighbor; and buying a surprise chocolate bar for the cashier at Trader Joe’s.
But it has also come in the form of answering astronomy questions.
I was sitting at home when I got a text message from M:
“Jen, Kathy* just asked me an astronomy-related question. Does everyone on the Earth see the full moon on the same or consecutive nights? Since the Moon is tidally locked in its orbit around the Earth and we only see the light side, I assumed everyone would.”
[*Name changed]
This made my night. I hadn’t been feeling so great, but one of our neighbors wanted to know more about the Moon. It was a simple question from a single individual, but I suspected it belied a deeper curiosity.
I’ve been wanting to do more hyperlocal astronomy outreach in my neighborhood. There’s a local park that offers decent clearance in most directions, despite the light pollution. But it’s difficult to schedule nights of stargazing far in advance. Even in summer months when the weather is more reliable, there’s a go/no-go call mere hours before our meeting time, and that doesn’t work for everyone. Similarly, those summer gatherings don’t start until quite late, due to the long days here in the Pacific Northwest.
NASA astronaut and Artemis II Mission Specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft’s main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels toward the Moon.
The most successful neighborhood star party I’ve run was an evening of lunar observation, for which total darkness wasn’t required. It was a delight to pass around a few pairs of binoculars and show the neighbors — especially the kids — views of the Moon through my Dwarf 3 telescope. I particularly loved the questions I couldn’t answer, because it meant we got to find out together.
“Yes,” I texted back to M and Kathy in the shared text thread. “There’s no light side and dark side. It’s near side and far side. We just never see the far side, unless we send a spacecraft to orbit the Moon.”
Kathy and I then started chatting about the Artemis II lunar flyby, and I sent her the link to NASA’s Artemis II multimedia page. Her reply made me laugh out loud: “I’m developing a more personal relationship with the moon so I can’t wait to see her backside.”
Some days, my small effort to make the world a little better might be potting some herbs. Other days, I can show one person the Moon or invite a neighbor to look up at the sky.
To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, if that isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.
All content is free for everyone. Subscribe for free on Patreon! You can also support my work with a paid member tier, or buy me a tea. Thanks!
IMAGES
1. The Edge of Darkness, by NASA / Artemis II
As the Artemis II crew flew over the terminator, the astronauts described this boundary between day and night as “anything but a straight line.” Crater rims along the terminator stand out as “islands” in the night. Giant chains of craters emanating from the 3.7-billion-year-old Orientale basin can be seen scouring the surface, stretching almost to the terminator. This tells a geologic story: these crater chains produced by the Orientale impact event mar the surface of the relatively flat Hertzsprung Basin (center of this image), which means that Hertzsprung Basin must be even older than Orientale!
2. Spaceship Earth, by NASA / Artemis II
NASA astronaut and Artemis II Mission Specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft’s main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels toward the Moon.