(Science Week, day 7!)

Science Week ends with my deep appreciation for a kind of moment I've been lucky to have repeatedly this year. Thank you for joining me once again.

Five years ago, I wrote about taking a "walk through the solar system," where many of the planets were visible at different points and times along my hour-long, circular walk outlining the arbouretum.

This year, the planets' plane has been about vertical, and I've been able to view them by simply standing outside and looking up.

The start of January had been consistently overcast, but then (along with freezing temperatures), I began seeing a particularly bright Venus in the west, almost directly in front of a much more distant Saturn. Jupiter was above, and Mars was rising from the east, all without moonlight. Earth has been remarkably visible as well.

No special instruments are needed to see any of those, but Neptune was also near Venus, and Uranus was also near Jupiter, leaving only Mercury (and Pluto, if applicable) tucked beneath the horizon.

The aforementioned "walk" felt like a slow tour of time and space. But this convergence – being able to literally stand and see all these planets at once – imparted a rare feeling that the solar system, not just the Earth, is the solid ground we consider home. The incredible distances and sizes of our home planets are unintuitive and must be conveyed and learned, but following that learning with an experience like this does something to circle back and make them more intuitive.

It's incredible to live in a time when we know so much about our solar system, to continue to photograph it, to inspect and measure it, and, when we look up at those particular points of light on dark nights, to know what we're looking at.

🌎