An Auspicious Happenstance

[crfriend]

Every once in a while, somebody gets lucky and captures something truly remarkable on film (or, today, in bits). Bits, of course, weren't practical a decent part of a century ago, so it was pretty much all done on film, or at least the high-resolution stuff was.

So it happened, by accident and not design, that mankind got its first view of its little spot in the universe on Christmas Eve in 1968:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-vOscpiNc

And what a tiny little blue dot it is in all that blackness!

What is it that drives us so to explore new things and to push boundaries? Would we be complete as human beings if we didn't? I will posit, "No" on the second question, and that pretty much answers the first one. Whether those boundaries have to do with our own passions or a push to discover new things about the universe around us, without the desire to stretch one's knowledge, sometimes merely for the satisfaction of curiosity, we'd be vastly poorer as a species.

Curiosity, it has been said, "killed the cat". What your parents never told you was the second part: "and satisfaction brought her back."

The satisfaction of knowing is enormous -- and it's only gained by pursuing curiosity.

[BobM]

Christmas Eve, 1968, the Barents sea, above 78 degrees North. We picked up part of the audio broadcast on the long wire.