How I wonder what you are

 

This week we have been blessed with the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. I say blessed because for those of who are not astronomers it is only intermittently that our attention is drawn away from the day to day to deep space, what our ancestors would have called the heavens. When we see such images it is hard to escape the feeling that they serve as some kind of benediction from the unknown and unseen. 

Of all events in history that I would have liked to have lived through the moon landing comes at the top of the list. Of course it was an American achievement and it occurred as a prestige event in the Space Race against their sworn foes the USSR. But the fact that it was the Stars & Stripes that was planted on the moon's surface was irrelevant. This was an achievement for and by all humankind. Everybody everywhere connected in a moment of wonder that we had transcended our planet's limits.

Many people are highly proficient at describing, exploring and understanding human instincts, motives, urges and actions. I reserve my highest admiration for those that try to understand and communicate that which is not human. How and when the universe began. That is an endeavour of such unfathomable complexity to me, and I am sure to many others, that I feel there is something almost heroic about those that try.

There is much yet to be understood and discovered on our own planet but its age of exploration feels a thing of the past. Even though parts of the world remain remote and inhospitable there is not the sense of inaccessibility that for the vast majority of human history represented the limit of mankind's ambition.

I have written before about how much I want to nurture and inculcate a sense of wonder in my children because wonder for me represents the antidote to so many modern ills. The narrowness of perception, experience and ambition that is brought about by social me-me-media is completely exploded by a visual reminder of the almost limitless nature of the universe.

I hope against hope that the cultural hegemony exerted by the super-hero movies of the last couple of decades may finally be coming to an end when the people that should properly be celebrated on the big screen are those testing the absolute limits of human ingenuity and technology. For me there is nothing wondrous about super powers but there is everything wondrous about striving to see the beginning of time armed only with what our brains and hands can conceive and create.

The other thing that I find profoundly moving about innovations like the Space Telescope is acknowledging the phenomenal amount of collaboration and teamwork required to make them happen. We are so used to thinking of teamwork in the context of opposition. Soldiers fighting against an enemy. Sportsmen seeking to defeat their opponents. Companies trying to outperform their competitors. Strong ties are forged in all those circumstances. But the purity of teamwork in the name of science is something truly inspiring and humbling. A common goal which is not victory against other humans but victory for all humans.

I know I will do a terrible job of explaining to my sons what the image above shows but I hope at the very least I can communicate to them that this is what happens when human beings come together in connection, in wonder and in furtherance of the eternal desire to know.