Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Heavens

The image of God manifest in man's ingenuity, makes images and accomplishments such as these aaccessible! The first 2 photos are from Endeavor's most recent launch:

These next images were featured this month at NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" site and they add significance to the following passage from C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet:

Ransom became aware of another and more spiritual cause for his progressive lightening and exultation of heart. A nightmare, long engendered in the modern mind by the mythology that follows in the wake of science, was falling off him. He had read of "Space": at the back of his thinking for years had lurked the dismal fancy of the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness which was supposed to separate the worlds. He had not known how much it affected him till now - now the very name "Space" seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam....No: space was the wrong name. Older thinkers had been wiser when they named it simply "the Heavens."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In that case, you may appreciate some similar (but not quite as startling) images set and sung (by King's College Boys' Choir) to Fauré's "In Paradisum" (from his "Requiem") at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82L8AaqA-Dc