Page 2 - MidWeek - Nov 3, 2021

2 MIDWEEK NOVEMBER 3, 2021
covered by Mauna Kea astronomers and its discovery has caused great joy. The gas planet (too many baked beans?) is 2.5 quadrillion miles away — which looks like this: 2,500,000,000,000,000.
I understand that I am mourning less for him than for my loss, but I still mourn.
Eh, you like go?
The comfort I have found has been remembering his joy
While some couples can’t agree on which way to sit- uate the toilet paper roll on the holder by their toilets, we’re darn sure about this new 2.5-million-year-old exoplanet. And how do we know it’s that old, give or take a few hundred thousand years? Apparently, it’s still radiating heat and light and well ... just trust us. While I find space and astronomy fascinating, I must admit that finding a new “thing” way, way out there sometimes leaves me mystified. After all, Columbia magazine re- ports that there are approximately 200 billion stars just in our galaxy alone. And there are an estimated 1 trillion exoplanets.
We celebrate beginnings
This past week, we lost a
Yes, discovery is cool, but I’m not sure we should party like it’s 1999 now that we found one of the trillion exoplanets. As scientists have actually seen just a few dozen exoplanets so far, we’ve got plenty of discovery possibilities to go. And don’t suggest that this finding might’ve simply been a Big Island gnat on the telescope. That would be cynical and astro-deflating.
Recognizing the circle of life in all we do helps us live life to its fullest.
KELLEY
In our insatiable quest to find out if we are, in fact, not alone in this universe, scientists are often wonderfully humble in admitting that they simply don’t know much about a lot of the things they spy on way, way out there. According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the lead as- tronomer on this study stated, “The process is very com- plex. We don’t understand most of it.” How refreshing. If only Congress would admit as much about most of the overstuffed bills that regularly befuddle them.
Arc Of Life
“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.” — Haruki Murakami
Birth, life, death: It’s a package deal. We should know we can’t have one without the others. After all, we practice that arc of beginning-middle-end in almost everything we do: watch a movie, take a drive, play a game, work a job, get a degree, adopt a pet, live a day. And everything around us — even the Earth, the sun, our solar system — is moving through that arc.
EAim For The Stars
Endings can be lovely — sunsets are beautiful, win- ning/losing games is exciting, musical codas are satisfying — and fearing the end of life is like going to see the latest blockbuster and spending the entire movie fretting over how it will end, so endings should not be fraught — and yet they are.
xoplanet 2M0437b. Does the name ring a bell? Well, it should. It’s the infant star of 2M0437. Maybe we can just call it “junior.” It was dis-
in living. The arc of his birth, life and death has reminded me of my own and that I, too, will die. But today, I am alive. His death was part of my life, and my charge remains to live as fully as I can: to give mourning its due, but also to enjoy every drive; fall in love with every book, movie and piece of music; to celebrate each and every day; and in the end, to embrace the sunset.
Dr. Ruth O. Bingham, a musicologist by trade, has retired from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa; she con- tinues to serve as music critic for the Honolulu Star-Adver- tiser.
Chasing The Light is pro- duced by Lynne Johnson and Robin Stephens Rohr.
and wrestle roller-coaster middles, but endings are a bit harder.
beloved pet. He had a won- derful life and was many years beyond old. We have known for some time that the end of his life was coming, and his dying was peaceful. It is not reasonable to wish for more. But reason has its limits, and for now, my heart aches.
It’s really cool when brilliant orbit oglers find things that may or may not be meaningful, and so rare to hear highly accomplished people regularly say, “beats me” when asked for details. While I’d prefer if more time was spent exploring ways to save this planet before it becomes an ex-planet (not to be confused with hazy ex- oplanets) or more money was spent exploring the barely understood ocean blue, kudos to UH stargazers for find- ing a semi-brand-spanking-new baby planet.
Think about it...
john@thinkaboutithawaii.com
LIGHT
with
Dr. Ruth O. Bingham
New Century Schoolbook bold (scaled H 73.6)