Step outside beneath a clear night sky and look towards the stars. What you are seeing is not actually the universe as it exists at this exact moment.
You are looking into the past.
Light requires time to travel across space. Even sunlight takes roughly eight minutes to reach Earth, while the light from distant stars may have travelled for decades, centuries or considerably longer before finally reaching our eyes.
Some galaxies reveal the universe as it existed millions or even billions of years ago.
There is something humbling about that thought.
A photon can travel across an unimaginable distance through the darkness of space before eventually entering a telescope or reaching the human eye. For one brief moment, we become witnesses to an event that happened long before we looked upward.
On this Blessed Sunday, perhaps spend a few minutes beneath the stars.
Consider the distances involved, the immense history contained within that light and our tiny place within such an extraordinary universe.
Astronomy constantly reminds us that the night sky is more than something beautiful above us.
It is an ancient story written in light, and every clear night gives us another opportunity to read it.
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