Are there any interplanetary or cosmic events, that have a sensory or emotional effect on you?

Just looking at the stars on a dark night affects me. I like to think that everyone I know that has died is one of those stars.

When the moon is full, or a slender crescent, or just the merest wisp, i want to stop and give it a long, thoughtful look. There’s something poignant about it, even mystical.

When it appears caught among spooky clouds, I stop and look then, too. It seems mysterious. I also can’t help thinking sometimes of the Alfred Noyes poem.

I try to imagine how the night sky phenomena looked to our ancient ancestors, before anyone understood them. A dark starry night, an eclipse, a bright planet, a comet: they all seem magical, almost in a shivery way. They’ve inspired so many thrilling stories over the ages.

Every time the planet turns away from the sun, it gets a bit harder to see.

I saw a comet once. It hung unmoving in the dark sky with its long-curved tail. It was a thing of wonder but it made me feel unsettled as if it was an omen, which perhaps it was.

I am often moved by cosmic events. They fill me with wonder and awe. I will go out of my way to view them; in July of 2020 I drove a hundred miles to a “dark place” to see the NEOWISE comet.

And, I like going to dark places for meteor showers.

I am planning on being in upstate New York for the next total solar eclipse visible from the US.

For me it’s simply the mind boggling wonder and majesty of it all. The entire gravity driven show that just piles up sizzling creations defining our existence. Photons for which the time beteween the birth and death of the universe is instantaneous. Magnetars, black holes, neutron stars, it’s a never ending carnival of wonders. I envy those who will one day travel to the front row seats.

No, the Cosmos is far beyond control of mortals. I just have to roll with the flow.

This extrasolar meteor made an impression on me today.

Solar eclipses leave me in awe.