Touched by the Stars

Something happens when I stand under a star-filled sky on clear winter nights.  I shrink and am but a miniscule dot in the view of Earth from space.  Such moments lead to thoughts on the meaning of life and to speculation about death and the hereafter.  For as long as humans have walked the earth, people the world over have looked up into the heavens in search of answers to where we as individuals fit into the cosmic scheme of things.  If nothing else, that question alone connects us.

Last week, I walked down our driveway lined with towering Douglas firs and Ponderosa pines to the road where I could study the night sky.  I was instantly invigorated by the cold night air.  Tipping my head back as far as I could without losing my balance, I saw bright planets and constellations of twinkling stars but could not find the green comet as it made its closest pass by Earth since the Stone Age. Still, I was greeted by Orion and the Big Dipper, as well as February’s aptly named Snow Moon.                                                                      

At that moment, I felt connected to stars that informed the ancient mariners and guided my father, a B-29 pilot, on dangerous night bombing missions over Japan in the final months of WWII.  Overhead, I detected a wink from the same moon studied by Sosigines of Alexandria—a Greek astronomer and mathematician who advised Julius Caesar regarding the Julian calendar that divided the year into twelve months and determined that the number of days in each month based on a calendar of 365 1/2 days.

That night I thought about Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) who was the first person in the world to discover a comet by telescope—Comet 1847-VI, also known as Miss Mitchell’s Comet—for which she was awarded a gold medal by King Frederick VI of Denmark.  Mitchell was the first woman to work as a professional astronomer in the U.S. and the first elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She taught astronomy at Vassar College and fought to be paid the same as her male colleagues.  She was an outspoken advocate for women in science, an abolitionist, and a suffragist.

A few years ago, I took a virtual journey of Earth seen from space using NASA images recorded at night.  I was knocked breathless by their beauty and message.  Scrolling eastward from high above North America, I was transported on cyber winds over the Atlantic, across Europe, across the entire Northern Hemisphere until I was back over North America where I started.  With a downward command on my computer keyboard, I then turn westward, circumnavigating the skies above the Southern Hemisphere. I was both awed and amazed by what the imagery’s light and dark spaces told me about our world.                                                

I saw sprawling conurbations that never sleep.  Deserts and forests as dark as the oceans.  In the central region of North America, the lights of small towns surrounded by dark spaces formed constellations as though they were part of heaven’s own reflection.  Each cluster of lights is a window on people and places separated spatially but connected by the rhythms of the seasons and the power of time.

Touched by the stars, I felt connected to the history and accomplishments of women in science who struggled to make a difference in our world by connecting us with the heavens.  Their brilliant minds helped guide the way to the moon and made it possible to see a comet with a telescope a century earlier. It is imperative we keep their stories alive.

On my quest to see the green comet in the night sky over the Sierra Foothills, I found myself instead thinking about Katherine Johnson (1918-2020)—the brilliant African American NASA mathematician who calculated the trajectory of the Apollo 11 space mission and lived to the age of 101.  She was one of the “hidden figures” of color who worked as human computers in America’s space program at NASA’s Langley Research Center in the 1960s.

Katherine Johnson receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama.

This February, Black History month, I will reread Margo Lee Shetterly’s historical narrative, Hidden Figures. The black women in Hidden Figures served as mathematicians, computers and engineers in the decades that followed when America was caught up in the race to the moon and space exploration. Shetterly’s book is the story of these women and men of color who participated in some of NASA’s greatest achievements while facing racial and gender challenges still festering in America today. 

Henceforth when I look up at a night sky and feel my face touched by the stars, Maria Mitchell and Katherine Johnson will stand out brilliantly among them.