Hey Rockstars, 

So you all know I’m big on celestial events – eclipses, moons, stars, planets, etc. And you know I’m doing my physics mini series (though I think I should make it astronomy themed…)

So there are a few quotes that I can’t stop thinking about, so here goes. 

First, if someone were far enough away from Earth and somehow had a telescope powerful enough to see us, they would not see us as we are now. They might see Rome. They might see the Roman Empire at its height. Roads being built. Marble columns. Fires burning in windows. People falling in love, going to market, arguing, praying, writing letters, making dinner, looking up at the same sky from a world that feels ancient to us and immediate to them. They might see people falling in love under different constellations, someone lighting a candle two thousand years before I was born.

Space does this seemingly impossible thing where distance becomes time.

A light-year is not a measure of time, technically. It is a measure of distance: how far light travels in one year. But the effect is that the farther away something is, the older the light is by the time it reaches us. The sky is not a live feed. It is an archive. It is history arriving late, still glowing.

This means that if there were planets scattered through space, each one farther from Earth than the last, they would each see a different Earth at the same time. A planet 100 light-years away would see Earth from 100 years ago. A planet 500 light-years away would see Earth from 500 years ago. A planet 2,000 light-years away might see ancient Rome. Not because those worlds are looking into alternate universes, not because timelines split, not because science fiction suddenly became real, but because the light from each era is still traveling outward.

There is the Earth we are living on now, and then there are all the Earths still moving through space: Pangea Earth, Roman Earth, Renaissance Earth, Suffrage Movement Earth, childhood Earth, yesterday’s Earth. Not imaginary Earths, but actual historical Earths, carried outward by light. It almost feels like parallel universes all existing at the same time, but not in the sci-fi kind of way. More in the “I need to learn everything there is to know about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity” kind of way. The past is not gone. It is just farther away. 

Ever since I learned this last week, it’s been living rent free in my head. 

It’s funny because earlier today I was on the phone explaining how “sometimes it feels like I’m living in two time zones at the same time. Like I’ll look at the clock and think ‘okay, in the East Coast we are two hours ahead” but then I have to remind myself: “… no wait, I’m in the east coast, time is time.” It’s a weird thing that has been happening increasingly recently. But I don’t think it’s because I’m traveling so much these days, I think it’s that I genuinely feel like I’m racing against the clock at all times. 

I think that is why celestial facts feel so emotionally unreasonable. They are scientifically true, but they land in the body like a metaphor. Things like this make me feel small and enormous at the same time and remind you that what we see is not always what is, and what is gone is not always erased.

Second, let’s talk about Venus and Jupiter.

Sometimes they appear close together in the sky, two bright points of light beside each other like they are keeping each other company. From where we stand, they are two bright points of light, almost touching – like neighbors or companions, like two celestial bodies that found each other in the dark.

But in reality, they are hundreds of millions of miles apart.

What looks like closeness from Earth is actually perspective. A trick of our angle. A beautiful illusion. Venus and Jupiter are not actually next to each other, but for a moment, they look like they belong together. I love that more than I can explain.

I love that the universe lets us see closeness even if it’s not there. I love that something can be nowhere near you and still catch your eye. I love that two separate worlds can create beauty just by lining up from where you happen to be standing. It’s like the picture that Artemis showed of the Earth from the Moon. We never think about how the Moon sees the Earth – crescent sometimes, waning sometimes – the same way we see the Moon. 

It makes me think about how much of life is perspective. How often I mistake distance for absence, and how often we assume that if something is not next to us, it is not connected to us. But the sky keeps refusing to be that simple.

Third but definitely not to ever be forgotten, is Pluto.

My tiny, beloved, unfairly controversial Pluto. 

Pluto was discovered in 1930, but its orbit around the Sun takes about 248 years. That means Pluto has not completed a single full trip around the Sun since humans first found it. We found Pluto. Named it. Categorized it. Re-categorized it. Made jokes about it. Made it sentimental. Made it ours. And meanwhile, Pluto has just continued its long, quiet circle around the Sun, not even finished with the first lap we were here to witness.

There is something comforting about that. The universe is always reminding us that our timelines are not the only timelines. 

We want everything to happen quickly. I have expected timelines for events in my life – I tell myself “in three years, this is what my life is going to look like.” We want closure, proof, the answer, the text, the apology, the transformation, the surprise, the happy ending. We want to know what things mean while we are still standing in the middle of them.

But Pluto is still making its way around the Sun, starlight is still traveling, and the light from ancient Earth is still moving outward into space.

Maybe nothing is as immediate as it feels and nothing is as lost as it seems. Maybe every era leaves a trace. Maybe every version of the world keeps going somewhere, and maybe we do too. 

Maybe the versions of ourselves we think we have outgrown are not completely erased. Maybe they are still out there in some form, moving away from us, visible from a different distance.

This is the part that gets me most: the universe is full of old light. Stars we see as they were years ago. Galaxies we see as they were millions or billions of years ago. Planets that appear close but are unimaginably far apart. Worlds that keep orbiting long after we have decided what to call them. Everything in the sky is teaching us that reality is bigger than the moment we are in.

Maybe that is the lesson I want to take from the sky: we are always seeing only one angle of the truth. Somehow, instead of making me feel insignificant, this makes me feel held.

From somewhere else, Earth is still ancient Rome, history is still happening, and a version of the world we thought was gone is just now coming into view.

It’s wild, beautiful, generous, strange, and deeply unfair. 

Maybe that is why celestial facts feel less like facts and more like poetry that happens to be true.

And you know when Pluto will finish its first orbit? March 23, 2178. I’ll be long gone by then. But maybe someone with a powerful telescope will look back at Earth and see me through my window, the glow of the computer lighting my face, typing out this post.

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

Celebrate my 31st year around the sun with me! Click the follow or subscribe button to stay updated! You can also connect with me on twitter, my coffee and checkins Instagram, my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Amazon Music. Have a topic suggestion? Email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com! I’d love to hear from you!🙂❤