The Japanese space agency JAXA is planning a mission to fly by the asteroid 3200 Phaeton in the year 2030 and, ideally, collect some samples from the special rock floating through space. The Phaeton circles the sun roughly every 18 months and, for several days each December, crosses paths with Earth’s orbit. During this time, an intense meteor shower, the Geminids, can be observed with the naked eye.
Yesterday, a friend showed me pictures of the Geminids. Last year, he and another friend went shooting star–watching. They picked one of the least cloudy spots in Germany, the Sylvenstein Lake, set up camp at 11 PM in mid-December, and waited. The ended up seeing two to three meteors every minute, and even on a dimly lit screen, the still frames of the event are a spectacle to look at.
On the way home, I summarized what I had learned for myself in my head. I could barely believe it. There’s a rock flying through the space on the exact right path to reliably show up in our sky once a year. It is circled by other rocks, some of which always fall down as it passes, burning up in our atmosphere, creating a show of stars raining from the sky. On a cloudless night, in the right spot, we can simply stand outside and see it with our bare eyes. We can even capture the visual in a device millions of times more powerful than the rocket which took the first man to the moon. And yet, at the same time, we still struggle to send a vehicle to the source of this miracle nearly 60 years later.
We live in a world of endless wonder. If meteors on schedule won’t convince you, I’m not sure what will—but I do hope you’ll find and remember it.
