Expecting the Unexpected

6/4/06 – 6/10/06

by C. Zaitz

Have you ever had those nights when you wake up for no apparent reason? I had one the other night, though I have my suspicions about certain pets helping me to consciousness. Once I was up, I wandered outside. The stars were magnificent. I sighed out a breath in awe. The Milky Way sparkled overhead, framed by the three bright stars of the Summer Triangle. Arcturus shone its bright orange light to the west.

I’ve seen this scene a hundred times before. Ever since I learned to recognize the constellations, I’ve known the summer sky. So what drew me out at 3 am to see it? It was the prospect of seeing something I hadn’t seen before. There’s so much to look at; the more you stare, the more you see. The summer sky is much richer than the sky at any other season because we are looking into the heart of the galaxy. Since we are about two thirds of the way from the center of the galaxy, we see the majority of stars as we look in toward the middle. They are so far away, however, that they look like a creamy, blurry swipe of light across the sky. There is also a lot of dust between stars which obscures part of the Milky Way, like dark islands in a sparkling river.

The more you look at the summer sky, the more your eyes play tricks on you. Sometimes I catch a streak of light out of the corner of my eye. Meteors are always an unexpected treat, especially when you happen to be looking at the right part of the sky to see them. The dazzling light is actually plasma, or hot glowing gas, created by the intense friction of falling space dust. The sun is made of plasma, as is lightning. Flames are not. Plasma is much hotter than a campfire; the stuff over which you toast your marshmallows is not in the same league as a plasma trail left by a meteor. It’s the plasma that allows a speck of dust from outer space to catch our eye.

Sometimes the steady motion of a satellite captures my attention as it tumbles across the sky. Invariably, I imagine that at any moment something completely bizarre and alien will come spiraling out of the heavens and prove once and for all that we are not alone. On any given night there are thousands of telescopes aimed at many places in the sky. If the galaxy was teaming with life, we probably would have seen it by now. I imagine aliens would be busily commuting from star to star, but we see no such traffic. Maybe the aliens are sneaky. Maybe they don't have lights on their spaceships.

So far I’ve never seen anything unusual or spooky, but the chance that it could happen, that some flying spaceship or spectacular fire ball could reveal itself to me, keeps me scanning the skies. I’m expecting the unexpected. That’s what draws me out at 3 am, and always has.

We may never find a flying saucer or glimpse an alien up close, but it never hurts to look, and you can watch Jupiter drift across your field of view all night long. If you see Venus in the East, you’ve stayed up all night and it’s time to go make the coffee.

Until next week, my friends, enjoy the view!