Melody Tsur
Dakota, Earth
March 19th, 2142
”Just about each one you can see is as big as the sun. Plenty are actually bigger. They just look small because they’re sooooo far away.”
I watch Toby’s eyes widen at the idea of other stellar bodies. He’d been taking a keen interest in the night sky recently, so I figured I’d take him to the observatory tonight and put some of my allotted personal telescope time to good use.
After all, what’s the point of being head astrophysicist if you don’t get to spread the wonder?
”Does that mean…” I can almost see him processing the information in real time. He makes connections faster than I can keep up with sometimes, “does all of em have Earths too?”
I chuckle internally, we might need to work on his grammar though.
”They all have other planets, yes. Mostly. Not other Earth’s though. So far, we’re the only spaceball with people on it.”
He giggles at ‘spaceball’ and moved to look through the telescope again.
”How many is there?” He asks.
”It’s ‘how many are there’, and I was hoping you’d ask that. C’mere.” I say, taking his hand. I place a marble in his palm. “Imagine this is the sun, ok?”
He held it up to his face and thought for a moment before pointing at the wall, “That means Earth is like that far away, right?”
I grin, “Very good! I should have known you absorbed the scale so quickly! Now. Think about the other stars. They’re so far away they look like just a little dot. They’re way way way farther from the sun than we are. Where do you think they would be at this scale?” I ask, pointing to the marble.
He stares at the marble and mumbles a little before guessing, “Home?"
"Further."
"Oh… Daddy’s lab?”
I smile and shake my head, “Further.”
He thought long and hard this time, furrowing his little brow and staring intently at the marble.
”The old border!” he stated with confidence.
”Try the west coast,” I retort with a smirk.
His jaw drops, “But that’s so far!” He exclaims in that special amazed way only seven-year-olds can.
”And that’s just the closest system. The Milky Way alone has billions of stars in it.”
Now the gears are turning. His eyes flick back and forth between the marble, the wall, me, the telescope, the open roof.
”Milky Way… Is a galaxy… Stars live in galaxies. Mommy, are the other galaxies also billion-big star houses!?” He yells, adorably putting his hand to his forehead just like his father does at a new revelation.
I smile and nod at him as he puts his eye back up to the telescope, “There’s a lot out there. I hope you can see why I like looking at all of it so much."
"Yeah… Can we go to this one?”
I’m caught a bit off guard, “What?”
He gestures for me to look through the telescope, “Can we go to this one? I sawed it on your papers one time.”
I check the lens, and apparently he had somehow repositioned the whole array without my noticing. Now it’s focused on the Andromeda Galaxy.
”How did you know how to enter the coordinates?"
"You do it all the time. And your paper said Andromeda is at these numbers at 8:00 and it’s 7:58 so moved it some extra this way.”
I can only laugh at this point, “You little Einstein. One of these days you’ll put me out of a job.”
He just giggles and looks back into the viewport, “So, can we go?"
"Sorry buddy, not even light can get there within a lifetime."
"Then I just have to make a spaceship that goes faster, right? Then I can get there whenever I want!”
I watch him fine-tune the settings and ruffle his hair, “If anyone could, Toby.”