Even in the most light-soaked cities, at night we still lift our eyes to the sky. The earliest people made art looking to the cosmos, and no scientific knowledge since has diminished the mystery, the urge to gaze on those beacons in the darkness. It’s wonderful how the stars are still wonderful to us, knowing—but not comprehending, not really—the distances their lights have traveled to arrive to us, easing our loneliness and inspiring our awe. In an unfathomably vast supersystem, the stars emanate their light, connecting each other and us in the great celestial conversation: I am here.

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