The Birth of a Meme

Unsatisfied.
One huge entity (or series of entities, depending on how you look at it) that I've always had issues with is the media. Now I'm not talking sitcoms or cartoon shows or your average rock and roll band; those have their own role in the mess that we call the world. I'm meaning the mass of information that we feed to the public through television shows such as daily news broadcasts, talk shows, "reality t.v." and the like. Not only are there ridiculous political and religious biases engraved in these shows, but the severe lack of properly presented information is sickening.

A perfect example of this is Ancient Aliens, a television series intended to present theories regarding our very distant ancestry interacting with aliens. When I first heard about it, I thought it was just a two-part documentary explaining some newly uncovered facts about ancient civilizations. I'll admit - I was very intrigued by this. I mean, what if thousands of years ago alien civilizations visited Earth, maybe even frequently? Who wouldn't be interested in hearing about those possibilities?


Are You Sirius???
Alas, I was deceived by the media's work-up of this show. What I hoped would be an interesting, factual and plausible documentary was actually a misguided wreck of pseudoscience. Granted the ideas were interesting, they are so far-fetched and lacking in evidence that the show has quickly became a laughing-stock. The overall theme of the series is that we can not fathom the ancient civilizations being smart or strong enough to have built the wondrous structures that they did, and therefore they must have had help from some sort of extraterrestrial, thus giving birth to the internet meme "Aliens!" featuring Giorgio Tsoukalos, the show's primary speaker:

The results of ongoing research behind these theories in no way supports them; the so-called evidence is simply a creative way of linking many of the ancient artifacts together. It's quite similar to the old days when it was publicly accepted that the Earth was the center of the universe. People really didn't know what to think so they simply decided, "We're awesome, there's nothing else like us out there so the world must revolve around us!" In this situation, however, we're making up stories about our ancient ancestors and saying, "We really don't know how they did any of it, but we used to be very stupid so aliens must have helped us!" The biggest difference is there was some logic behind the Earth being the center of the universe - that the sun and moon rose and set, along with the celestial bodies - while ancient aliens is a complete failure.

The Beginning

I was very fortunate growing up. While I had few friends and spent little time socializing, I had something most others don't. I had a crystal clear image of the night sky. I lived in the mountains above the smog from the nearby cities, far enough out to have little effect from light pollution. The air was cool and crisp, there was no such thing as a noisy neighbor or the unsettling whir of traffic and on an average night one could look up and see thousands of stars, and often the faint halo of the Milky Way.

This is a fairly accurate depiction of the night sky where I grew up. The clarity and tranquility was truly phenomenal.

This is my favorite place in the world: beneath the black-velvet sky, illuminated by the brilliance of the cosmos. When I was younger, I often found myself intimidated by the depth and infinite possibilities beyond the comfort of our planet and I'd sit there, in my precious scene, half in terror because of the mysterious world of which we are only a speck. As I grew older I slowly watched my peace of mind vanish as a flood of people gradually concealed the sky with their unnecessary lights. Now, the velvety mystery looks more like this: flat, boring, and unsatisfactory.

Astronomy
It wasn't until my sophomore year of high school when my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of science. I took my first physics class with a retired astronomer. Even celebrating his seventh decade, he still had more passion, motivation and desire for physics and astronomy than any person I had ever met. To top it off, every topic we covered in the class was useful and relevant, unlike the boring and repetitive history, English, and art classes we were forced to take. It was then that I learned of Astronomy and began to pursue further education.

An Astronomer's Role
Since then, I have learned countless things about astronomy and I now know just how vital it is. Astronomers examine stars, distant planets, galaxies, galactic dust, black holes and much, much more. They seek to expand our knowledge of the universe and enable us to accomplish many great things and answer numerous questions. Constantly astronomers work to clarify our understanding of the world both at home and beyond our planet.

Astronomers are the pioneers of the next frontier; they are the source of guidance to the next human accomplishment. They will lead the human race beyond the Earth and Sun to begin our incredible journey through the universe, and it all starts here with the careful collection and analysis of data.

What I speak of sounds a lot like a science-fiction fantasy, but I believe that with the right motivation and enough dedication our many-greats grandchildren will be among the first to step foot on a planet outside of our solar system.

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I highly suggest using Chrome, Safari, or Firefox to view this blog. Not only is Internet Explorer a buggy, outdated web browser, but it is also incapable of properly displaying this blog. Also, please note that the mobile version of the blog looks significantly different from the PC version.

Thank you in advance!

Moon Pic! (test post)

This is just a test post... So I hope you enjoy sunrise on the moon.