While taking a look into the past of the universe, I saw a glimpse of our future.
Stargazing has always been a subtle hobby in my life. I loved my rural American upbringing free of city lights so I could see the stars clearly each night. I wrote a blog back on Leg 5 as we crossed back into the Northern Hemisphere detailing when my familiar constellations became visible again and I instantly felt closer to home despite being thousands of miles away still.
As I was trimming our spinnaker, I felt a new familiar as I was looking beyond our kite to the stars and saw the Southern Cross once again. I didn’t believe it at first because I thought we needed to be closer to the equator to see it. When I first announced it, I said it with hesitation, “I think that is the Southern Cross on the horizon just behind the kite.” Out came the apps to confirm my findings. A short while later we gybed. I felt an odd sense of perfection as Ursa Major, Ursa Minor (and Polaris) were to our port side, and directly across from them to our starboard side was the Southern Cross.
This perfect moment was disrupted a short while later by a stream of recognizable satellites travelling across the sky above us. The more we looked the more satellites appeared travelling in all directions.
I have loved all the stargazing I have had the opportunity to experience the last eight months. When stargazing, we have discussed that we are looking back in time. The light from these stars has travelled light years from their origin to reach us. That star we are viewing could be gone by now but the light or lack of light from that event hasn’t reached us yet. We are not viewing these cosmic events in real-time but with a hundred(s) of light years delay. We are looking into the past of our universe. But as we looked up and saw satellites scatter our night sky, I realized that this is our future. The stars will be shadowed by the new light pollution not born of cities but by our projectiles orbiting Earth.