There’s an odd, reality-altering sensation that occurs when one is positioned in a place that doesn’t have a definitive purpose outside of it’s relationship to a following action. Airports, parking lots, and waiting rooms are a few examples of these places called “liminal spaces”. Because they lack familiar context, our brains deem them dangerous. Knowing otherwise, we’re left with a feeling of curious wariness and expectant unease. This rush of adrenaline and abruption of butterflies is what I experience when I look up into the night sky.
My first experience with this sensation took place at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum in Ashland, Nebraska. I had visited the museum before in childhood field trips, but was never able to linger as long as I desired. For my 10th birthday, I asked to spend the day among the rockets and explore to my heart’s content. …show more content…
I remember wandering away from the other children, who had crowded around an interactive animation, and examining the images that littered the display walls. Midway through my search, I came across a dull image that changed the way I thought about our world and the universe as a whole. The picture appeared to be one of stars and was no show-stopper visually, but after a glance at it’s caption, I was breathlessly frozen to the spot.
It was called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It’s hundreds of scattered light blobs appeared drab at first glance because the wispy spirals or vivid colors one would expect when viewing a galaxy were no where to be found. Instead, this picture acquired its superiority through explanation; that was part of the reason I fell so in love with it. Each speck of light, large or insignificantly small, was a galaxy richer and more immense than any stretch of land any human (let alone, a young girl) could ever begin to
My first experience with this sensation took place at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum in Ashland, Nebraska. I had visited the museum before in childhood field trips, but was never able to linger as long as I desired. For my 10th birthday, I asked to spend the day among the rockets and explore to my heart’s content. …show more content…
I remember wandering away from the other children, who had crowded around an interactive animation, and examining the images that littered the display walls. Midway through my search, I came across a dull image that changed the way I thought about our world and the universe as a whole. The picture appeared to be one of stars and was no show-stopper visually, but after a glance at it’s caption, I was breathlessly frozen to the spot.
It was called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It’s hundreds of scattered light blobs appeared drab at first glance because the wispy spirals or vivid colors one would expect when viewing a galaxy were no where to be found. Instead, this picture acquired its superiority through explanation; that was part of the reason I fell so in love with it. Each speck of light, large or insignificantly small, was a galaxy richer and more immense than any stretch of land any human (let alone, a young girl) could ever begin to