The Sky is Falling

Imagine.... midnight at the age of 13.... you should be in bed, no?  Well, not exactly.  Once a year, the earth gets the see one heck of a spectacular event in a meteor shower.  Something my family wouldn't miss and has loved; us being the Astronomers that we are and everything.   When I was a child,  my mother would bring out blankets, sleeping bags, lawn chairs, hot chocolate and a table for us to sit on our front lawn and watch the sky fall.  When most people are asleep or engaged in their life that they forget to look up and marvel at what is beyond our on world; we stop and take one night a year to marvel at it.  As I grew, I became more interested in the cosmos; became a HUGE fan of SyFy (Stargate Atlantis anyone?) and tried to learn whatever I could about what is beyond the stars.  In fact, my five year old son knows the solar system better than most adults, being able to name the planets, in line from the sun to Pluto (well, I STILL like to think Pluto is a planet even though it's been declassified; thanks Neil DeGrass Tyson).  My son has books upon books about our Earth and Universe.  These books are not for kids. They're books that Adults use to learn about the solar system yet he shares in his mothers enthusiasm with the Stars.

This week was this years annual meteor shower.  To take place just before dawn, 4 am couldn't have come quicker for me.  Up and at 'em!  I was up, dressed, in my comfy rob and outside I went.  I was alone this year; it was cloudy and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to see anything and then I started to see little parts here and there coming into the atmosphere and my eyes lit up like a little girl on her 4th birthday!!  Into the house I went and got my mother.  She and I then grabbed our lawn chairs and sat outside until the Sun rose up in the east to watch what little of the meteor shower we could see from behind the clouds.  I was a bit disappointed in this years shower, but I am still happy I was up to keeping the traditions and my interest in the mysterious galaxy that surrounds our world.  Perhaps one day, we'll have that chance to travel outside it and see just what lies beyond us instead of just watching the sky fall.