Star dreams

 

 

When I was young I was a gigantic science-fiction fan, having read almost every famous golden age author there was, including Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ray Bradbury.  At 12 I was convinced I wanted to be an astronomer.  In fact, if I had grown up in the US, say Massachusetts or Houston, instead of Hong Kong where there are no Astronomy courses, I might even be working for NASA today, who knows.

Funny how time and place make such a big difference in forming the paths we tread, which is exactly the point of Malcolm Gladwell’s new booking, Outliers. 

All this came back to me as I was playing with the Sky view in Google Earth today, revisiting all the familiar names that I grew up with. There was the Orion constellation, still the most easily identified in the summer/autumn sky, with the Horsehead Nebula, which you can’t really see with the naked eye.  Then there is the Pleiades cluster of stars, which you can. I found the Andromeda Galaxy, seen edge-on, and of course the Milky Way runs through the sky. 

Today the only remnants of those childhood dreams are my semi-serious Star Trek fandom, a love of non-fiction science books, and the ability to point out Orion in the sky.