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the people’s almanac
october 13, 2024
sky study
at 7:45pm, a miracle. moments after sunset, comet Tsunchinshan-ATLAS appears above the western horizon, slowly falling through the sky. it is visible for about 45 minutes until the sky goes dark. astronomers are saying it has a period of close to 80,000 years. i can hardly imagine something with that long of a cycle. how many moons is that?
i write miracle, but Rovelli tells us that in the truest astrophysics, there is nothing “particular” about any specific moment in time or any specific arrangement of circumstances. that in the disorder of the universe, “particularity” is just an approximation. every moment and every configuration is equally particular. what makes us understand some moments as more or less particular than others is simply bias. we can always find particularities when we isolate layers of analysis, but in reality, the universe is remarkably entropic. it seems it arcs towards nothing.
comet, i will hold onto my particularities lightly. a tight grip and a miracle will slip through my fingers like stardust. what a strange gift to be everything and nothing at all.
see you in 80,000 years.
full moon / the observatory / october 20, 2024