"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe..."

It's not often that I am so deeply moved, but it seems for all the world as though Carl Sagan was incapable of saying anything that wasn't deeply moving, and this video may be the only justified use of autotune I've ever seen.

Pale Blue Dot

I don't even have words for this one. Rarely before have I seen anything on youtube so beautiful that it moved me to tears.

Material Witnesses

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/11/05/china.orbit.ap/index.html

"All of the subsystems of the Chang'e 1 are in normal operation so far," said Pei Zhaoyu, spokesman for the China National Space Administration.

The Chang'e 1 has survived the most critical part of its journey, Pei said. It had to enter the moon's orbit at the right time and speed, otherwise it could have hit the moon or flown by it.

He said the satellite's success was a sign of China's advanced engineering. "The project is a comprehensive demonstration of China's economic, scientific and technological power."

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Not simply a demonstration to, but a material witness to, I would say. The Chinese economy is now capable of producing things which reach for the moon and the stars.

It is a strange thing to think that humanity's footprint in the universe has gone well beyond the planet Earth. Satellites orbit the Earth and other worlds in our solar system. Radio signals rocket away into the black at the speed of light, and some of them will have traveled more than 50 light years by now. We are a very noisy, messy people. I wonder if we will be noticed?