Do you believe in astrology? Do you agree that it’s all written in the stars? Do you feel that there is a divine connection to everything in the world? There probably is, but as mystifying astrology is, that much exhilarating astronomy is. And one just needs to take a trip to the planetarium, if not look up at the stars at night to feel not just how inconsequential we all actually are, but that puts astrology in perspective too.

As celestial beings we are also filled of stellar matter, as physics goes, and that makes us stars too in our own right. With that knowledge and the know-how of how expansive the universe is, the stars are and how stars actually recycle themselves as stars making them beautiful in their own right. Life, as we know it came into existence over 4.5 billion years ago, and as the sun, our life-sustaining star slowly loses its might in another 5 billion years or so, burning out its presence, ceasing to be what it is, we may also not know of the universe or the multiple galaxies, losing out on being alive as a species, just as the dinosaurs did!

With that information there comes a whole lot of humility, the reason for everything is most probably nothing but what we make of it could most almost be everything. Little did I know that a trip to the planetarium would spark a philosopher in me, but the sheer sense of beauty of witnessing the stars, the beauty does make one very humble. Knowing my love for travel, space travel is my ultimate dream, the expanse of the universe is absolutely beguiling. In modern Indian cities the stars are hardly visible with all the light pollution but the best of the nights I have ever seen has been at the Rann of Kutch, with hardly any lights around the night sky does come alive in all its regalia.

While the scientists in our country, and NASA, are doing a splendid job bringing the stars and the know-how of the universe to us one day at a time, they are also doing a great job in bringing to our notice our very planet. It takes a satellite to be launched out of our space to pay heed to us, just as it takes an external perspective to understand ourselves better, mostly. The audacity of sending out satellites and trying to communicate with other alien specie has not come handy yet, nor do I think it is remotely likely even with all the sci-fi fiction and movies we make every year. But simply being able to witness the stars makes every figment of our imagination worth it. Tiny twinkling stars in the velvety night sky makes one realise a lot many things but the most significant one is probably the insignificance of it all. There is our solar system which we have over the years tried to make sense of, and then there are a multitude of galaxies in the world that we have only begun to discover. There are a host of factors that affect the future course of the earth which probably have nothing to do with us humans. Perhaps another reason to chill, and let the universe play its course out cause it definitely seems to have a plan!