Spectacular silence
Capping 2025 and welcoming 2026, I ask my readers to bear with my being starstruck in the last two columns.
I started a star trek of sorts this year, writing as a scientist, hoping to encourage more schools, educators, and students to do something about our low science literacy, starting with stars.
I wrote about how stars are to be found in both the arts and the sciences in all cultures, nurturing the arts, translating our emotions, our worldviews. Recently visiting the University of Tokyo, I took a quiet break, meditating on the place and people and, in this case, the ginkgo’s golden leaves and seeds scattered along the pathways. It was a cold day, below zero, but the entire landscape spoke of warmth, as college campuses should.
We lose all that once we allow ourselves to be trapped back in concrete jungles. But maybe it’s academicians and educators who have led us astray, leaving the stars to the celestial sphere while we trod along, muttering about ignorance, graft, and greed. We may want to return to the more frequent scenes, in rural areas, where villagers, including young ones, looked up to learn astronomical folklore.
I entered college in 1969, fortunate that my first years were in universities with observatories—Ateneo and the University of the Philippines. Through almost half a century at UP, we had an observatory that faculty and students appreciated, even if that interest has dwindled. I am excited when I hear of invitations for a night of stargazing, mainly to identify constellations. There were special treats as well, such as when we had comets.
As college campuses go, sky-watching also took special significance for couples. Observatories were fine, but there was much more intimacy and joy in sky-watching in “unofficial” sites. I don’t know how many readers have memories of the International Center in Diliman, meant to be dorms for foreign students, but also providing free space for the spirit. I’m referring to the rooftop of its central building, which had a slope easy to climb and somewhat difficult to sit on when you got to the top, but offered a breathtaking sky view. The sense that we were sitting on the edge of precarity, plus the relatively cold nights, gave more reason to feel the thrill of being with someone extra special, in a special season.
I was more conscious this year about becoming more conscious of the stars, starlore, and starscapes. For the first time, I was conscious of the Atlantic Monthly, an American magazine that has, apparently, for some years now, been featuring a special photographic Christmas pictorial. This year, they had an Advent calendar, which I explained two issues back, a tradition that started in Germany, where calendars are given with slots for small gifts (chocolates, especially), a gift that keeps giving all through Christmas. The Atlantic had a twist here: photographs from the James Webb Space Telescope featured “family pictures” of several clusters of stars.
I was enthralled, each photograph a visual treat. This year, it started off with the “Cosmic Butterfly,” a cluster of stars 525 light-years away. Day 4 had the Lobster Nebula, imagine a nursery with infant stars. Conversely, Day 6, 1,500 light-years away, consisted of a dying star, but not a reason for sadness, like senior citizens happily in a dance that sheds off dust and more dust. It goes all the way up to Dec. 25.
The names of the clusters and galaxies come from humans gazing from Earth, made easier now with the space telescope. The Atlantic Monthly production would be so useful in schools throughout the world, including those in the Philippines, with room for imagination for viewers of all ages.
The variations offer lessons, too, for appreciating variation in nature, and the fragile balance of survival, with grandeur in the old and young, a kind of big Christmas party with all kinds of guests.
Something I learned just this year is that the stars and clusters of stars, almost like hundreds of celestials, arrive for a grand party without sound. Unlike visual phenomena, sound out in space is quiet. We could get a taste of that from our planet, wishing the entire planet would set aside trials and tribulations and celebrate quietly.
The rest of the year, we can keep celebrating and educating each other with our visiting professors from outer space.
Parts of the final Space Advent calendar can be seen at: tinyurl.com/3a4tdphb.
—————-
michael.tan@inquirer.net
