![]() ![]() Ten years after the flies, the first animal to orbit the Earth was Laika, a Russian dog. Dogs and monkeys followed the flies into spaceflight some returned home safely, and others made a one-way trip. In 1947, fruit flies became the first bodies deliberately sent just to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, 68 miles above our heads at the Karman line. The first body in space did not belong to a human. ![]() Somewhere out there, somewhere within the Messier 87 galaxy, pinpointed by the virgin constellation’s figure, the black hole continues to consume rocks and stars, strengthening its lightless intensity.įifty-five million years away from now, will the black hole see me in my stunningly short existence? Does the sun see new glimpses of my face every eight minutes, the brown marks it has left on my skin? The moon, obligated to this dance around the Earth with us all - does it know me? If they could see, would they see my body as I see theirs? ![]() The brighter ones, the stars which linger closer to us than others, which burn hotter, catch my focus first, then my eyes default to the constellations I know: a soldier, a ladle, a bear. Tilting my gaze from the now to the then, the stars tell the story of the past. Like the brilliant ring around the black hole, a strip of hill on the Kansas horizon blazes in its yearly fire-cleanse. The air is crisp on my arms, but the sky is hazy by smoke. A memory of the universe caught later in time. My eyes witnessed the glory of the supermassive beast, a force so dense it approaches infinite heaviness, as it appeared eons ago. The black hole exists 55 million light-years away from us, a distance beyond comprehension. The image - a composite made by nine telescopes and hundreds of scientists - became an ancient relic as soon as it was rendered. Like many other humans on Earth, I saw a black hole for the first time on April 10th. ![]()
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