Emily M. Levesque

“An astoundingly perfect black void sat where the sun had been, surrounded by a jagged white nimbus of light that nearly brought me to tears. This was the solar corona, the hot outer edges of the sun's atmosphere that drive a flood of particles into space and generate a phenomenon known as a stellar wind, a key property of how our sun and other stars evolve. I had studied this particular aspect of stars for almost my entire life, using a dozen of the best telescopes in the world, but this was the first time I could see a star's wind with my own naked-eye. Around us, the sky was a strangely uniform dome of sunsets in every direction, and the warmth of sunlight had been replaced by an almost primal up-the-neck chill. It felt like the planet itself had been put on pause at this particular place and moment in time, a frozen moment of "look.”
― Emily M. Levesque, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers

“Why do we study the universe? Why do we look at the sky and ask questions, build telescopes, travel to the very limits of our planet to answer them? Why do we stargaze?

We don't know exactly why, but we must.”
― Emily M. Levesque, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers