The Last Stargazers Quotes

“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 Around us, the sky was a strangely uniform dome of sunsets in every direction, and the warmth of sunlight had been replaced by an almost primal up-the-neck chill.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

“In July 1994, a flurry of astronomical excitement hit the news when word got out that the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet was on a collision course with Jupiter.”
― Emily M. Levesque, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers

“In a community that so deeply values the planet we're on, the summits we visit, and the human curiosity we bring to the skies, I have to hope we can find a way to respect and share our own humanity, our knowledge of the cosmos, and our love for the mountains that make our work possible. They're the windows we're able to climb to that give us a glimpse of the universe.”
― Emily M. Levesque, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers

“The photons themselves may have escaped from the outskirts of a galaxy or the outer layers of a star millions of years ago and have spent that entire time hurtling through space, soaring through intergalactic voids and past distant nebulae and narrowly skirting collisions with objects as large as stars or as small as interstellar dust motes. At the end of the journey, these photons managed to punch their way through Earth's atmosphere and land, of all places on the planet on the mirror of your telescope, to be bounced around and funneled into a camera so you could learn a little more about where they came from.
The next time you look at the sky, remember this is the same journey taken by the light from every star you look at that happens to land on your eye.”
― Emily M. Levesque, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers

“Dinner on Kitt Peak wrapped up in time for everyone to head outside and watch the sunset together before scattering to the telescope, a time-honored tradition of astronomers everywhere. If asked, we would all supply some good practical scientific reasoning behind the habit - you get a glimpse of what sort of night it's going to be, a sense of upcoming weather, the sky quality, and so on - but the basic reason remains that it's simply beautiful. Standing on a remote mountain with the earth stretching out into the distance and slowly spinning away from our nearest star, it's a wonderful quiet moment to enjoy the vastness and stillness and colors as the night begins. On any given evening, I can promise you that scattered across the planet are a few small groups of astronomers, standing on dome catwalks or dining hall patios or even just a stretch of hard-packed earth and pausing in their work for a few moments to admire the simple beauty of the sky.”
― Emily M. Levesque, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers