Post #4473929

2026-08-09 21:50 UTC

"At night this reassuring curtain of blue is pulled away and you realize where you really are: at infinity’s doorstep. A plain is what a mountain aims to be: the closest you can come to being in outer space while yet having your feet on this planet." I really hope to get out to Grasslands Nat'l Park this week and appreciate infinity's doorstep, despite smoke and satellites trying to take that away.

Replies (5)

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social 2026-08-09 21:56

The world would be a much better place if everyone had easy access to infinity's doorstep, to realize how small we are, how unique and fragile our pale blue dot is. You don't need a trip on a billionaire's rocket to get the "overview effect." You can do it by finding dark sky access, which is becoming harder and harder to get, partially due to billionaires' rockets.

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@Just_Tired@mastodon.world 2026-08-09 22:09

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social When I was a kid, decades ago, an uncle had 10 acres with a nice cabin, in the mountains, a few hours from Buffalo. No plumbing or electricity, but the sky was glorious. Other than camping in the Pine Barrens, it was the only light pollution free view I've had. I grew up 1/2 hrs from Philly.

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@GoatsLive@mastodon.social 2026-08-09 23:49

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social That's the one thing I really miss about my home state of Alaska, the night sky was just incredible! We're rural here in Florida, but there is still so much light pollution that pulling out my telescope just isn't the same anymore.

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@somebody@circumstances.run 2026-08-10 02:44

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social I'm a flyover country dweller who has been madly in love with the plains as long as I've been alive and this is maybe the best poetry I've read that explains exactly what is so awe inspiring about living in a place where the land is as close to flat as it can get. it's the one place where you can tell how big this entire thing really is. a few of the times I've cried the hardest it was looking up at the milky way where there were no lights for miles, and no hills or mountains to take away any section of the firmament. it was just me and the sky, it was just the finite and infinity. There are people who have never seen a sky with more than a few dozen stars. There are people who think that everything that's here is big.

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@deirdrebeth@mas.to 2026-08-10 21:18

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social I've been to Montana just across the border from Grasslands and the sky was incredible. I hope you get clear skies!

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