I was thrilled when the deployment of the James Webb Telescope was successful, like many people in the world were. And flabbergasted when the first images started to show up, like many people in the world. I won’t go over all of its history, you can find everything here at Wikipedia
What really amazed me was the fact that the telescope became a reality, after all that happened before and during its construction. Again, you can read about this here.
The successful deployment marked over 30 years of challenges that were overcome by scientists, engineers, and government officials, among thousands of people that had the goal of pushing science forward.
So much happened in this period, and I’m just talking about me: back then I was a young fella that just wanted to live his life and try to make the world a better place. This dream wanned year after year – aging is a b…. – but around 2016 and later, with the way things turned out because of Covid, I thought we were done. I mean we as a species; climate change denial, political turmoil, persecution on grounds of race, sex, gender, religion, misinformation, disinformation, war, mass extinction…
Wow, how can one sleep at night, right?
Well, it happens that we are doing it: science is moving forwards at an incredible pace, there is some light at the end of the tunnel for climate change, peace has been increasing, and more. Of course none of these are easy tasks, we still have so many challenges like preventing mass extinction, but I’ll start 2023 a little more positive than I was for 2022. I won’t say optimistic because it would be too much for me, but definitely less negative.
And maybe this is all because now we have a new way to see the universe:
Not that Neptune wasn’t beautiful before, right?
Happy 2023 to all who share this Pale Blue Dot!
