I was thinking how many blogs are out there and figured the chance of me being found in the masses of other random sites popping up constantly is pretty slim! Billions come to mind - but that is one of the words we seem to overuse in everyday speech. Politicians throw it around almost casually when they talk of dollars without comprehending what it really means. Thanks to my friend Bruce who supplied me with these facts the other day I have a new respect for a billion and this puts it into some sort of perspective for me: A billion seconds ago it was 1959. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age. A billion days ago no one walked on the earth on two feet! Still too much to comprehend yet it is a figure that always come to mind whenever Marie and I spend time out at our mountain getaway. Clear nights are always awe inspiring with the heavens ablaze with stars and the Milky Way a bright white slash across the whole sky. We are exceptionally lucky to be in this area where little light pollution affects the brilliance of the show above us. And last year the International Dark Sky Association awarded its first International Dark Sky Reserve (IDSR) designation to the regional county municipalities of Granit and Haut-Saint-François and of the City of Sherbrooke. The presentation was made at Mont-Mégantic National Park, in the heart of the new reserve and just a few miles from our property. That's where the observatory is located (see picture), the largest in eastern North America, and the most important astronomy and astrophysics research center in Canada. Looking up at this beautiful sight I never cease to be amazed and always my mind wanders off into figures I can barely comprehend. Recently astronomers have raised the estimate on how many planets are out there - they figure that at least 25 percent of Sun-like stars have planets, which means there are at least 100 billion stars with planets in our Galaxy! With about 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe that could mean that there are at least 10 trillion planetary systems in the Universe! Darn - and I was just getting my head around a billion! Happy Halloween and don't forget to look up! You might just see ET! gws
