Star Lapping

As a new year settles in I am reminded of what a year is and where it came from. Birthdays, anniversaries, independence days, all days, all allotted and kept safe so long as you weren't born in a leap year. ______________________________________________________ Someone once said that marking one day out of 365 was the same as measuring a lap around the sun, which seemed to me to be quite fair. As far as we can accurately discern our movement around the sun, we attach to that seemingly arbitrary clock; time. It is something that always fascinates me in the same way as I am sure we have all found ourselves staring at a sunrise. Our lives run like clockwork, the world turns and the earth's orbital planetoid dances to it's own rhythm. We calculate the spin of the stars around us so to know that, one year has passed, another has begun while the sun and the moon stare down at us bewildered at our ridiculous time wasting just so that we can, measure time. I understand some of Einstein’s theories, am an avid fan of anything astronomical from stars to comets and landers and photos but there is always that unerring, misunderstanding of my own position in regard to all that which goes on around our tiny little planet. A mystery that will never be solved means that we can carry on staring out into the cosmos, wondering with imagination just why we as humans have come up with this sensible punctuality. There have been several inventors of several different clocks, timepieces and what have you but it just so happened that it was the earth's distance from the sun that predetermined just what we were going to measure our time with. The Sun. Some could argue that some used the moon to measure their calendars, others will argue both. Either way, every time I stare up at the sky and spot a celestial body, this very same thought comes back to me and, not that I would ever wish to, but I doubt I will ever be able to shake that endless wonder. I hope that one day a space agency or faculty could plot out a map of the earth's actual path around the sun (with all due relativity) including each and every due birthday, anniversary and new year. I am sure such a thing is already tucked away on a NASA server somewhere with our planet's past and future, where we have been and where we're going. I for one would love to see how closely we really do measure years in laps as our planet's lasso slings us round and round in one long unending marathon, taking us ever onward to new points in space time.

Stars Astonomy Science