Saturn
I’ve always loved space. Up until I was six years old I lived close by to an air and space center which I visited often. I read books about the Apollo missions, saw one of the capsules at the space center, even watched Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks at the ripe age of four. Even as I got older I would watch PBS NOVA specials on stuff like black holes or dark matter. To this day I’m a geek for space.
Of course my now five year old son is already on a similar path. He was obsessed ever since he first watched a Saturn V take off and has loved the moon, the space shuttle, you name it. He also loves Bill Nye the Science Guy which I watched as a kid, and today he watched one episode showing how to do a distance calculation yourself and prove the circumference of the earth. He didn’t quite fully comprehend it, but it did inspire him to put together a box with some holes in it to give it a shot.
Close to bed time this evening he asked if we could go outside. At first I said no because it’s cold and he just had a bath, but then I realized why he wanted to go outside. I quickly switched my tune and we both went out and stared at the sky. We’re in the mountains but in a reasonably sized city, so there’s still some light pollution. We saw one star that stood out particularly, clear and bright. I pulled up a night sky app on my phone and showed my son what it was.
Saturn.
The way his face glowed up is something I’ll never forget. He spent the next hour flipping through an Audubon night sky book and looking at all the pictures and constellations. I pulled up some old photos I took out west when I managed to snag a photo of the Milky Way. As I write this I’m researching telescopes we can use at home.
I’m thankful I said yes to going outside, and I’m thankful for my son, my family, and Saturn.