Monday 23 January 2023

Great Hollow Night

"The Troublemakers."

"...the great hollow night between Sol and Centauri." (p. 126)

Space used to be thought of as dark although it is full of starlight and, close to a star, there is perpetual day:

"Where day never shuts his eye,
"Up in the broad fields of the sky..."
-see here.

CS Lewis's Elwin Ransom, en route to Mars, realizes that space, or "Heaven," is full of enlivening energy. James Blish's Adolph Haertel, en route to Mars, knows that space is full of lethal radiation. Interstellar space is full of gravitational fields, electromagnetic radiation and virtual particles. Apparently empty space is really full of invisible light.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But too much of that "enlivening energy," radiation, will kill you. Which is why space ships will need shielding.

Ad astra! Sean