Earth Seen From Space

Poul Anderson, "The Chapter Ends" IN Anderson, Starship (New York, 1982), pp. 253-281 AT pp. 256-257.

Jorun sees Earth from space:

"It was blue as it turned before his eyes, a burnished turquoise shield blazoned with the living green and brown of its lands, and the poles were crowned with a glimmering haze of aurora. The belts that streaked its face and blurred the continents were cloud, wind and water and the gray rush of rain, like a benediction from heaven." (pp. 256-257)

Can Jorun see Earth turning? I count four colors: blue/turquoise; green; brown; gray - plus the colors of the aurora. Jorun sees not only the planet but also its weather and other atmospheric phenomena.

"Beyond the planet hung its moon, a scarred golden crescent, and he had wondered how many generations of men had looked up to it, or watched its light like a broken bridge across moving waters." (p. 257)

Has the Moon been compared to a bridge before? After this brief visit by Jorun and his colleagues, mankind will leave the Solar System and the galactic periphery forever. Thus, this is very nearly a last farewell. It reminds us of a similar farewell in Anderson's "Flight to Forever." When the Moon has fallen to Earth and Earth now turns one face to the sun, a time traveler thinks:

"So good-by, Sol... Good-by, and thank you for many million years of warmth and light. Sleep well, old friend."
-Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288 AT p. 284.

"Against the enormous cold of the sky - utter black out to the distant coils of the nebulae, thronging with a million frosty points of diamond-hard blaze that were the stars - Earth had stood as a sign of haven." (p. 257)

We have to remember that Jorun has just flown across thirty thousand light years without a spaceship. Imagine swimming (somehow) across the Atlantic and seeing land. Of course the original home planet of mankind looks like a haven.

"To Jorun, who came from Galactic center and its uncountable host of suns, heaven was bare, this was the outer fringe where the stars thinned away toward hideous immensity." (ibid.)

Of course, apparently empty space is really full of unperceived electromagnetic and gravitational energy. CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy replaces the conventional idea of cold, empty space with the semi-theological concept of "Deep Heaven," full of life-giving energy, whereas the scientific reality is that cosmic radiation is omnipresent but lethal:

Ransom en route to Mars experiences space as filled with a life-giving radiance whereas Haertel on the same journey knows that cosmic radiation is lethal.
-copied from here. 

"He had shivered a little, drawn the envelope of air and warmth closer about him, with a convulsive movement. The silence drummed in his head." (ibid.)

Two more sensations: shivering and silence.

"Then he streaked for the north-pole rendezvous of his group." (ibid.)

We commented on Jorun's self-propelled flight here.