I used to read quite a variety of material when I was younger. I used to skip classes and go to the library and read encylopedias all day. But I found an author who has got it right.
Carl Sagan is one fo the most important scientists in US history. Most people only know him as some deranged person going around saying "billions and billions" all the time, or the "Cosmos" series. But he did so much for the furtherment of planetary science and space exploration. It was his idea to put the golden plaque with the humans on it and the recordings.
Anyways, Carl's books make you think about the universe and our place in it. You guys should check him out sometime. I suggest the books "Cosmos" and "Pale blue Dot" for starters.
From "Pale Blue Dot:"
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
C.S. He went first into the great unknown. He will be missed.
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