What's in a name?

I admired the late Carl Sagan very much.  His book, The Cosmic Connection, was one of the first science books that I ever read for fun.  His eloquence captured my imagination, and his obvious sense of wonder and awe at the universe inspired me.  When I started looking for a name for this blog, my instant reaction was to start mining his quotes for an apt phrase.

OK, that's not completely true.  My first inspiration was to have a name that referenced the Hubble Deep Field photograph.  This is a photo that I have as the background on my phone.  I chose it because it speaks to me like no other astronomical photo ever has.  If you aren't familiar with this photo, it is a photo of deep space.  The photo represents a miniscule portion of the sky, one the size of a dime held 75 feet away.  In that photo, we see over a thousand galaxies.  Galaxies! Not stars.  Each of those galaxies itself contains millions of stars.  Around those stars are very likely planets, and some of those planets will almost certainly have life on them of some form.  And that photo represents just the smallest fraction of what is out there in the universe.


Source: Hubblesite.org

The universe is huge, and we're floating through it on this pale blue dot, a tiny speck of dust relative to the immensity of all that.  And yet, here is where we make our lives.  Here is where we live and die.  Here is where we love and fight.

I couldn't find a good name with "deep field" in it, so my second inspiration was Dr. Sagan.  He understood how simply, utterly amazing it is that we live and breathe in this vast universe.  So, I've decided to throw my voice into the blogosphere, to take part in the on-line conversation that is toppling regimes, changing lives, and simply keeping us a little closer as a species.   Will anyone listen, who knows?  If even one person stumbles upon this blog and gets inspired or is amused, then I'll be happy with that.