The night sky has always fascinated me. Growing up, I spent countless hours learning about the cosmos through just about every PBS series and documentary I could find. “How The Universe Works,” “Nova” and many others showed me black holes, colliding galaxies, icy moons and fiery gas giants.
These were worlds beyond my reach, but not my imagination. I grew up in West Valley in the suburbs near Cottonwood Elementary. Each night, the glow of countless houses around me blotted out all but the brightest stars.
I used to yearn to see the majestic, sweeping band of the milky way overhead. A few years ago, our family moved to a house on the side of a hill with a spectacular view across the entire Valley. My dad and I spent many nights out on our patio, watching the moon rise over the city.
One time, he mentioned something that really stuck with me. Looking out across the Valley, across the sea of a thousand lights, a thousand houses, a thousand lives, he said each light is a person. Some people rarely think about what it means to keep the electric light on overhead.
Other people don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to afford to keep it on. Some don’t know when, or if, they’ll be able to turn the light back on. I’ve thought a lot about the night sky since then.
Growing up, I only saw the endless distant worlds I could only imagine on the horizon. But beneath the sky above lies another beautiful sea of lights. All those human worlds lay connected all around me b.