M-83

A galaxy is a swirling collection of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of stars. Stars come in all different types, but at a basic level they are all like our sun. Such a huge number of them in a single galaxy! Current astronomy is revealing that most other stars, at least in the outer arms of a galaxy, have planets. Some of those planets are in conditions similar to the Earth, so it is possible that they have life. Think of it, maybe hundreds of thousands of life-bearing planets in a single galaxy! We can look through a telescope or even just binoculars and look at an entire galaxy. When looking at it, we may be looking toward a huge number of civilizations, all evolving under different conditions than we did, all having their unique situation, culture, science, philosophy—a perspective different from our own and something that we probably can’t imagine. They may be more advanced than us, or maybe they have destroyed themselves. Through our telescopes we see a sudden increase in brightness at one point, a single star that suddenly outshines its whole galaxy. A supernova. Who was living near that star? They are gone now. We will never be able to know them. Or maybe they were able to escape? While looking at that galaxy we can truly understand just how small we are in the universe, how completely unimportant our daily disagreements are in the grand scheme of things. Our politics, our religions, our court battles, our daily work mean little. The real meaning of existence is what you see through that lens. We are a part of it, yes, but most of what we think is important in our daily lives is really meaningless. The greater reality is what we see out there.

M-83 is an airbrushed acrylic painting from photo of the real galaxy M-83. This is one of my best paintings so far.