Wishing Upon a Star

Last night I took my eldest son outside to see the Leonid meteor shower, hoping that it would be the predicted storm the news casters had promised earlier in the day. I hadn't figured that, at almost three-years-old, his attention would stay skyward for very long, but he was excited, and so was I. I gave him our ritual peak at Jupiter through my aging Dobsoinan reflector, and then got our naked eyes trained upward.

I saw two barely perceptible streaks in the constellation of Taurus, and pointed the spot out to my son as he sat bundled up and perched on my shoulders in the cold night air. Just then, a slightly brighter meteor transited near the same spot in the sky. I'm not sure that he saw it, but when I asked him if he'd seen the streak of light, he said yes.

My son's greatest fun for the night was to come from a non-celestial source. I caught sight of a white flash at the outer perimeter of my eyeglasses coming from behind my field of view in the open sky above our front porch. Thinking that a fireball was lighting up the sky, I quickly drew his attention to... a moth flying overhead. "Oh," I said, "it was just a bug." He laughed hysterically as he repeated, "It was just a bug!"

We stayed out a little longer, but didn't see any more shooting stars, though the moonless night and our dark skies provided a spectacular view of the heavens. My wife's first report of the observing session came from my son excitedly chanting, "Oh, it was just a bug!"

Later, after my son had gone to sleep, I stepped outside again in the bitter chill of the backyard at the predicted peak time of the shower. After observing for a while, I counted three meteors, none of which were much beyond the detection threshold. But I did spend some time staring with purpose at the Orion Nebula, Sirius, Aldebaran and a few other companions from my more avid observing days. I hadn't looked at a star chart in awhile, and I wasn't even sure what planets were slated to visible, but I instantly recognized the bright red dot hanging near the Southeastern horizon line on the ecliptic as Mars, mankind's next major frontier.

There was a time when I would have been disappointed by the nights observing sessions. The fireball that wasn't (coupled with the fact that I hadn't seen any real fireballs in the sky) was a bit disappointing. The shower's meteor count was far from spectacular. But the chance to share the night with an eager (and excitable) developing mind reminded me of why I started looking at the stars in the first place. The moth also reminded me that science is often a series of education missteps that must be taken in stride (which is much more easily done when accompanied by a child's honest laughter).

My son isn't ready for in depth conversations about defunct comets in Earth crossing orbits, like Tempel-Tuttle, giving rise to the natural fireworks of a meteor shower, but that promise is on the horizon. It is in the passing of an appreciation for the natural world around us to the next generation that we truly find that appreciation for ourselves. Passing on the ways of the Universe also serves to remind us of why we do science in the first place: the betterment of life, especially for those who come after us.