Celestial Ballet

Lately I've been waking up between four and five. It's not that I have trouble sleeping. My body just rests most of the day so it needs less at night. So I tiptoe around, check email, drink coffee. But tomorrow if I wake up early, I get a special treat in the predawn sky. Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars will appear nestled together about 45 minutes before the sun rises. They have not been this close since 1925.

I love how Miami Space Transit Planetarium director Jack Horkheimer described the rare triple-planetary treat: "It is a lovely demonstration of the celestial ballet that goes on around us, day after day, year after year, millennium after millennium. When I look at something like this, I realize that all the powers on Earth, all the emperors, all the money, cannot change it one iota. We are observers, but the wonderful part of that is that we are the only species on this planet that can observe it and understand it."

His words brought to mind those of another stargazer--a shepherd who stared mouth agape at the same night skies some 1,000 years before Christ: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained/What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" (Psalm 8:3-4).