My second job out of grad school was working at the largest telescope in the world- it was immensely rewarding, but it did very nearly kill me. I worked on getting the first laser guide star operating at the Keck observatory on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

One night, when we were using the laser to do an observation of the black hole at the center of our galaxy, the laser was stable enough that I felt safe stepping outside to have a cigarette (Back then I was a smoker- even at an altitude of 14,000 feet) and watch the laser beaming up into the sky. I stepped out into the darkness, lit up a cigarette and looked at my yellow/orange laser beam lancing up into the sky, pointing at the galactic center.

Perhaps it was lack of sleep, or oxygen deprivation, or the head rush from the smoke- but in a sudden dizzying moment I FELT the magnitude of what we were doing.

The light from the central black hole was emitted ~27,700 years ago- when my ancestors were using the technology of their time to make paintings on cave walls. It traveled all those millennia to end its journey at a telescope fabricated with a precision of a fraction of the wavelength of the light it was observing, using lasers, micro-machines, and sophisticated computers to remove the blurring distortions of the Earth’s atmosphere. As those photons traveled to Earth ~1200 generations of humans progressed us from the caves to this moment. Countless civilizations rose and fell.
Our ancestors survived through unimaginable hardship and cruelty- each generation advancing us just a little closer to this moment in time.

In another 27,700 years the laser beam I was looking at would reach the center of the galaxy- some of the light might go down the throat of the supermassive black hole we were observing- humanity, if it still exists, will be very different.

In a rush the distance and time involved in all this became very real, and overwhelming… I nearly lost my balance as I looked up along the beam. It was a very spiritual experience.

That was ~15 years ago- the light I was looking at that night has traveled ~15 light years- in that time my life has changed greatly, the plight of humanity has changed greatly as well…

Those photons have only just begun their journey, they have ~27,685 light years to go- where will humanity be when they get there?

Or you can post them to our media library that can be found through the dashboard in the control panel, then grab the url from there. If you have further questions, ask me on the geek board.

It was another place, a bit more accessible and civilized, with Park Service staff, and plenty of parking and rest rooms… But I recall the ruins were well isolated from the facilities, and well preserved. It seemed very authentic.

You’re right about this being an ancient and haunted land. We visited about a half-dozen archaeological sites on our trips out west and they certainly all had that creepy, spooky feeling to them. It made me think of Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. The original inhabitants felt nearby, like they had never really left. Their presence was everywhere, around every bush and rock

I once stopped by the side of the road to relieve myself and I pissed away a bit of loose soil that revealed a few fragments of ancient pottery. And it seems like every place you stopped, even the spots not on the maps and guidebooks, revealed ancient petroglyphs on the roadside stones and desert varnish.

The other was my first sight of the Greenland coast, again in the early hours. I was on deck alone again and watched as the island came into view.

Yeah, there was an ancient feeling there. Weird 24 hours.

Sitting around a campfire, our shadows playing on the stone wall like it was Plato’s cave, the sound of frog croaks bouncing off the canyon walls to the point of being really annoying…

Even without the ruins, that land is mysterious in ways I’ll forever fail to describe.