Have you ever seen a meteor shower? I am sure you have heard of this amazing sight in the sky.
A meteor shower can be seen in the skies this August!
Every time I hear about the vast space beyond us, I wonder why we happen to be on our small blue planet. Why is this the one and only planet with the diverse amazing life forms in the whole wide universe that we can see beyond?
This is a photo of meteor showers taken from a telescope in the Negev, the southern part of Israel.
This photo is from the NASA website:
"In this 30 second exposure, a meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower Friday, Aug. 12, 2016 in Spruce Knob, West Virginia.
The Perseids show up every year in August when Earth ventures through trails of debris left behind by an ancient comet. This year, Earth may be in for a closer encounter than usual with the comet trails that result in meteor shower, setting the stage for a spectacular display."
Does anyone comprehend the terms "debris left behind by an ancient comet"? Star dust? I feel that these are real things that are much bigger than everything happening on our small planet.
At the same time I read that many people on earth, those who live in large cities, as many as one third, never get to see the stars. Never get to see the night sky, or the milky way.
Just for comparison, I happened to attend an evening organised by the Daniel Pearl Foundation as Rob Eshman, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief TRIBE Media/Jewish Journal, lead an interactive dialogue with two Daniel Pearl Fellows: Amal Khan (2016 fellow), and Aoun Sahi (2010 fellow) journalists from Pakistan.
These two young Journalists presented an image of Pakistan that was different from what we hear in our media, or that I ever heard about. They were surprised to find out the Americans are just as humans as their Pakistani families. They stressed that in the eyes of the average Pakistani Americans are some kind of evil mutant of humanity. They are fed mis-truths about Israel and "Jews" are so misunderstood, they are not even considered human.
The Pakistani's image of the west is mostly from popular TV programs: consumerism, lack of family values, etc.
My question to Amal was: Is there any way that they can attempt to show science and nature programs on Pakistani TV? Pakistani kids can certainly watch the night sky and witness the milky way. As we all know kids have innate curiosity, and I am certain that watching a meteor shower will stimulate enough kids to comprehend that universe beyond. Future generations should be taught basics of life and biology. We cannot leave education up to politicians.
Aoun mentioned that they do not have enough teachers and educators to raise an informed future generation. I'd like to suggest using the parts of the internet and TV media that is geared toward basic education:
Websites like Kahnacademy.com
TV shows like Cosmos.
We have to begin somewhere in teaching common humanity rather than historic and political differences.
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