astral bodies

saturn and jupiter have been hanging out together in the night sky recently. last night the moon, full, passed under them.

when i look at them – the two planets – i think of galileo, who spent so many hours tracking the moons of jupiter. he couldn’t make out the rings of saturn, which appeared in his telescope as bright spots on either side of the planet, spots which had disappeared the next time he checked, but his discovery of moons circling a planet other than earth was monumental.

it makes me smile to gaze up at worlds so far away, and yet so bright in the sky.

for The Weekly Smile