Melody Tsur
Dakota, Earth
March 19th, 2142
”Just about each one you can see is as big as the sun. Plenty are actually bigger. They just look small because they’re sooooo far away.”
I watch Toby’s eyes widen at the idea of other stellar bodies. He’d been taking an extra keen interest in my work recently, no doubt brought on by impressing his teacher at school now that they’re starting the astronomy unit, so I figured I’d take him to the observatory tonight and put some of my allotted personal telescope time to good use.
After all, what’s the point of being head astrophysicist if you don’t get to spread the wonder?
”Does that mean…” I can almost see him processing the information in real time. He makes connections faster than I can keep up with sometimes. “Does all of ‘em have Earths too?”
I chuckle internally. We might need to work on his grammar, though.
”They all have other planets, yes. Mostly. Not other Earth’s though. So far, we’re the only spaceball with people on it.”
He giggles at ‘spaceball’ and moved to look through the telescope again.
”How many is there?” He asks, distractedly.
”It’s ‘how many are there’, and I was hoping you’d ask that. C’mere.” I say, taking his hand. I place a marble in his palm; Yellow glass with streaks of orange and red all throughout. “Imagine this is the sun, ok?”
He held it up to his face and thought for a moment before pointing at the wall. “That means Earth is like that far away, right?”
I grin, surprised and proud at the same time. Surproud, as Rodney and I like to say. “Very good! I should have known you absorbed the scale so quickly! Now. Think about the other stars. They’re so far away they look like just a little dot. They’re way way way farther from the sun than we are. Where do you think they would be at this scale?” I ask, pointing to the marble.
He stares at the marble and mumbles a little before guessing. “Home?"
"Further."
"Oh.” He computes more, walking his mental map. “Daddy’s lab?”
I smile and shake my head. “Further.”
He thought long and hard this time, furrowing his little brow and staring intently at the marble.
”The old border!” he stated with confidence.
”Try the west coast.” I retort with a smirk.
His jaw drops. “But that’s so far!” He exclaims in that special amazed way only seven-year-olds can.
”And that’s just the closest system. The Milky Way alone has billions of stars in it.”
Now the gears are turning. First he takes a moment to remember how big a billion is, I can tell. Then his eyes flick back and forth between the marble, the wall, me, the telescope, the open roof.
”Milky Way… Is a galaxy… Stars live in galaxies. Mommy, are the other galaxies also billion-big star houses!?” He yells, adorably putting his hand to his forehead just like his father does at a new revelation. I can never tell if it’s a learned behavior or if he’s so much of a fan of his dad that he’s purposefully copying his tics.
I smile and nod at him as he puts his eye back up to the telescope. “There’s a lot out there. I hope you can see why I like looking at all of it so much."
"Yeah… Can we go to this one?”
I’m caught a bit off guard. “What?”
He gestures for me to look through the telescope. “Can we go to this one? I sawed it on your papers one time.”
I check the lens, and apparently he had somehow manned the controls without my noticing and slightly adjusted the array outside. Now it’s focused on the Andromeda Galaxy.
”How did you know how to enter the coordinates?"
"You do it all the time. And your paper said Andro… me… da… is at these numbers at 8:00 and it’s 7:58 so moved it some extra this way.” He pronounced the name of the galaxy very carefully while gesticulating with all the matter-of-fact poise of someone who knew exactly what they were talking about.
I can only laugh at this point. “You little Einstein. One of these days you’ll put me out of a job.”
He just giggles -immediately breaking the facade of a professional at work- and looks back into the viewport. “So, can we go?"
"Sorry buddy, not even light can get there within a lifetime."
"But you said light is the fastest thing!"
"Well-"
"No wait, you said ‘c’ is the fastest, and light just goes at ‘c’ because nothing can go faster than that.”
I smile as he finishes my correction for me.
”That’s right, and if you want to move through space, you have to follow the speed limit.”
Something about that set him in motion. It’s not often a little boy contemplates. They think, of course, and no one can argue against them sharing a surprisingly deep insight now and again, but rare is the occasion they really take the time to sit with an idea and ruminate on it. I watch as my son meanders along the road of confusion towards understanding, finds himself among disappointment, backtracks through being confused again, takes a lengthy stop in the neutral territory of deep thought, and finally breaks out in a huge grin as he begins sprinting towards some sort of idea.
”So… do we have to go in space? Like, um, if space makes stuff have to be slow, what about we go in something else? What about, instead of flying somewhere in space since that’s too slow, we make space different? You said space is stretchy when things are heavy and it stretches and stuff so what about we stretch it and squish it all funny to make places closer together instead? Then we can go there whenever we want!”
I take a moment to consider that my little boy, whose age is still decidedly single-digit, essentially just invented for himself the Einstein-Rosen bridge. I can only laugh and ruffle his hair. “If anyone could, Toby.”