We often take everyday wonders for granted. Take the sun, for example. Every day, it rises above the horizon like a giant fireball, bringing life, light, and warmth. We know it’s there and go about our lives without much thought.
But today, something magical happened. A thick fog settled in, so dense that visibility was no more than 100 meters. While walking the dog, we couldn’t even see the other side of the farmer’s field. Then I looked up at the sun. Normally, it’s too bright to look at directly, but through the fog, I could see it fully – a perfect glowing fireball.
For the first time, I didn’t just see it as “the sun.” I saw it as it truly is – a star. A real star, like one of those tiny specks of light in the night sky, except this one is here, so close, so magnificent and so real.
Its closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, is 4.24 light-years away. That’s an incomprehensible distance, and yet, in this immense emptiness, the sun sits exactly where it should, steadfast in its rightful place. And I am here, just right next to it, watching it glow.
Furthermore, I felt overwhelmed by the realisation that it is also hurtling through the Milky Way and the wider universe at an astonishing combined speed of over 1.7 million kilometers per hour. That alone made me pause and marvel at how dynamic, yet perfectly balanced and still, this thing is.
Standing there in the fog, staring at the sun, I was overcome with awe. This isn’t just a bright light in the sky. It’s a magnificent, true, full scale, real star, holding its place in the vast emptiness of space, surrounded by nothing but infinite distances.
So, here it is, always there, often overlooked, but no less extraordinary in its beauty and significance.
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