Little-known fact about me

Light years ago I toyed with becoming an astronomer. Honest to peaches. A full-blown peer-through-the-telescope star geek. Except I didn't like math. The idea of e equalling emcee squared blew the top off my right-brain. It stopped me in my tracks.

But the creative side of astronomy awes me to this day. Imagine being able to look back in time. As an astronomer, you can. The light we see from the twinkling nighttime sky existed millions of years ago. A pretty cool concept, indeed.

I blame my space fascination on the generation into which I was born. Star Wars was the very first movie I saw in Virginia when I was little. In those days, the Empire may have struck back, but the good ones always won. Always.

So when I heard that the NRAO had discovered the youngest ever supernova in the Milky Way, carrying a tender 140 years on its astro-dusty shoulders, I got a chill. Wow. The force was with my great-great-grandfather after all. In a word, stellar!

I could never be an astronaut either. Motion-sickness gets me every time. But I continue to star-gaze into the night and marvel at the creation before us, the light that once was that has finally reached our galaxy...