The stuff of science fiction

In an XY diagram where X is future time and Y is distance in light years from the Earth, there is a point at 3.47 billion years on the X and 2.83 billion light years on the Y where a lovely counterclockwise spiral galaxy will contain a sun of 1.236 Solar Masses with a planet of 1.143 Earth Masses orbiting within it's habitable zone where life will have evolved into complexity and one highly intelligent species will have developed science and technology to a very advanced degree. These beings will derive their nourishment directly from the soil, although unlike the plants and fungi of our world, they will be able to detach themselves from the ground at will and move to another location. They will communicate in an extraordinarily nuanced visual language by means of an assortment of intermittent bioluminescent globules of various colors on their forward-facing sides. This much is know with certainty.

Be that as it may, however, nonetheless, and on the other hand, as everybody knows, the light from the most distant galaxies took some 13 billion years to arrive at the dark and cloudless skies above the desserts and high mountains where astronomers like to place large telescopes. We see things in the emptiness of space as they were in the past and not as they are now, this very minute. Which means that we are always looking at the universe through the rear-view mirror and the objects in it are actually much younger than they appear. So the closer we get to any source of light out there, the nearer we are also to its "now". Our "now" is ours and only ours for us to live in, and every star has it's own "now". Also, two "nows" don't make a "then"; no matter how spectacular the galaxy collision, you get only a larger "now". So if, in looking toward the future, it is quite likely that the telescopes of the above-named world will capture the light of our present sun, at which point, to them, a past star in the distance, then it is reasonable to say that, in all probability, they are watching us now. See what I mean?

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.