Here, as the end of British Science Week draws to an end - a poem to celebrate just how far astronomy has reached at this point in time. Some the ideas in the poem may well be overtaken, even by the time the poem is posted. Change is happening that fast!
In Space A Network of Telescopes (2024)
In space,
a network of telescopes,
freed from the distorting constraints
of our shimmering air,
reveal more of the universe,
from nearer and nearer
the time of its genesis.
Out on the ground,
communes of radio arrays
are guided to align their antennae
on areas of interest.
identified by the orbiters.
By using various wavelengths,
ever finer detail is resolved in
those wonders of primeval time and space.
In laboratories and computer centres,
data gathered from both space
and ground-based
observatories,
is interpreted by algorithms
to render exquisite cosmic abstracts
which give inklings
of the wonderful work of God.
So we are blessed.
by these automated successors
to Galileo, Maxwell and Jansky,
whose suppositions were endeavours
to comprehend, in their times,
more and more of the mysteries
of the mighty celestial firmament.
Now, we can
peer and probe,
ever further, ever further;
that, in our brains, minds and souls,
we may try to fathom afresh
the emergence of the universe
and the moments of God's love,
when the Holy Trinity
spoke the Cosmos into being.
.