How a constellation app helps tap into the big questions
'We live in an exceptionally exciting time to be a human looking out.'
One of the most interesting apps in the iOS marketplace is run by two self-described “passionate fans of astronomy” who spend much of their time trying to get people interested in the stars.
Sky Guide, developed by Fifth Star Labs, is a free program that’s attracted more than 250,000 reviews by providing users with a close look at constellations, satellites and the space junk that’s orbiting Earth. Many of those downloads have come since COVID-19 swept the planet, as more people walked outside at night and started looking up, Nick Risinger, co-founder of Fifth Star Labs, told me in a recent email.
“I think many people who look up at the stars long enough will inevitably have some deeper introspection,” said Risinger, a photographer and designer who runs Fifth Star Labs with software developer Chris Laurel. “It tends to conjure all those big existential questions like ‘Why are we here?’ ‘Is there anybody else out there?’ ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’”
Users who can never remember which constellation is the Big Dipper or Orion’s Belt no longer have anything to worry about. The app works like this: Hold your phone up to the sky, and Sky Guide automatically adjusts to your location, scanning the heavens for the stars in your line of sight.
A trace image surrounds each constellation, making it easy to see how astronomers in ancient Greece designated a seemingly random collection of stars as Ophiuchus, the god of medicine.
Clicking the Sky Guide information box at the center of the constellation triggers an explanation detailing the origin and significance of the name. Other information boxes explain who first identified a star, or the distance between Earth and a faraway galaxy.
The best examples are pieces of space junk, like Cosmos 1356, a leftover scrap of metal that the Soviet Union used to launch an electronic and signals intelligence satellite in 1982.
For Risinger, it’s all an attempt to reach something deeper.
We live in an exceptionally exciting time to be a human looking out…
We are a naturally curious species. We have this cognitive ability — which is either a blessing or a curse, depending on how you look at it — that allows us to comprehend our place in a vast universe. We look outward to find meaning here on Earth. Many old star myths were akin to scripture, trying to teach lessons or morality, or giving meaning to the unknown.
I would also argue that not everybody is drawn to the stars, because it makes us confront those big questions. The big unknown is unsettling and can make people really uncomfortable. The stars challenge our ego. They tell us 'You are pretty small in the grand scheme of things.’ Not everybody likes to feel small. But I think we would be far better off as a species if we all allowed ourselves to feel that more often.
Read more: National Parks Are Embracing Indigenous Astronomy
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