Book

Description

I begin this book with a planet that looks deceptively familiar. HD 189733 b appears deep blue, and from a great distance that colour can awaken an instinctive association with Earth. Yet the resemblance ends almost immediately. This world is a hot Jupiter, orbiting its star extraordinarily closely, with an atmosphere hot enough to transform silicate-bearing material into a radically different kind of weather. Its winds move at several kilometres per second. Its atmosphere has been studied through transit spectroscopy, emission measurements and high-resolution observations. What looks beautiful from afar can be physically violent at a scale that the human body could never survive. I will therefore distinguish carefully between observation, inference, interpretation and spiritual reflection. Where astronomy gives me evidence, I will treat it as evidence. Where a Sanskrit verse gives me a philosophical or devotional horizon, I will not turn it into an astrophysics paper. Where the comparison is mine, I will say so. My purpose is not to prove that ancient India knew HD 189733 b. My purpose is to ask whether an ancient discipline of wonder can help modern humanity approach the universe with greater intellectual humility, spiritual depth and ethical responsibility.