The Universe wouldn't be the same without you

When you look up at the stars on a dark night, are you sometimes overwhelmed at the sheer scale of it all? Does it occasionally make you feel insignificant, like a tiny speck of dust whose problems don't actually amount to a hill of beans? Not me.

Photo by Greg Rakozy

​I like to look up at the night sky for two reasons. Wonder and perspective. Wonder at the beauty and strangeness of the stars and planets, spinning, whirling and crashing their way through billions of light years, like an endless ballet performed by monkeys in space. Did you know that scientists suspect rain storms of diamonds occur on Neptune and Uranus? That there are planets that snow rocks and those that hail glass? Not only that but the glass comes at you sideways due to the immense winds, try dodging those daggers of death. I'd love to be able to visit these places, of course impossible at the moment, so I do the second best thing and use my imagination. But more than all of this wonder, I feel totally, utterly at home.

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It's raining diamonds somewhere. Photo by Chris Coe

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