Quotes About Exploration

True science literacy is less about what you know and more about how your brain is wired for asking questions.

Collectively, these findings tell us it's conceivable that life began on Mars and later seeded life on Earth, a process known as panspermia.

Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science. —EDWIN P. HUBBLE (1889–1953), The Nature of Science

As the area of our knowledge grows, so too does the perimeter of our ignorance.

Science literacy is less about what you know and more about how your brain is wired for asking questions.

the only people who should have their head examined are those who never ask questions.

I look forward to the day when the solar system becomes our collective backyard—explored not only with robots, but with the mind, body, and soul of our species.

To declare that Earth must be the only planet in the universe with life would be inexcusably big-headed of us.

Yes, the universe had a beginning. Yes, the universe continues to evolve. And yes, every one of our body's atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnaces within high-mass stars. We are not simply in the universe, we are part of it. We are born from it. One might even say that the universe has empowered us, here in our small corner of the cosmos, to figure itself out. And we have only just begun.

From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" —EDGAR MITCHELL, APOLLO 14 ASTRONAUT, 1974

While most branches of science have ascended in this era, the field of astrophysics persistently rises to the top. I think I know why. At one time or another every one of us has looked up at the night sky and wondered: What does it all mean? How does it all work? And, what is my place in the universe?

What are the chances that this first and only smart species in the history of life on Earth has enough smarts to completely figure out how the universe works? Chimpanzees are an evolutionary hair's-width from us yet we can agree that no amount of tutelage will ever leave a chimp fluent in trigonometry. Now imagine a species on Earth, or anywhere else, as smart compared with humans as humans are compared with chimpanzees. How much of the universe might they figure out?

exploration is hardly ever motivated by the desire to explore. Part the curtains of curiosity, and you'll find individuals hungry for political, cultural, or economic dominion funding the expedition.

Space exploration may pull in the talent, but war pays the bills.

Explore the universe for what it is, rather than for what it seems.

I do not know what I appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on a seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me. (Brewster 1860, p. 331)

Nonetheless, they remind us that ignorance is the natural state of mind for a research scientist. People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe.

How do you study something that cannot possibly get your clothes dirty? How do astrophysicists know anything about either the universe or its contents if all the objects to be studied are light-years away? Fortunately, the light emanating from a star reveals much more to us than its position in the sky or how bright it is.

You can not become a scientist if you require that every question has an answer because its the very questions that have no answer that attract you to a laboratory every single day.

Our planet Earth has a diameter of 0.04 light-seconds. Neptune's orbit spans 8 light-hours. The stars of the Milky Way galaxy delineate a broad, flat disk about 100,000 light-years across. And the Virgo supercluster of galaxies, to which the Milky Way belongs, extends some 60 million light-years.

Sir William Herschel was the first person to discover a planet beyond those easily visible to the naked eye, and he was ready to name it after the King—always a safe bet when you are his subject. Had Sir William succeeded, the planet list would read: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and George.

We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out—and

We've come a long way since Herschel's experiments with rays that were "unfit for vision," empowering us to explore the universe for what it is, rather than for what it seems to be. Herschel would be proud. We achieved true cosmic vision only after seeing the unseeable: a dazzlingly rich collection of objects and phenomena across space and across time that we may now dream of in our philosophy.

We are not simply in the universe, we are part of it. We are born from it. One might even say that the universe has empowered us, here in our small corner of the cosmos, to figure itself out. And we have only just begun.