As I was walking home the other night, I looked up at the night sky. This isn’t out of the ordinary for me and in fact I’ve loved looking up at the stars since I was a kid. The difference now is that I live on the edge of the city and can look up most evenings when it’s clear and see a blanket of stars decorating the night sky, and especially at this time of year.

That humans have looked to the stars for centuries, told stories of the constellations, sun and moon by firelight, and more recently in our history traveled off world both inspires and fascinates me. As someone who grew up watching (and still watches) Star Wars and Star Trek, I’m intrigued by the possibilities of faster than light space travel, the technological advances needed to make it a reality, and by the question humans have asked for as long as we’ve existed: Are we alone in the universe?

Perhaps not surprisingly I’ve thought about this question a lot over the years, and where I’ve landed (if you’ll excuse the pun) is no, I don’t think we are. In the vastness of our universe and many far away galaxies, I think there must be life, whether it’s in a way we understand it, or in ways we have yet to understand. I also wonder what would happen if we were visited by intergalactic travelers, and would our world be ready for such a revelation? While this question could take us down an entirely different wormhole (final pun, I promise) that will be for another time.

Switching back to where this post began – the night sky – I’ve thought often about how to use the night sky and the stars as teaching tools, and would love to organize and facilitate a storytelling night under the stars like I describe in one of the stories I shared earlier this year. This now gets added to my professional bucket list, so if anyone wants to collaborate on making it happen, be sure to reach out.

Now, as a closing note for anyone reading this who lives in Alberta and who’s as interested by the night sky as I am, I’d recommend visiting the University of Calgary’s Rothney Astrophysical Observatory and the Jasper Dark Sky Festival.