The ant is perched upon a blade of grass,
may ponder on the vast expanse of space beyond its vision.
Knows nothing of a lawn mower carburetor.
From our perch on earth we see Centaurus,
and claim to grasp the tricky task to see beyond our vision;
then decisively proclaim there’s no Creator?
The ant at least makes no such callow claims.
Such claims of course seem lame to us, for we have self-awareness
until we ponder what’s beyond Centaurus.
(The Random Poet:01042024
www.therandompoet.com)
<<<<selected sources include: Centaurus (cen-tair’-us ) – -is a bright constellation in the southern sky. One of the largest constellations, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Centaurus contains several very bright stars. Its alpha and beta stars are used as “pointer stars” to help observers find the constellation Crux. Centaurus has 281 stars above magnitude 6.5, meaning that they are visible to the unaided eye, the most of any constellation. –
Centaurus is also home to open clusters. NGC 3766 is an open cluster 6,300 light-years from Earth that is visible to the unaided eye. It contains approximately 100 stars, the brightest of which are 7th magnitude. NGC 5460 is another naked-eye open cluster, 2,300 light-years from Earth, that has an overall magnitude of 6 and contains approximately 40 stars.[2] There is one bright planetary nebula in Centaurus, NGC 3918, also known as the Blue Planetary. It has an overall magnitude of 8.0 and a central star of magnitude 11.0; it is 2600 light-years from Earth. The Blue Planetary was discovered by John Herschel and named for its color’s similarity to Uranus, though the nebula is apparently three times larger than the planet.[2] Centaurus is rich in galaxies as well. NGC 4622 is a face-on spiral galaxy located 200 million light-years from Earth (redshift 0.0146). Its spiral arms wind in both directions, which makes it nearly impossible for astronomers to determine the rotation of the galaxy. wikipedia.org >>>>