Читать книгу The Planets - Дава Собел - Страница 4

At night I lie awake

in the ruthless Unspoken,

knowing that planets

come to life, bloom,

and die away,

like day-lilies opening

one after another

in every nook and cranny

of the Universe …

—Diane Ackerman,

from The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral

In all the history of mankind, there will be only one generation that will be first to explore the Solar System, one generation for which, in childhood, the planets are distant and indistinct discs moving through the night sky, and for which, in old age, the planets are places, diverse new worlds in the course of exploration.

—Carl Sagan, from The Cosmic Connection: An Extra-terrestrial Perspective