Ponder This

Soon we are going to recognize and celebrate the 50th anniversary of man setting foot on the moon.  

Photo - NASA

 

A photo of Apollo 11's lunar module ‘Eagle’ – approaching the command module after leaving the moon’s surface.  The date is July 21, 1969 and in the backdrop are both the moon and the earth.  

The Law of Conservation of Mass (or principle of mass conservation) states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time.  A system's mass cannot change so quantity can neither be added nor be removed.  As a consequence – the stuff that makes up every human being, dead, alive or yet to be born, is in the frame of that photograph.  So, even if you hadn’t been born at the time this photo was taken you are technically in the photo as the matter that eventually made you was already on earth. 

Every last human who was dead, alive or yet to be born is in that photo. 

With one exception.  The man who snapped the photo - astronaut Michael Collins.   

Think about that….