Twinkle, twinkle little star

Have you ever sat down under the sky, when there were no clouds, and just looked at the stars? Have you ever wondered what starts are and when they started shining? Have you ever thought about the fact that those stars that you see in the sky tonight, the Japanese will se in a couple of months?

What is a star than? A scientific explanation would be that a star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma held together by gravity. That explanation helps my understanding as little as a bag full of stones would help me if I climbed up a mountain. The closest star that we can see from Earth is the sun, but yet it feels so far away. Most stars are between 1 and 10 billion years old, and it is a topic that has been researched as far back as there are traces of life on Earth. People have used this research to create horoscopes, preach religion and as an element to predict the future. But it has also been used to create myths; I'm sure you have heard the expression "wish upon a falling star".

If you now think about that the youngest star is 1 billion years old... That means that the stars have been on the sky before there were even a sign of human trace on Earth. Many times we have felt that we don't have anything in common with people that lived 500 years ago.. Even today some of us mean that we don't have anything in common with people that live in another country or have a different culture than we do. But yes we do have something in common; we have the stars!

So go out one night, why not tonight, and look at the stars. They are the same stars that were there last week, last year, decade... The same stars from when we were kids, when our parents were kids and before our grandparents were even born. They are the same stars that will shine during our children's and grandchildren's lives. In 200 years no one will know who we were, but they will know the same stars that we once did.