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Moon and Mars together
Photo by Allan Gould

This is a photo of Mars out beyond the limb of the Moon. It took me years of looking into the sky to convince my mind that when I look up there I am not seeing a two dimensional surface. Sometimes it helps to really focus on the moon as a sphere, and then it becomes clear, once one astronomical body has depth, that everything else lies in a field that extends away from us.

I think we are somehow conditioned to see the sky as a roof, a sensation that cathedral architects have played with for centuries. It’s a strangely liberating feeling when you realize that the objects in the sky are not “up there” but rather “out there.” This photo is a nice reminder of that perspective.