She thought: Every atom in my left hand came from a different star than the atoms in my right hand. My heart pumps iron that once shone at the center of a sun. I am older than the Earth. I am younger than the light from Andromeda.
“We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean,” Sagan wrote. “We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.”
She looked up. The sky was clear, scattered with points of ancient light. For the first time, she didn’t just see stars. She saw ancestors. Cosmos - Carl Sagan
In the dim light of a falling autumn afternoon, a young woman named Ariadne climbed the rickety ladder to her grandfather’s attic. He had died three weeks ago, and the family had finally gathered to sort through what he’d left behind: old tools, yellowed photographs, a clock that no longer ticked.
“For small creatures such as we,” Sagan had written, “the vastness is bearable only through love.” She thought: Every atom in my left hand
But Ariadne went for the books.
Ariadne lay back on the weathered wood of the pier. The book rested on her chest, rising and falling with her breath. I am younger than the light from Andromeda
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”