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Comment by bkirkby | Hacker News Reader

Fwiw I had something akin to the overview effect when I attended a full solar eclipse. I thought I was prepared. I had read up on what to expect because I wanted to make the most of the experience for the kids. I wanted to make sure we observed the "shadow bands" (snake like shadows traversing across single colored surfaces that aren't always visible).

Everything did proceed as I expected (including the shadow bands), but when the eclipse was full, the earth went quiet. All the animals stopped and wondered (including the younger children who were boisterously playing seconds before the full effect).

As I stared up into the heavens, I had this deeply profound realization that our planet is traveling through space like all the other planets. The observation and experience of an eclipse made the abstract concept of space a reality and brought it closer to me in a way that just thinking (a lot) about space has never done.

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I had much the same feelings. It is very hard to describe to someone who hasn't witnessed it. In a moment, my perception of the earth-moon-sun system transformed into something much more tangible than it had been before. Sort of like a shift from a 2D image to a 3D model. The sense of scale also became more tangible for me.

I'm hoping to repeat this again in for 2024 eclipse crossing North America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_April_8,_2024

Reminds me of the lyrics to “do you realize” by the flaming lips:

https://genius.com/The-flaming-lips-do-you-realize-lyrics

Or, for that matter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKP0aoXaQJo

I had this effect laying on a rooftop as a teenager watching a meteor storm. The meteors were streaking in straight lines across/through the sky. The illusion of the "dome" of the sky was broken, and my senses were directly telling me that Earth is hurtling through space, and these things are zipping by it. It was an almost physical sense of mind expansion.

I guess this cannot have the same effect as what you described, because at the end of the day it is „just a video“ — but this brilliantly, brilliantly done time lapse recording of the night sky, where it’s EARTH that moves, and not the stars in the sky like in all those other videos, really made something click for me: https://youtu.be/1zJ9FnQXmJI

Wow, have never seen an eclipse but get this same feeling from watching cloud shadows move across the hills.

> As I stared up into the heavens, I had this deeply profound realization that our planet is traveling through space like all the other planets.

I genuinely don't understand what would be sad about that. The possibility of the next generation being able to explore at least one of those planets is very real.

i'm not sure i would call it _completely_ sad. i would say the sad was mixed in with awe. in an instant i felt both incredibly small and incredibly important. it was very surreal.

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