Sunsets in the land of the magic light

Yesterday I was wandering with my car… warming it up, when I notice one of the most incredible sunsets I’ve ever seen in ages, between the trees in the south side of the road. I tried to think quickly where I could get a better look of the Sun and I finally came out with the perfect place where I can get a really nice view, fast and without eve get out of the car. Eastward of Avaranta beach in Joensuu, in Nuottaniemi, in a place called Siilaisenlahti on lake Pyhäselkä, there is a place where people unload and load their boats in Summer. From there you have a perfect view, with no trees interfering, and without even get out of the car. It’s a pity I couldn’t reach the place earlier, because the view I had when I was on the road was even more stunning.

After I took the shot and share it on my social networks, it started to make me remember a sunset shot that the rover Spirit took in 2005 on Mars.

Sunset on Mars, source NASA and Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Among the pictures that google images served me there was a little more elaborated sunset on Mars with people on it…

The Blue Sunset. Source: Wanderers a Short film by Erik Wernquist

It’s incredible how a sunset can make our mind fly away and dream with a close future when we can wander freely on the Solar System. It’s also incredible how a sunset in two different neighbor planets on the Solar System can look quite alike. Perhaps Mars is going to be our next home… and soon we’er going to be able to enjoy those sunsets on first hand.

Wanderers, is a magic short film that show us that future with the incredible voice of Carl Sagan as background. You mind just can’t, but wander into those places.

Wanderers — a short film by Erik Wernquist from Erik Wernquist on Vimeo.

For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven’t forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. We invest far-off places with a certain romance. This appeal, I suspect, has been meticulously crafted by natural selection as an essential element in our survival. Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game—none of them lasts forever. It is beyond our powers to predict the future

Your own life, or your band’s, or even your species’ might be owed to a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds.

Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, spoke for wanderers in all epochs and meridians: “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas …”

Maybe it’s a little early. Maybe the time is not quite yet. But those other worlds—promising untold opportunities—beckon.

Silently, they orbit the Sun, waiting.

Source: Pale Blue Dot, Introduction. Pages 18 to 24.

Because wer are natural wanderers and explorers. We always crave for go a little bit far and beyond. I hope we never forgot that appeal.

We used to look up and wonder our place in the stars.