“This was a world I never wanted to leave again.”

Here’s another account of a near-death experience or NDE, drawn from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010):

While clinging to that buoy I felt that my situation was hopeless, and I was about to let go and drown.  Suddenly I found myself in another world — a world full of wonderful, green-glowing hills, covered with the most beautiful flowers you could never find here on earth.  The most gorgeous light bathed me in unimaginable tranquility.  This was a world I never wanted to leave again.

How long I spent in that world I don’t know, but suddenly I was back on earth.  And the surprising thing was that I immediately knew what to do to escape my plight.  As if someone helped me, my eyes were drawn to the frayed ends of a cable that tied a ship to the mooring buoy I was clinging to.  I regained a bit of strength and reached the other side of the canal.  This saved me from a certain death by drowning.  The assistance from the other side was palpable to me.  (79)

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Our planet formed somewhat more than 4.5 billion years ago.  Life may already have appeared by 4.1 billion years ago.  That’s remarkably fast.  New support for that early appearance of terrestrial biochemical activity may have been found quite recently:

“4-Billion-Year-Old Crystals Offer Clues to the Origins of Life: Unlike diamonds, zircons are forever. These crystalline time capsules can give us a window into the life-sparking conditions of early Earth.”

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In news concerning a much, much more recent time:

“Ancient Bronze Hand Found in Switzerland Mystifies Archeologists”

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But let’s now think about the future, instead:

“A warming Earth might eventually copy the greenhouse effect of Venus: Modelling finds the precious equilibrium between temperature and radiation breaks down beyond a certain point, spelling big trouble.”

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Oh, never mind.  Let’s go out deep into space.  (At least it will distract us from the circus that’s currently underway in connection with the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Kavanaugh nomination.)

“Astronomers may have spotted the birth of a neutron star: Six years after a supernova exploded, scientists have found signs of a newborn pulsar”

“The first rovers to explore an asteroid just sent photos home: The ‘Wish-you-were-here’ pictures show Ryugu’s surface”