In a triumphant display of public spending that could have funded a thousand roundabouts, the UK Space Agency has unveiled a timelapse of the Southern Lights filmed from the International Space Station. The footage, they claim, is a 'scientific triumph'. I have seen it.
It is, undeniably, rather pretty. But let us not confuse pretty with profound. The aurora australis, a celestial ballet of charged particles and magnetic fields, has been reduced to a screensaver for bureaucrats.
They speak of 'advances in atmospheric understanding' and 'long-term monitoring capabilities'. I speak of a gin-soaked planet spinning through the void and an agency desperate to justify its existence by filming the wallpaper of space. The video itself is a masterpiece of cosmic indifference: green and purple ribbons dance across the polar sky, serene and silent.
Meanwhile, on Earth, we have potholes, a housing crisis, and a government that thinks 'levelling up' means buying a new drone for the space office. The Space Agency's press release is a masterpiece of mangled modesty, using words like 'groundbreaking' and 'unprecedented' for a clip that could have been shot by a drunk astronaut with a GoPro. But do not mock the aurora.
Mock the agency that charges the public for a light show. The Southern Lights do not need our praise. They need our awe.
But what they get is a press conference and a promise of more timelapses to come. The universe is vast, indifferent, and breathtaking. The UK Space Agency is small, self-congratulatory, and slightly embarrassed that their greatest achievement this year is a pretty video.
I propose a new initiative: sell the footage to a meditation app and use the proceeds to fix a bridge. But that, dear reader, would require the agency to admit that their 'scientific triumph' is, at its core, a very expensive screensaver. Until then, we shall watch the aurora and wonder: is this what triumph looks like?
Or is it just the universe reminding us that we are very, very small and very, very proud of our little lights?
