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Astronomy Day (Fall)
"But where is everybody?"
~ The Fermi Paradox, Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)
Seek and ye shall find! The Fermi paradox—named after Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi—captures the great riddle of our age: if the universe is so vast, and the odds so favorable, where is everyone? The Drake Equation frames the puzzle in numbers: stars forming, planets circling, Earth-like worlds arising, some of which may host life, intelligence, and communication. Factor in the lifespans of civilizations, and the equation suggests a galaxy alive with neighbors. Are they out there? Hidden? Obscured?
Designed for Charles Cockell, Professor of Astrobiology at Edinburgh University, this tartan captures this paradox in pattern and color. Black speaks for the void of space; blue squares, the rare oases of water where life might root itself; and green, the fragile filaments of biology stretching across the cosmos, converging in three lines for our own Earth—the third planet from the Sun. Red evokes Mars, poised on the edge of habitability; yellow, our Sun, the single star we know to sustain life; and white, the starlight that would greet the eyes of any being gazing upward from another world.
This September 2025, NASA’s Perseverance rover uncovered intriguing patterns in a rock nicknamed Cheyava Falls (from the “Sapphire Canyon” outcrop) in Jezero Crater, a site that once held an ancient lake. The sample contained organic carbon and unusual mineral textures resembling those produced by microbes on Earth. While natural chemistry could also explain the findings, the discovery stands as one of the tantalizing signs so far that Mars may once have hosted life!
And so the search continues and the mystery deepens! 🖤 ❤️ 💙💚 💛 🪐 🪐 🪐 🧬 🧬 🧬
Astronomy Day is celebrated twice in a year, in spring and in fall. In the fall, it is scheduled to occur on the Saturday between mid-September and mid-October closest to the first quarter Moon.
This tartan was designed for Charles Cockell, Professor of Astrobiology, at Edinburgh University.
The tartan colours were chosen specifically for the field of Astrobiology, the branch of biology concerned with the study of life on earth and in space.
The black background represents space; the blue squares represent oases of water on potentially habitable worlds, thought to be a necessity for life; green represents life - thin lines tenuously threaded through the Universe and intersecting in water with three green lines representing planet Earth, the third planet from the Sun, the only planet currently known to support life; the red lines represent Mars, a planet at the edge of habitability; the yellow line represents our Sun, the only star at the current time known to support a life-bearing planet; the white line represents the colour of the distant stars as seen from the surface of any planet in the Universe - other planets that might support life.
For the latest news and research from the UK Centre of Astrobiology in Edinburgh, click the planets!