The obvious starting point most of us have in our reach to understand the what lies beyond our earth-bound world is the moon. It has a comfortable brightness for viewing, features we can see with our naked eye, and a predictable change in its phases by which we gauge the passage of time.
There are stories to explain the mysteries of its movements, poems to weave it into our romance, and the neighborly clinging of gravity to produce the life force of the tides. In all, the moon has literally been our stepping stone to the heavens beyond. There are stories…