The Sun, Pluto and heaven

photo credit

 

 

 

Yesterday, I had an interesting discussion with Sonshine. He started by throwing me a question. He asked me what was the name of the robot (I was later told it was a spacecraft) that reached the dwarf planet, Pluto.

 

I had no clue! I shot that question to my husband over the watsapp and found out that it was called NASA The Horizon. Feeling very intellectual, I shared that information with Sonshine and even tried to challenge him by asking him if he knew how long it took for the spacecraft to reach Pluto. I had ' almost a decade' as the answer but he quickly shot back, '9 years'. I was stumped. I was sure my answer was correct because during our staycation at Shangri-La Hotel last weekend, we had a copy of National Geographic. It was then I read that the robot or spacecraft, took 'almost a decade' to reached Pluto. But my 8 year old boy's answer was even more specific than that!

 

Apparently, he read from that same copy of National Geographic that the craft left earth in 2006 and so, he did his own calculation. I was stumped because as I recall, he barely read the magazine nor was interested enough to look at it. As far as I remember, he merely flipped the pages for a few seconds. I even tried to interest him to read but he shrugged me off. I had the impression that he wasn't interested so I left it as it was.

 

How wrong was I.

I regretted not taking back that copy because he went on to ask me more questions.

 

'How fast was the robot travelling?'

'Would it be flying to the other dwarf planets?'

'What is the coldest DWARF planet in the WHOLE UNIVERSE?'

'How cold is Pluto?'

'Why can't that same robot go on to other planets? WHY? WHY?'

 

And the very knowledgeable me replied 'I don't know, I don't know, I don't know'.

But he wouldn't let me off and kept on with his questions until I convinced with some sort of answers.

 

And as I was trying to sift out the answers on google for him, I found out about another dwarf planet called Ceres. I offered that information to him thinking it was new to him only to be told that he 'already knows'. He could even tell me Ceres is positioned after Mars. I discovered he also knew all the 5 known dwarf planets to date, its names and even their locations. 

 

All of a sudden, I felt really stupid.

 

Our conversation led on to the Sun and that was when I shared that the scientist believed that there would be an explosion on the Sun and us earthlings would only have 12 hours to protect ourselves. He responded with a flurry questions, when, how, why etc. But what amused me was that he concluded that the scientist will eventually invent a shield to protect the earth. And that God will give the mortals some sort of ear muffs to protect their ears from the sound of the explosion. I told him but it won't happen until a billion years later and he said he was thinking for the future humans in a billion years, LOL!

 

We went on to talked about the universe, God and heaven. He said that he believes In heaven there is no time. I thought he learnt that from the children's church but he said no, he simply said 'I KNOW that'. And he is quite right.

 

He also asked me where is Heaven.

I told him it is beyond the universe.

 And that was when he suddenly said this

 

"I want to live in the same house as you" 

 

"But, you are living in the same house as me!" I retorted

 

He said "I mean when we are in heaven."

 

''Why?'' I asked.

 

''Because I love you''

 

And that concludes the day when my son made me feel really stupid but really, really loved.