In this blog post, I’ll share the excitement of a night sky brimming with stars—experienced during an astronomy trip to Baekma Hill in Cheorwon, far from the city lights—as well as the reflections on existence and life that came to mind while gazing at the universe.
While it’s nice to write a travelogue after returning home and reflecting on past memories, it’s best to write it while the memories are still fresh. One autumn long ago, a short trip I took after finishing my Science and Technology Writing class was a special escape from my mundane daily routine. I was active in a club at Seoul National University called the AAA Amateur Astronomy Club. I even served as vice president for a time, and it’s a place where I made many memories during my college years. Unlike my classmates, who were busy preparing for the future, I sometimes felt I was still a bit immature, as I continued to participate in club activities even during my final semester. I was attached to many of the club’s activities, but my favorite was the impromptu observation trips. We called these small-scale observation sessions “So-gwan” for short.
That day, I simply couldn’t concentrate on my Science and Technology Writing class. Before class, I’d received a message saying, “The weather’s nice today,” and my mind had already wandered far away. I was all the more excited because, contrary to the lyrics of the third verse of the “National Anthem”—“The autumn sky is vast, high, and cloudless”—that fall had been marked by many cloudy days. The criteria for a “clear day” among astronomy enthusiasts are much stricter than those used by the Korea Meteorological Administration. A sky isn’t ideal for observation simply because it isn’t raining or has few clouds. To see the stars properly, various conditions—including humidity, atmospheric transparency, visibility, and artificial lighting—must align, not just the absence of clouds. Having heard that the skies around Cheorwon were good, I decided to change my destination to Cheorwon instead of Mount Gye-bang in Pyeongchang County, Gangwon Province, where I usually went. It was around the time of the first-quarter moon, so it wasn’t easy to observe faint celestial objects during the hours when the moonlight was bright. Since the first-quarter moon rises around noon and sets around midnight, it’s possible to observe faint celestial objects relatively freely after the moon has set. So, even though I took my time getting ready, my heart kept urging me to hurry, driven by the desire to spend as much time as possible at the observation site.
As time passed, around 9:00 p.m., I set off with a few freshmen who had joined us late after checking out the school festival. Traffic was heavy along the Inner Ring Road. Although I was born and raised in Seoul, I could never quite get used to traffic jams like this. We passed through places I’d often heard on traffic radio, like the Hongjimun Tunnel and the Wolgok Ramp. The fact that these place names were familiar from traffic reports meant they were, after all, notorious for chronic traffic jams. I wanted to get out of this bustling area as quickly as possible.
Around the time we reached Dongducheon, soldiers suddenly blocked off one side of the road. A short while later, about twenty tanks and armored vehicles passed through that lane. I wondered what was going on. Every time a heavy military vehicle passed, the ground shook, and I could feel the vibrations in my hands gripping the steering wheel. It really hit me that I was getting farther and farther from Seoul and closer to the Demilitarized Zone.
I continued driving north in high spirits, but at some point, thick fog rolled in. The humidity was a bit high, and I began to worry that perhaps I’d pushed ahead with the observation trip simply because I was so eager to get away. A totemic thought also crept into my mind: perhaps the sky, taking offense at our excessive excitement, had closed the path to us. Aside from having to slam on the brakes when a raccoon suddenly darted onto the road, we arrived at Baekma Ridge—our observation site for the day—without any major issues.
It was almost midnight by the time we arrived. Perhaps my constant wish throughout the trip to see a clear night sky had been heard, because a cloudless, clear sky was waiting for us. Starlight was pouring down from the black sky. A starlight shower is best enjoyed while lying on the ground, bundled up in thick clothes. While enjoying the shower of starlight, some people took out their telescopes to search for celestial objects invisible to the naked eye, while others pulled out their cameras to capture the trails of starlight—so even in the darkness, everyone was bustling about. I did nothing at all; instead, I let my whole body soak in the lofty, boundless expanse of the autumn night sky I’d been waiting for so long.
When you lie down on a blanket spread out on the cold ground, you can occasionally see a shooting star streak across the sky. Usually, when someone spots one first, they let out a short exclamation like “Oh!” and point in that direction, but by the time you turn your head after hearing that sound, the shooting star has already vanished. The saying that making a wish upon a shooting star makes it come true might mean that if a wish is so earnest it springs to mind immediately in that brief moment, it will come true someday. While waiting for a shooting star to fall, I silently repeat the mundane wish of “winning the lottery jackpot,” but when the next shooting star actually appears, I just end up exclaiming “Oh!” and pointing in its direction. Then, as we discuss how long the tail of the shooting star we just saw was, I quickly forget all about the lottery. I guess it’s not really a wish I feel that strongly about.
I look for the North Star to gauge my direction. The North Star is known to be a multiple star system located about 430 light-years from Earth. The light we see from the North Star right now is light that left that star about 430 years ago. Therefore, if we assume that the North Star could see Earth at this very moment, the light from Earth that has reached it would also show what Earth looked like hundreds of years ago. The thought naturally follows: “Is the North Star right now the exact same star we see?” Even if some massive change were to occur at the North Star right now, it would take hundreds of years for that information to reach Earth via light. Since a light-year is the distance light travels in a vacuum in one year, observing a distant celestial object means we are also observing its past.
Does “existing” in this world require us to perceive something through our five senses, or to “recognize” it through observation and inference? Can I say that I know the North Star exists in the present simply by observing and examining it? Whether I think about this or not, the North Star was shining in nearly the same spot in the northern sky. In fact, because the North Star is located very close to the North Celestial Pole—toward which Earth’s axis of rotation points—it appears to remain in nearly the same position throughout the night and has long been used as a reference point for finding north.
When I turned my head to look south, unlike the sky I had seen in Pyeongchang, the southern sky over Cheorwon was tinged with a hazy white glow from light pollution. Artificial lighting illuminating the city all night long was the main cause. Even though I had driven for several hours to escape the lights, I couldn’t completely free myself from the city’s glow. How wonderful it would be if I could turn those lights on and off at will. As I gazed at the faded colors near the horizon, obscured by artificial light, I suddenly found myself captivated by the scene itself and stared at it for quite some time.
That is where people live. The lights existed because people lived there in communities, and gazing at them from afar in the darkness made for a special experience. And as I thought of the people there—who live their lives without even a moment to spare to look up at the night sky—I felt a fresh appreciation for the leisure I was enjoying right then. Of course, even in my everyday life, I lead a life not so different from those people I had just observed from a distance and objectified.
In the eastern sky, the winter constellations were already rising. Winter constellations—including Taurus, Orion, and Gemini—began to appear one by one, and Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, also caught my eye. Although the Sun is also a star, Sirius is generally the brightest star visible in the night sky. When you connect these bright stars, a vast constellation representing the winter night sky unfolds.
Each constellation—from Taurus to Orion, who was in love with Artemis, the goddess of the moon—is steeped in ancient myths and stories. How deeply must the people of old have loved the night sky, naming each star and drawing lines between them to weave tales? Constellations felt less like a mere system for identifying the positions of stars and more like a long-standing record of humanity’s imagination and storytelling as we gazed up at the night sky.
Once, I traveled to a desert in India and spent three days riding a camel, unable to sleep properly due to the sandstorms. I remember the thrill I felt lying on my sleeping bag, gazing up at the night sky. The people of old—whether sailing the seas on ships or crossing the desert on camels—must have also gazed at the night sky in that same way, conjuring up countless stories. I cannot live a life of endless wandering like they did, but I can gaze at the night sky—and the sky beyond it—that connects to the one they beheld, and enjoy it to my heart’s content.
Of course, strictly speaking, the night sky that people of the past gazed upon is not exactly the same as the one we see today. Stars are not eternally fixed points; they live out their own lifespans, their brightness and state changing as they move ceaselessly through space. The direction of Earth’s axis of rotation also changes over a very long period of time due to precession. Therefore, the North Star does not remain the North Star forever. In the past, a different star was closer to the North Pole, and in the distant future, yet another star will serve as the reference point in the northern sky. The fact that Polaris, the current North Star, has not always been the North Star is also related to these long-term changes in Earth’s axis of rotation.
As I let my thoughts wander, I suddenly noticed that the eastern sky was beginning to grow faintly bright. While I enjoy the dark night sky, I also love this time of twilight. The stars that once filled the night sky gradually disappear, one by one, into a sky that is regaining its blue hue. The stars aren’t actually disappearing; rather, as the rising sun illuminates the atmosphere, their faint light becomes invisible to our eyes. The black sky, which until just a moment ago seemed endlessly deep, is slowly regaining its blue hue, and the stars that filled the sky above us all night vanish as if they had never been there in the first place.
The time I spent lying beneath the starlight pouring down all night wasn’t long, but that brief journey allowed me to rediscover a sensation that is hard to experience in everyday life. In the city, it’s hard to find complete darkness even after night falls, and it’s not easy to spot countless stars when you look up at the sky. However, when you step away from the city lights and immerse yourself in the darkness, stars that were usually invisible begin to reveal themselves one by one. It’s not that new stars have appeared; rather, we’ve finally been able to see the stars that have always been there. Perhaps there are many such things in our daily lives as well. Things that are always by our side but remain unseen, obscured by the bright and bustling surroundings.
After my starlight shower, it’s time to return to Seoul—back under the city lights that obscure the night sky. Just a few hours ago, I drove north to escape those lights, but in the end, I’m returning to them. That’s because that’s the space where I live my daily life. However, on the way back, I’ll be just a little bit different from when I left. Because I know that even beyond the city’s bright night sky, countless stars still shine. Just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared. We’ve simply lost the leisure to look up for a moment; the stars are still shining in their places today.
