Into outer space: Prepositions of place and motion 
10.03.2009
The Kepler Mission, a NASA space telescope, is in orbit. It rocketed into outer space on 6 March on a three-and-a-half year mission to track down other Earth-like planets in a faraway patch of the Milky Way galaxy, where it will scan about 100,000 stars.
The year 2009, the International Year of Astronomy, is the 400th anniversary of Gallileo Galilei’s first use of a telescope, but mankind has been looking up into the sky for orientation for far longer. The sun, moon and stars are connected to religion, the calendar and farmers' almanacs, to gods and heroes and the fate of mankind in every culture. They have always been practical points of reference. But then came manned space exploration, and the perspective shifted. The adventure of fictional astronaut Major Tom in David Bowie's "Space Oddity" (1969), sung at the height of the Apollo human space-flight programme (1961–1975), is a fantasy about what could go wrong for the poor devils "sitting in a tin can / far above the world". Listen:
Lyrics to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" here.
Fans of science fiction and followers of the Kepler Mission will continue to hope that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists out there, somewhere in the far off distance, perhaps just to the left of that star over there.On the next page, you can study prepositions of place and motion and verbs that go with them as you read about mankind's fascination with the sky.
Anne Hodgson
in der Umlaufbahn
Weltraum
finden
entlegen
Fleck
Milchstraße
Bauernkalender
Bezugspunkte
Kuriosität
Blechdose
