Not a ring in sight.
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But the moon comes out okay.
So, these far better resourced crews turned their focus to something which, it was breathlessly revealed, is about one billion light years from earth.
They came across a whole bunch of swirling galaxies which will one day apparently all join together and create one big one, which will probably end up coming this way and swallowing the earth up in... about a billion light years.
Because time is irrelevant in space.
It means nothing.
All it means, and one has to acknowledge that my scientific aptitude during my school years was minimal, is that we won't be here to see it... or hear it.
And, if my minimal aptitude serves me well, if what they have spotted a billion light years away is shoving out light, which of course it clearly must be, then wasn't the light we are seeing today sent on its journey a billion years ago?
Which means the whole swirling sideshow might not actually be there any more.
It could have erupted and dissolved a fortnight ago but we won't know... for another billion years... minus a fortnight.
The irony is (and there is always plenty of space for a spot of irony) if there's an intelligent life form thriving on a planet in one of those recently discovered swirling galaxies then they may well have spotted ours, and us, but what they will be seeing is the light of a billion years ago when this place was boiling and lifeless.
It'll be another billion years before they start seeing the lights of the Marine Parade and McLean Park.
And of course by then those lights will have long ceased to... ahhh, best just leave it at that.
If it all perplexed the late Stephen Hawking then we haven't got a hope in space of trying to piece the great mystery of the universe together.
One of the kids summed it up best when they were little and heard about the "big bang".
The great unimaginatively massive explosion of energy and light and matter and some other things when created the universe... apparently.
"So what was here before that happened?" I was asked.
"Nothing," I replied.
"Just empty space."
To which the young 'un pointed out to me that space is something... it's just a thing with nothing in it but it's still something.
"And there might have been something out there before the big noisy thing happened... how do they know there wasn't something out there before the boom boom?"
I said I didn't know... which is not a reply children enjoy because they like answers and finality to things.
"There must have been something somewhere... and how did space get here anyway and how far does it go on for?"
I sighed and suggested fish and chips would be a fine idea for tea and that was excitedly agreed upon and the whole mystery of the universe thing was put to bed.
My philosophy is don't worry about what's a billion light years away because all they are is pretty pictures.
I'm more interested in the meteorite that may be six or seven real years away and moving stealthily and unseen in our direction.
And wait a minute.
If there is an unwelcome visitor from space just edging past Saturn at this time and with our name on it, could it have come from the pretty place a billion light years away?
Wow, what would be the chances of that?
Imagine the sights and systems it would have seen on the way here.
It would end up being the grand and solid link between us and the swirling events of a billion light years away.
Oh yes, I think it is well and truly time to whip out and get some fish and chips and put this whole mystery of the universe to bed.