Geologists searching for the volcano at Yellowstone National Park didn’t understand why they couldn’t find it. That was, until they realised the volcano wasn’t in the park; rather the park was in the volcano. And so it is with us down on the ground. Even with all our tech it’s hard to get a proper overview. We still tend to think of the horizon as, well, horizontal. One of the glorious things that the Apollo 8 Earthrise photo did was to show us that the horizon is in fact round, very round indeed.

And within its blue aureole was home. This was the place. This is what all the fuss was about; this is what all the fuss had always, and only ever been about. Here was the flux workshop where all we ever knew had taken place, where every momentous event in recorded and unrecorded history had happened: every thought, every action, every feeling, every struggle, every disaster, every triumph, all evolution, all weather, all war, all births, all deaths, all laughter, all tears, all regrets and gratitude, all prayer, all pain, all love, everything that ever swam or flew or knew the land, every unseen blossom, every unsolved murder and unresolved mystery, every opportunity missed or taken, every strange outcome, coincidence or close shave, every word, every sound, every smile, every kiss, every choice, every lesson and mistake, every single life lived and lost; everything we ever knew – or didn’t know – about anything occurred here, in the Blue Room.

It also showed us our place in the larger scheme of things, and in doing so gave rise to a new, green perspective on our bit of blue in the big black. It’s surely no coincidence that Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace were founded within a year or two of that photo coming to light.

It was time to put on our big boy astronaut suits and admit that we are not the centre of the universe after all (I know, right?). We still struggle with that. Truth is, space does not begin out there beyond the blue and the fluffy clouds. We are already in it and always have been. But where do you begin when faced with the faceless face of space? Well, the solar system will do, for a start. But even there we struggle.

We know that we’re moving through space fairly quickly – at about 72,000 kph – but at the same time we have a static, two-dimensional idea of the planets and their orbits around the sun. These two ideas do not fit together, which is kind of ok because it’s all so big that it doesn’t matter. But then again, it does reveal the schism between old, earthcentric thinking and a new, more expansive perspective. We can just about cope with the textbook heliocentric, model of the planets behaving themselves in their Newtonian orbits, but the idea of it all happening in motion leaves us a bit cold and shoulder-shruggy. 

The Solar System is large enough to contain any aspirations most of us might have, but even so it’s far bigger than we imagine. Even with NASA’s help, trying to calculate its size is tricky, partly because no one can agree on where it actually ends. As far as we know there isn’t a sign, an exit through a gift shop or a McDonalds to demarcate it. But huge it is. NASA sent the Voyagers 1 & 2 on their way in 1977 and they’ve only just passed McDonalds. It’s not surprising that we haven’t given it too much attention. However, understanding and defining ourselves in a context larger than just the Earth, or worse, insect sectarianism, has to be our next step.

So what happens if we acknowledge that while the planets are doing their orbital ballet the Solar System en masse is moving? Then it becomes integrated, dynamic, beautiful and something else entirely. Here’s a 3D model for which even full screen, obviously, can’t do justice. But you get the idea.

Meanwhile