Buy
A Star
If you are at all like me, than you are probably wondering what the
deal with this whole buy a star thing is. People are actually
paying out hard earned cash to ‘purchase’ a ball of
nuclear fusion hundreds and even thousands of light years away from
us?
The thing I’m baffled about most with the whole buy a star
concept is why didn’t I think of it first! Here you
have a product that costs nothing to make as it has already been made,
is guaranteed for life, doesn’t need to be delivered, stored,
packaged, or anything, and people are willing to pay money for
it. It’s brilliant!
All joking aside, I think the idea to buy a star is actually kind of
cool. The attraction to buy a star is that you get to name it
whatever you want. So, you don’t really buy a star
of course, as how can you own a flaming ball of helium so far away that
the light you’re seeing from it was emitted back during a
time when man kind was just beginning to realize you can plant seeds in
soil. When you buy a star, you buy the right to name it.
Of course, the market for people wanting to buy a star is largely
people in love wanting to name stars after their lovers.
It’s a romantic notion that is becoming a popular way to tell
someone you care about how you feel.
While it’s a neat and romantic idea in theory, I’m
never going to do it. The reality of it is something a little
too close to a clever scam. The name you choose when you
‘buy a star’ is not in anyway official, and will
never be used or even known by the scientific community at
large. The only people that will ever know that you named
that star will be you, the people you tell, and the people you paid
your hard earned cash too. All you actually get is a piece of
paper that basically says you’re an
idiot.
The buy a star concept is therefore just a symbolic gesture, but really
you don’t have to pay any money to name a star after
someone. Just look up at the sky, pick a start, and say out
loud ‘I hereby dub that star to be named (state desired name
here) from now on’. There you go!
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