This piece is part of a special project on deep time examining what the Western U.S. was like thousands, millions and even billions of years ago, and how that history is still visible and consequential today. Read more stories from the series.
GOURAV KHULLAR (HE/HIM)
Baum postdoctoral fellow for innovative astronomy at the University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
I was very much attached to the idea that my history is a blip — that my personal history, how I perceive it, was just a blip, seen against the history of the universe. A lot of astronomers sort of wrestle with what, exactly, that means. The work we do to philosophize and make an abstract version of the universe is so small compared to the ground realities of what our communities need. Our idea of deep time has actually shrunk in size compared to what you would have thought was potentially possible, because we know what deep time is, what the idea of billions of years of change looks like. And to us, it feels like our blip is all we have. For me, I think of a deeper appreciation of the life I’m living, the space I’m occupying and the time I get to spend with the people that I care about, because I know that this is a blip.
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This article appeared in the January 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “#IAMTHEWEST.”
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