These vast, faraway objects are so beautiful when viewed from Earth, observing them from light years away. If you actually went there though, it would be very cold and lonely. I found science itself to be a lot like this. It seemed so attractive, interesting, and important when viewed from the outside — from a distance. But after years of highly specialised study, close-up, it felt cold and lonely.

There's nothing wrong with science if it's taken for what it is — a complicated system of (often very successful) explanations for some aspects of the physical universe. The problem begins when people assume, for some reason, that science is all there is: If science can't explain something then it must not even exist. And then, having not much else (except perhaps lust), they look to science as a replacement for God. That's when it really becomes cold and lonely.

When it's used like a religion, I found science (including physics, astronomy and cosmology) a much lesser substitute for the real thing. Put back in it's place, science is a great tool that God gave us to help understand some things about the universe that God created. And we can use it to discover (and admire) beautiful faraway objects. Like this nebula.