The New Acropolis Philosophy School in Sabadell had the pleasure of welcoming members of the Urania group from Barcelona to its headquarters.

This group, created more than twenty years ago at the Barcelona headquarters, specialises in astronomy and aims to study outer space in all its entirety: from the movements of the Earth and other neighbouring planets within the Solar System, through the constellations and star clusters inside and outside the Milky Way, to black holes, red giants and superclusters of galaxies in the Universe.

At this conference, we enjoyed an intergalactic guided tour that gave us a better understanding of the location of our Solar System within the Milky Way: which of its arms we are in, which are our neighbouring systems, and even the large black hole at its centre.

We learned how stars are born and die, about the most important clusters, and what their future will be. We also learned how the Milky Way will merge with its neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, to form a new galaxy in millions and millions of years.

Finally, we zoomed out from our small planet to the confines of the known universe, realising our smallness and insignificance within the grand scheme of creation.

But we must not forget that ours is a school of philosophy, where all the topics we cover always have an underlying philosophical context, which helps us to improve ourselves so that we can help those around us and contribute to a better world.

Thus, the study of astronomy should help us understand that the Earth, the Solar System and the Milky Way are parts of a great living being that we call the Universe, a whole that is in constant transformation and change, albeit on such a large scale that we can hardly perceive it.

Just as the Earth is part of this whole, so are we all, and therefore we cannot forget this connection that all human beings share with our planet, nor the responsibility, empathy and compassion that all those around us deserve, as well as Mother Nature, who allows us to live in her nooks and crannies.

And, of course, if our Earth is an invisible molecule of water within the great ocean of the Universe, each and every one of us is just as small in comparison to the Earth; and this is another lesson in humility that would do us no harm to bear in mind.