By Lerraine Neo (26A01A)

There are millions of stars in the sky, yet we rarely ever see even a hundred of them. Few of us dream of strapping down into a spacecraft and exploring the galaxy, and even fewer actually make it there. For the rest, trapped here—on earth, in the city, under the clouds—the most we will ever see of the endless cosmos are fading stars, waning moons, and the dying sun. 

Perhaps that is why we are obsessed with stars. The shiny gold sticker we get for a well-written essay, the lights we string up during festivals, the actors and singers and performers of Hollywood and beyond. We turn to them and we see hope, guidance, the future. 

Obsession cannot power a spaceship. There are some dreams we will never achieve: to run our hands along the night sky, to let the stars singe our fingertips. But at Astronite 2025, you could almost imagine yourself coming close.