Summary of distance to Andromeda by gregorio brillantes?

pakshet, wla din akong makitang summary neto. puro about astronomy nilalabas ng google. Please answer: Why did Ben suddenly feel lonely, tiny and helpless while he was standing alone on the bridge?

"He stands alone on the bridge, and he is suddenly lonely, the vast humming turning within him, waiting: for a streak of blue flame, a signal flare among the stars. Where and why … Thousands of years away by the speed of light, the other worlds… He recalls the view of the heavens through the port holes of the rocket, and the photographs of the galaxies, the whirlpooled suns in the book his father gave him one Christmas. The rocket, an atom wandering in the outer reaches of unknown space: to be lost and lovely forever in the starry night… He feels very tiny, only a boy, shrinking, helpless, standing between the dark river and the lights in the sky."