In the Old
Testament Book of Genesis exists a small five word sentence which has to be the
classic understatement among the entire 66 books of scripture.
… “He made the stars also.”
Tonight as I
visited my social media page I came across a 4 minute video depicting the
largest field of stars ever photographed by the Hubble Telescope. 100 billion
stars; so massive a field of celestial bodies that the picture itself required
over 4 GB of storage space.
As the film
footage plays out, each successive square inch of the picture is brought into
focus, and given the “zoom treatment.” The various layers of stars representing
nearer and increasingly further distances create a matted effect, and the
photographic affect of billions upon billions of stars provides the illusion of
a virtual wall.
… “He made
the stars also.”
(With the
emphasis on “He.”)
We live in
an amazing universe. Our moon, the only other heavenly body man has ever visited,
lies a quarter million miles from the good earth. Our sun, the nearest star, is
93 million miles away. The speed of light is just over 186,000 miles a second,
and the light leaving our sun takes a full 8 minutes to reach our planet. The Milky
Way Galaxy, of which our solar system is a pin prick, is one of thousands of
similar galaxies. Some of the stars in this great photographic field, of which
I have previously alluded, lie thousands of light years away. Many of these
stars have long since burned out, though we still perceive them hanging in the
night sky; the result of the light they emitted eons ago still traveling
through space and only now reaching our retinas.
In 1972
Pioneer 10, an unmanned photographic spacecraft was launched towards
interstellar space, i.e., on a trajectory which would take it out of our solar
system. In 2003 all communication with Pioneer 10 was lost. Only recently,
after a flight of several decades, this marvelous machine exited our solar
system, and became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space. On
its current trajectory the spacecraft will require 68 light years, or 2 million
years to reach the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy!
In an age in
when the stars (i.e., horoscopes) are sometimes afforded more attention than the
One who created them, (as if they had anything to do with our destiny) we are
left with these astounding inanimate witnesses to the creative handiwork of a
supernatural being.
HE
(It was) He (who)
made the stars also.
By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 13
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