The Milky Way, our own galaxy, with about 400 billion stars. This can be seen at night with a clear sky, when there is little or no hindrance from artificial lighting or the moon.
The greatness and specifics of the universe
A. Introduction
The universe is really fascinating. This is evident from the photos that can be seen in this article and elsewhere on this website. But what do we actually know about the universe with its billions of stars, planets, nebulae and other specifics? How great is the universe for example? We can approach these questions in a purely businesslike manner and completely ignore the Creator. Then we are like people who admire a work of art, for example a cathedral, and meanwhile do as if the work of art came into existence by itself. But we can also approach these questions about the universe from the belief in that Creator. From the many miracles God has performed throughout history, and from all of the prophecies spoken by God that have come true, we can know with certainty that there is a God, and that this God must be limitless in possibilities. So everything we see around us is made by Him. But how great is His creation really? And which miracles are hidden in it?
The miracles hidden in God's creation are so numerous, that they are more than grains of sand by the sea. We can only give a few examples, so that others can get some idea, that God is truly infinitely great. Before paying attention to the unimaginable greatness of the universe, it is good to first give a brief overview of the structure of the universe. This is not about completeness, but to give some idea of what is present in the universe:
In the universe there are, except for dust clouds, mainly 3 types of celestial objects: stars, planets and moons. Our earth is a planet. Around planets often orbit moons or satellites. Our earth also has a satellite that we simply call moon. So the moon revolves around the earth. But in the meantime the earth revolves around the sun. And more planets revolve around the sun. The series consists of: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Very famous are the rings around Saturn! In between some dwarf planets fly around the sun. (Nowadays Pluto is also seen as a dwarf planet. Then it is no longer mentioned in the list of the planets. However Pluto still has a diameter of about 2300 km).
The planets (drawn to scale) that circle around the sun. The distance between them is not taken into account here.
Meanwhile the sun is flying around the center of our galaxy (called the Milky Way), along with about 400 billion other stars. (Estimates vary in this regard). The sun is also a star. We only see the other stars as points of light, because they are so gigantic far away. At the same time our galaxy with its many billions of stars flies in its turn through the universe (or first around the center of the Local Group, which consists of more than 40 galaxies). In total there are about 2 trillion galaxies. (Trillion = million x million). Thus everything is constantly in motion in the universe. It is also true that the universe expands more and more. So it keeps getting bigger. Celestial objects which are further away from us also usually fly away from us at a faster speed than celestial objects closer to us.
B. De greatness of the universe
Many people know roughly how big our earth is. The circumference of the earth is 40,000 kilometers. If we would drive 100 km per hour with a car, and would be able to go straight ahead, we would need 400 hours, so more than 16 days, to drive around the earth and get back to our starting point. That is quite a lot. But the light has a speed of 300,000 km per second. If the light could go around, it would go already 7.5 times around the earth in 1 second. This is unimaginably fast!
Since the average distance from the earth to the moon is 384,400 km, it takes more than a second for light to get from the earth to the moon, or from the moon to the earth. But the sun is much further from the earth, namely 150 million km (to be more precise: 149,600,000 km). The light we receive from the sun has therefore already been underway for more than 8 minutes before it reaches us. It's a good thing that the sun is so far away. For the diameter of the sun is 109 times the diameter of the earth. Since space is 3 dimensional (length, width and height) the volume of the sun is over a million times (to be more precise 1,304,000 times) the volume of the earth. Moreover the sun has deep inside a temperature of about 15 million degrees! So our earth would be totally scorched if the sun would be much closer! But the earth would freeze completely if the sun were much further away. This immediately shows the wisdom of our Creator. He has placed the earth at such a distance from the sun that life is possible on our planet!
The closest star behind our sun is 4 light years away. This means that the light (with its unimaginable speed of 300,000 km per second) needs 4 years to go from that star to our earth. (Converted, a light year is 9,467,000,000,000 km). How great is our God who made all this! But the other stars are much farther away from the earth. Many are at a distance of millions of light years! This is far beyond our comprehension. God is truly endlessly great!
Some people are skeptical about the stated distances. They claim we can never know that. For nobody has a measuring tape that is long enough! But with the help of mathematics we can nevertheless find out a lot. Because how do we know the height of the mountains? Also for that there are no measuring tapes! But then geometry and goniometry come to our help. If we know of a triangle the length of the base and the magnitude of the 2 adjacent angles, then with the help of these sciences we can calculate all other data of the triangle. In practice we can determine the angle at which we see the top of a mountain. Five kilometers farther away from the mountain that angle is different. From these angles and the base of 5 km we can then calculate the height of the mountain quite accurately!
The calculating of the height of a mountain with the help of the goniometry
In the universe we can also work with these sciences to a certain extent. Then this method is called the parallax method. For example we can determine the angle at which we see a star in the beginning of the summer. Half a year later, at the beginning of the winter, we can determine that angle again. With that we use the stars behind, which are much farther away, as an orientation. So we pay particular attention to the apparent movement that the nearer star makes with respect to the distant stars. Half a year later the earth is on the other side of the sun, that is 300 million km away from the first position. So we look at that new time at the stars from a different point. One can think then of a triangle again. The path of the earth with a length of 300 million km is then the basis. And the star is then in the top of the triangle. We know the angles from the measurements. From all this data we can calculate the distance to that star. At least: If that star is not too far away (up to about 1000 light years). At greater distances other sciences are used, such as the redshift in the light.
The calculation of the distance to a star. L is here 150.000.000 km.
The redshift is somewhat comparable to the Doppler effect. We notice this effect when an ambulance or a car of the fire brigade with a blaring siren approaches and then passes us. Once the car is over, the tone is lower. This is because the sound reaches us then at a lower frequency than at the approaching the car. The faster the car is driving, the greater the difference in pitch will be. Such a phenomenon occurs with the light. Only there is no difference in pitch, but in color. The faster a star moves away from us, the more its color changes, namely in the direction of the red and the infrared. Since the whole universe, as mentioned, is expanding (getting bigger and bigger) and the stars are supposed to move faster away from us the more they are away from us, people try to calculate the distance of the stars from us in this way. The greater the redshift, the farther away the star will be. This is further explained with the help of the picture below.
The color spectrum of our sun, compared to that of a large group of galaxies called BAS11. A lot of information can be obtained from the dark lines (the so-called absorption lines or fraunhofer lines) namely about the chemical composition of the light source. Each line represents a certain element or substance. Also from terrestrial light sources such lines can betray the composition of the source. This confirms the informative value of these absorption lines.
With the redshift these lines move towards the red and infrared, although the chemical composition of the light source does not change. This can be clearly seen when we compare the lines on the two images. The farther the lines are moved, the faster the stars go away from our earth (in this case that is about 21,000 km / sec.) and the larger the distance between us and these stars likely is. In this case the distance is stated at 1 billion light years.
With regard to the redshift it should be clear, that we have to deal with this with great caution. The science can also be wrong. The calculations using geometry and goniometry can be very accurate. So the calculated distances to the stars that are relatively close will presumably be correct. But if the stars are very far away and people start to use other methods in the distance calculation, it becomes more difficult to get correct data. For other factors can also play a role. However I think that there are enough indications (based on thousands of hours of study and with the aid of equipment of millions of dollars or euros) to believe that the universe is indeed unimaginably large, and that there are indeed distances of millions of light years!
The astronomers do not go over ice of one night (so to speak). They do have more distance calculation methods than the two mentioned. From the spectrum of stars they can extract data not only about redshift and chemical composition, but also about absolute brightness. The absolute brightness can then be compared to the apparent brightness of the stars. The greater the difference, the greater the distance. This is a difficult method, but this method can always be calibrated (i.e. checked) with the closest stars using the parallax method (i.e. the method with the angles at which we see the stars). In this way this method can be improved continuously. And if the obtained formulas prove to be sufficiently reliable, they can also be applied to stars that are farther away.
Yet another method of calculating distances takes into account the size of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. From the parallax method one knows the mutual distance between the nearby stars (up to about 1000 light years). They know then approximately how far apart the stars are from each other. Next they know roughly how many stars there are in the Milky Way. In this way they get an image of the total diameter of the Milky Way. This is then calculated to be approximately 100,000 light years. Anyway the Milky Way is in the shape of a disk with a central thickening (like other galaxies). Thus the thickness of the disc is much less than its diameter. But if our own galaxy is already 100,000 light years in size, then the distance to the other galaxies, which one usually cannot even see without a telescope, must be much greater! Then it becomes inevitable to speak about millions of light years! More about this later, when the super giants will also be discussed, that is: The stars that have hundreds or thousands times the size of our sun.
This however means that we see the stars from neighboring galaxies (or those galaxies themselves) as they looked millions of years ago. For their light has travelled so long to reach us. This seems to conflict with the first chapter of the Bible book of Genesis. For the creation days were about 6 thousand years ago. However: The Bible begins with the words, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." It does not say that this already took place on the first day of creation. It seems much more likely that this happened already before the 6 days of creation. For in the second bible verse it is said that the earth was without form and void. This seems to indicate the condition that existed before God created the light on the first day. In short: The creation of the heaven and the earth, which is the subject of the first words of the Bible, may have taken place a very long time before the six-day creation. Also many stars may have been created during that time. For the word heaven refers not only to the place where God dwells, but also to the starry sky and the blue sky. Thus God speaks to Abraham in Genesis 15:5: "Look now to heaven, and number the stars, if you can number them." It is therefore not so strange to think also of the stars when reading the words "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth".
We read in Genesis 1:16 and further that God created the stars on the fourth day. But that could mean that the stars only then became visible on earth. Perhaps before that time it was always cloudy. The light that was created on the first day may have been simply the sunlight that illuminated the earth through the clouds. If that light did not come from the sun, but was another light, why would God have created the sun then? There was already daylight. Some people feel that this explanation does violence to the biblical text, because it clearly states that God created the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day. But we must not forget that the Bible is not a scientific book. The Bible is absolutely reliable, but God has often adapted the language of the Bible to the human mind, so that we might be able to understand it. For example, in Genesis 11:5 we read that God comes down from heaven to view the tower of Babel. But that's just a human perception. God never has to come near to see anything well. He sees and comprehends everything that exists in the whole universe! For otherwise He would not be an almighty God!
In fact it is a nice thought to assume that many stars were already there millions or even billions of years ago. Because in this way God becomes even greater for us than if we assume that also the stars are not older than six thousand years. God exists from eternity to eternity!!! So He was there also billions of years ago. And also in that time He was the almighty Creator! This knowledge can move us all the more to give Him praise and honor and worship!
God has no begin and no end.
Some people sometimes take refuge to strange explanations, because on the one hand they have to recognize, that the universe is indeed so gigantic great, while on the other hand they continue to assert that the universe is still very young (compared to those millions of years). They then state, for example, that God created the light of the stars in such a way, that it was already very far on its way to us, so that we humans could soon see that light. But there is no good ground for such an explanation. God made everything beautiful, complete and harmonious. He could easily have created stars that would be much smaller, and much closer to us. Then their light would very soon reach us humans. But God did it differently in His endless greatness! Yes, in His endless greatness He created a universe, which continues to amaze us because of its size, and continues to urge us to worship and glorify Him as Creator because of His greatness!
The stars and galaxies must indeed be very far from each other, and therefore also from us (as has already been shown above). For they are very huge, while we see them only as points of light (if we can still see them; the stronger the telescope we use, the more stars and galaxies we can see). If the mutual distances weren’t very huge, they would be too close together! Our own galaxy alone has, as mentioned, about 400 billion stars! And many of them are much bigger than the sun!
The sun has, as mentioned, a diameter of 109 times the diameter of the earth (to leave the three-dimensional content out of consideration for a moment). But the star Sirius has already 196 times the diameter of the earth! And the star Pollux 546 times. The star Arcturus 3270 times. The star Rigel 6770 times. The star Betelgeuse 71000 times. The star Antares 86900 times. The star VY Canis Majoris 213000 times. The star Mu Cephei 273000 times. And the star VV Cephei 288000 times! (The mentioned numbers are only approximations, also because stars are often not purely round. They are often flattened to a greater or lesser extent at the poles, due to the centrifugal force. Moreover the scholars often differed in opinion. Some considered the star VY Canis Majoris as the largest known star. (Maybe they hadn't discovered Mu Cephei and VV Cephei at the time of their publication).
What can we still imagine with this? As we have seen a car would need more than 16 days to go around the earth, if it would go 100 km per hour, and could go straight ahead. An airplane with a speed of 1000 km/h would need less than 2 days for the same. But on the star VV Cephei one does not have much progress at such speeds. For in that way the plane would take 1315 years to fly all the way around! (Assuming the plane would not be cremated from the heat). The diameter of this star is about 2674 times greater than the distance from our sun to the earth! And about 1043000 times greater than the distance from the moon to the earth!
We can also imagine it in this way: If the sun is a small ball with a diameter of 10 centimeters, then this star has a diameter of almost 30 kilometers! But the earth is then (with these proportions) equal to a dot of less than a millimeter in diameter, which is located at a distance of 10.77 meters from the small ball (the sun). The moon is thereby a little dot of less than a quarter of a millimeter, which is located at a distance of about 2.76 centimeters from the other dot (the earth)!
The earth in relation to the sun. And the earth and the sun compared with one of the bigger stars
The giant stars mentioned (as there are many more) all belong to our own galaxy. But besides this our Milky Way has about 400 billion other stars! Our galaxy must therefore be gigantic! But, as mentioned, it is not the only galaxy in the universe. There are more than 2 trillion other galaxies! Of these The Andromeda Nebula (besides our own Milkey Way galaxy) is the best known. (And it's again bigger than our galaxy). But the further we look with our telescopes, the more galaxies we discover. God who made everything is truly infinitely great!
The further we look with our telescopes .... the more galaxies we discover! In summary: In total there are more than 2 trillion galaxies. And each galaxy has about 400 billion stars. And the average diameter of a star is about 1,500,000 km. That is approximately hundred times the diameter of our earth!
Among those who cast doubt on the scientific results are also people who say, that we can never measure the speed of light, because the light travels much too fast. Now I really shall not say that science is always right. Above I already urged to great caution! But the speed of light can in any case be measured and calculated exactly with the right techniques. As early as the seventeenth century Christiaan Huygens calculated the speed of light at 220,000 km per second. So he was still a long way from the real value of 300,000 km per second. But already at that time people knew in which direction they had to look for it. For example they had already long recognized that the light travels much faster than the sound. The sound has 'only' a speed of about 340 meters per second (depending on the temperature and humidity of the air).
In the year 1849 the Frenchman Fizeau has measured the speed of light by passing a beam of light through a rotating gearwheel with 720 teeth. The gear turned quickly. The rotational speed could also be adjusted continuously. A mirror was set up at a distance of 8633 meters behind the gear. It would have been probably a very large mirror. The rotational speed of the gear was now increased or slowed down until the light beam, returned from the mirror, exactly went through the next gap between the teeth. This was the case at about 25 revolutions per second. At a rotational speed of 25 revolutions per second, one revolution of course only takes one 25th part of a second. Before a new tooth has taken the position of the old tooth, only one 18000th part of a second passes (that is the 720th part of the 25th part of a second). In that time the light has already traveled 17266 meters (forth and back over the distance of 8633 meters). So in 1 full second the light would travel 18000 times 17266 meters = about 310000 km. So the speed of light is approximately 300000 km per second!
Besides, the measurements of Frizeau from 1849 were not yet very accurate. He ended up at a speed of 315000 km per second. That was a little too much! Perhaps he had thought that his gearwheel made more than 25 revolutions per second at the optimum rotational speed, while in reality it must have been slightly less than 25. At least: If all other data is correct. He can also, for example, have measured the distance to the mirror wrong. After all the mirror was more than 8 km away and usually there is no straight road over such a distance. But later other people have repeated such an experiment with greater accuracy and with better equipment. And thus we now know that the speed of light in vacuum is 299,792.458 km/sec. But here on earth light usually doesn't pass through a vacuum. In that case the light is slightly slower (however this is only a fraction). We would therefore do well to simply round off the value to 300000 km per second. Also, if we apply this speed to the universe, we work with sufficient accuracy.
Further the question is whether the speed of light is the highest possible speed. In Switzerland the organization CERN has investigated with a large particle accelerator whether neutrinos (subatomic particles with a very low mass) might go even slightly faster than the light. But if that were the case, the difference wouldn't be great anyway. It has since been shown that the neutrinos do not exceed the speed of light.
Picture 1 of these 2: Simplified representation of the measurement of the speed of light by the Frenchman Fizeau in 1849. Picture 2 of these 2: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the particle accelerator of the organization CERN in Switzerland, near Geneva, 175 meters underground. This is located in a tunnel with a circumference of 17 kilometers. At CERN 3000 people work full-time. This shows how much people are willing to pay nowadays to investigate physical phenomenas!
But to return to the size of the universe: In fact we do not know at all what is beyond the universe visible to us. Within the universe that we can see, the rays of light do not go in a straight line, but in a curved line. For by the gravitational pull of all heavenly bodies the light is deflected. (This deflection is of course very small. We don't notice that on earth. But if the light travels for many thousands of years, it can be going to play a significant role). In the long run the light can go all the way around (within the universe that we can see). It seems that the light is captive in the for us observable universe. But what is outside of this? Nobody really knows that. We can only guess at it. But what do matter our human guesses? God is just much too great to be able to be fully discovered by us! Man is capable of building enormous devices (such as the LHC near Geneva) to investigate what he perceives or assumes in the world and the universe around him. But at some point it stops. And if with great difficulty one manages to open a door (which makes that one learns a little more), one comes before many new doors! The more one knows the more question marks arise!
And we haven't even mentioned the spiritual powers and forces (we can think here in the first place of the demons) which can be very close, for example in our own house or our own soul. And yet no one sees them. Most people do not even believe in their existence, because they cannot be perceived with our senses and with earthly devices. But their functioning in this world is not insignificant, as can be read elsewhere in this website!
There is always more in the universe than we can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell with our senses, and that manifests itself in the form of the infrared, ultraviolet, radio-radiation, X-ray, gamma-ray and radioactivity. On April 12 of the year 1961 the Russian Yuri Gagarin made a space trip around the earth with the Vostok 1 in 89 minutes and 46 seconds. When he returned from space, he is said to have said, "I haven't seen God anywhere!" But later colonel Valentin Petrov, who was a friend of Yuri, said that Yuri would never have said that. Petrov claimed that it was a statement of the Russian president at that time Nikita Khrushchev. The president would have said: "Gagarin flew into space, but did not see God." It doesn't really matter to us who have said it. It is incorrect at all times. God cannot be perceived by human and earthly means. But He nevertheless our Creator! We can only come to know Him by noticing how He has revealed Himself to mankind, especially through the prophets, and through His Son, who came very close to us as a man. God does perceive us humans! And in His time He will call the people to account for what they have done on earth.
God does not ask us to understand Him and His works in everything, but to obey Him in everything. This does not mean that we are not allowed to engage ourselves with astronomy and everything we can observe in the universe. On the contrary! If we must know our limits and see God's greatness and glory in His Creation! For He has created all things for His glory! Shouldn't we then worship Him because of His endless greatness?
C. Special phenomena
Impression of a black hole, which pulls material off a star. First this material forms a spinning disk (an accretion disk) around the black hole. A part of the matter subsequently falls into the black hole, and another part (still gaseous) is ejected in a direction perpendicular to the disk.
1. Neutron stars
Apart from the size the universe has many peculiarities, too many to mention. But very special is the phenomenon of the neutron stars!! What is meant by that? To understand that, we first need to know something about the structure of the matter. Matter (solid, liquid or gaseous) consists of molecules. Molecules are the smallest units of a substance, that still have the properties of that substance. If you split the molecules (if possible), you get other elements. For example water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. If you split the water molecules you get hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms. In a test setup this can be easily done by passing a light electrical current through water. Often some sulfuric acid or sodium sulphate is added then to the water, to make it more conductive for the electric current. Then oxygen is formed at the positive pole and hydrogen at the negative pole.
All matter on earth is essentially made up of atoms. Atoms have an atomic nucleus around which one or more electrons revolve. (So there are rotational movements not only in the universe, but also in the elementary particles of all substances on earth!). Electrons have a negative charge. The atomic nuclei consist of protons and neutrons. Protons have a positive charge. Neutrons are neutral in this regard. But the special thing is that the atoms consist for 99.9999999999999 percent of empty space! In other words: The volume of the atomic nucleus and the electrons together is only 0.00000000000001 % of the total volume of the atom. Or to say it in yet another way: In the atom there is 1,000,000,000,000,000 times as much volume as in the atomic nucleus and the electrons. (This is a million times a billion. Here there are even more zeros than in the percentage statement, because 1% already indicates the hundredth part). Yet a whole atom only has the size of 60 to 275 pm. (Pm = picometer. A picometer is the thousand-billionth part of a meter, so the billionth part of a millimeter).
As we have seen, stars can be gigantic. The more mass a star has, the greater the gravitational pull it will have, not only on surrounding celestial bodies, but also on itself. Thus it can happen that the star collapses under its own enormous weight. The different atoms are then compressed. Then the electrons and protons come so close to each other, that they fuse into neutrons. The matter then only consists of neutrons. Since there was originally so much empty space in the atoms, the matter can be enormously compressed! Then matter can be created, that is per unit volume 1,000,000,000,000,000 times as heavy as in the beginning!
To give an example: A quantity of matter with the size of a pinhead (here one can think of a plastic ball of 2.5 millimeters in diameter) can then become as heavy as 250 fully loaded seagoing ships together! Our sun, with a diameter of 1,390,000 km, will then have a diameter of 13.9 km. That is extremely little for a star. But his weight remains the same. It should be clear that such compressed matter cannot exist on our earth. Due to its own weight that matter would fall through everything (even through hardened steel) and would only come to rest in the center of the earth's interior. The stars that are compressed in this way and consist only of neutrons are called neutron stars.
2. Supernovas (as precursors to neutron stars)
This collapse of stars happens even more easily with the supernovas. A supernova is a star that explodes, and emits millions of times more light than it originally did. On earth it can then become visible during the day, also if it was not even visible at night before. In doing so he throws a large part of his matter into space. A special example of this is the supernova, which was seen on earth on July 4 of the year 1054. The ejected matter we can still see today as the Crab Nebula in the constellation Taurus. This is located at a distance of 6500 light-years from the earth. Supernovas can still occur today, but they are very rare, sometimes less than one in a hundred years. (At least: As for the supernovas that are noticeable enough). When they do occur, their extremely increased brightness can last for several weeks. After that they can become again almost or completely invisible to us, unless they are relatively close to our earth.
The Crab Nebula in the constellation Taurus, a remnant of a supernova from the year 1054
After the explosion of a supernova, a part of the ejected matter falls back onto the star. This happens with so much force, that even earlier than otherwise a neutron star can be formed. Such stars then collapse due to the speed of the matter that falls back. Indeed a neutron star has also be formed in the center of the Crab Nebula. Because it is relatively small and yet has so much mass, it rotates very quickly on its axis. Our earth rotates on its axis in 24 hours. But this neutron star in 30 seconds! There are even neutron stars that spin on their axis in a fraction of a second! Sometimes there are 760 revolutions per second!
Someone might say: “How can we know that?” But the neutron stars emit radio waves. And we can catch them on earth with the help of a radio telescope. Since some areas on the neutron star emit more radiation than other areas, we receive on earth radio waves that are constantly changing. Such neutron stars are therefore called pulsars. (To pulse = to knock). It was very sensational for the astronomers to discover the pulsars. And that is also understandable. Many celestial bodies rotate (also because of their size) very slowly on their axis. The relatively large planet Jupiter is very fast, taking less than 10 hours to complete one revolution. But our earth already 24 hours. The sun about 25 days. The planet Mercury over 58 days. Venus 243 days. Red giant stars 13 years or more. So it was a spectacular discovery that some stars rotate on their axis in less than a second!
3. Black holes
But stars can collapse even further than has happened with neutron stars. The neutrons, which are already pressed together in such stars, can then also collapse and be compressed under the weight of the star, or as a result of the clap with a supernova, when a part of the ejected matter falls back onto the star. The celestial body then becomes so massive, that even light can not escape from it. It then becomes black to our perception. And because of his enormous gravitation force he attracts everything that comes close to him. The matter then falls as it were into a black hole. That is why we call such phenomena black holes. They pose a real threat to their environment. Everything in that environment is in danger of being swallowed up. How far will this go on? Will everything in the universe eventually be swallowed up by black holes? This question is sometimes asked. But if we know the infinite Creator of heaven and earth as our loving Father, we have nothing to fear! He has created everything, and He controls everything perfectly. And He is working for His lovers towards a new heaven and a new earth, where all will be perfect, lovely and glorious!
How do we know that black holes exist, if we can't even see them, because they are black to us? In the first place because of their environment. The accretion disk around a black hole emits, among other things, light and X-rays. But it is also the case that celestial bodies in the surrounding of a black hole, which have not yet been swallowed up by it, change their path. For a black hole exerts an enormous gravitational pull on its environment because of its extremely compressed mass. Fortunately there is no black hole of such size in the surrounding of our earth, that it could pose a danger to our earth. The nearest black hole is in the Milky Way galaxy at about 1600 light-years from earth, and is designated as V4641 Sgr, as it is located in the constellation Sagittarius (= Someone who shoots with a bow).
4. Quasars
The so-called quasars are also very special. They are not noticeable when we see them through telescopes on earth. But in reality they can emit as much light as 100 or more entire galaxies together (of average size). Their absolute brightness can be equal to a thousand billion times that of the sun. They also emit millions of times as much light as the red supergiants and other enormous huge stars. The fact that they are not noticeable in ordinary observations is because they are very far away from us in the universe. Their size may be less spectacular large, because they can be highly compressed, like neutron stars. At their center may be a super heavy black hole. (For every galaxy has also an extra heavy black hole in the center. Due to its enormous gravitational pull the entire galaxy is held together). On the moment more than 60,000 quasars are known. The quasar with the greatest known absolute brightness is designated as 3C 273, and is located at about 2 billion light-years from the earth. It is found in the constellation Virgo, and can be seen on the first photo below.
Picture 1 of these 3: The quasar 3C 273, photographed by the Hubble space telescope. In the center a black hole is clearly visible. This quasar is about 126,000,000,000,000 times as far away from us as our sun. Picture 2 of these 3: The quasar PG 0052+251, also on a Hubble-photo. Not in all quasars a black hole is visible for us. In any case some quasars individually emit as much light as 1000 billion suns together. Picture 3 of these 3: More Hubble-photos of quasars. Quasars often accompany galaxies, but usually exceed them in brightness.
The word quasar is derived from the English "quasi-stellar radio source". Quasi = as if. The object poses as a star, and is a strong radio source. But as mentioned its brightness in visible light is also striking, if one takes the distance into account. Nothing in the universe surpasses the quasars in brightness, except the supernovas and the even stronger gamma-ray bursts. But both of these are for a short time. (The gamma-ray bursts last only a few thousandths of a second to a few minutes. One thinks, concerning this, of the possibility of a collision and fusion of 2 neutron stars, or of hypernovas, that is: extra heavy explosions of very massive stars). Quasars are thus gigantic and long-lasting energy sources. If the '3C 273' were as far from earth as the nearest star, our earth would already be destroyed. (For at an 8 times greater distance this quasar would already be as bright as the sun!). Be how it may be: Our earth as well as the quasars are in God's hand!
As mentioned they are very far away from us in the universe. Nevertheless they already appear on old astronomical photographs from the nineteenth century, although it was not yet known at that time, that very special phenomena were involved. They only started to be noticed when they discovered their strong radio emission and their very large redshift. In this way people are constantly discovering new things that arouse amazement. God is indeed infinitely great. If we may be with Him after this earthly life, in His glory, everything will remain glorious for us for eternity!
5. Comets
The fact that God completely regulates and directs everything is also evident from the fact, that He used a star to show the Wise Men from the East (from the Bible story) the way to the place where His own Son, in the shape of a baby, was located. What kind of celestial body was it exactly? Probably a comet. It was then called a star because everyone knew what a star was. If a difficult word had been used, many would not understand the story. And everyone just had to know that God's Son had come to earth, and that God accompanied this with wonders and signs! God is able, as the Almighty, to use all heavenly bodies as He pleases. At the return of the Lord Jesus He will again give signs in heaven! Matthew 24:29: "And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give its light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken."
In the article about fulfilled prophecies on this website some things have been said already about the so-called Star of Bethlehem. In the year five before our era a special 'star' has been visible in the constellation Capricorn. History writers have described it as a "sweeping star". So it would probably have been a comet, for a comet is a tail star, because of its long aftermath. The Lord Jesus was also born at that time, so approximately in the year five before the beginning of our era. The monk Dionysius Exiguus, who determined our era in the sixth century, had made an error of at least 4 years when calculating back. For King Herod died in the year 4 BC. And the Lord Jesus was already born before that time. This calculation error is recognized today by most scientists. In short: The comet mentioned was probably the 'star', which showed the Wise Men from the East the way to the born 'King of the Jews'! A comet is a special apparition. No wonder that it impressed the Wise Men!
Comets are much smaller than stars. Its cores have a diameter of 1 to 100 kilometers and consist mainly of grit, ice and solidified gas. (At very low temperatures gas gets a liquid and eventually a solid form). They follow an elliptical orbit around the sun. Their distance to the sun can vary greatly. So they don't follow such a nice orbit around the sun as the planets. As they come close to the sun, the ice and gas melt and evaporate. A gaseous shell is then formed around the core. By the radiation of the sun and the so-called solar wind (a stream of electrically charged particles emitted by the sun) the gaseous shell is blown backwards (away from the sun) to form the comet tail. This can sometimes become a hundred million kilometers long!
Picture 1 of these 2: A comet can be an imposing manifestation with a long tail, such as Comet McNaught, which was visible from August 2006 to February 2007. Picture 2 of these 2: De comet Hale-Bopp, which was visible in March 1997, had a shorter tail.
6. Shooting stars or meteors/meteorites
Shooting stars (or meteors) are something completely different. These objects of stone and/or iron are often less than a centimeter in diameter. But they invade the atmosphere of the earth at such a speed (tens of kilometers per second) that they burn through friction with the surrounding air. The surrounding air is ionized by this and also lights up. (Ionization means that atoms lose or gain an electron). We then see them as a flash of light and call them shooting stars, although they are not stars at all. Sometimes they occur in swarms. We then speak of star showers. When a meteor doesn't burn up completely in the air, its remnant falls onto the earth. Then we call this a meteorite. Meteorites can be very large (sometimes many meters in diameter) and cause a fireball or bolide in our atmosphere. Then they make a crater in the earth. Fortunately large meteorites are very rare, for otherwise they would pose an enormous danger to us humans. The Barringer Crater in the state of Arizona in the United States has been formed also by a meteorite and has a diameter of about 1300 meters and a depth of about 170 meters. Besides craters can also be formed by volcanoes.
The moon, the planet Mars, and many other celestial bodies, have many more craters on their surface than our earth. Where there is almost no atmosphere or no atmosphere at all (such as on the moon), the meteors do not burn on their way to the surface. Moreover the craters remain then visible for longer, because they are not erased or much less erased by erosion and natural landscape changes.
Picture 1 of these 2: The Barringer Crater in the state of Arizona in de United States. Picture 2 of these 2: Craters on the moon
7. Nebulas (also written as Nebulae)
Furthermore the nebulas are special phenomena in the universe. Originally the word nebulas was a collective name for all kinds of objects in the universe, including the galaxies. Nowadays the word ‘nebulas’ is used preferably for the enormous clouds of dust and gas between the stars. Sometimes they are remnants of a supernova (an exploded star) such as the Crab Nebula. If nebulas do not emit light of their own, they can nevertheless become visible to us, namely through the stars that are in or near them. Due to ionization, as a result of the radiation of the stars (the atoms get an electron more or less), the nebulas themselves can also light up. In other cases the nebulas just partially block the light from the stars. All in all the nebulas can be very beautiful and wonderful phenomenas.
Picture 1 of these 2: De Trifid Nebula (M 20) in the constellation Sagittarius. You can also see an eagle in it! (But another nebula has already been named after the eagle). Picture 2 of these 2: De Eagle Nebula (IC 4703) in the constellation Serpens.
Picture 1 of these 3: Detail of the Eagle Nebula as shown in the previous picture. Picture 2 of these 3: De Ant Nebula (Mz 3) in the constellation Norma. Picture 3 of these 3: The Calabash Nebula (OH 231.84 +4.22) in the constellation Puppis
It seems that everything in the universe is determined only by blind laws of physics. But that is only appearance. If that were the case, we humans would never have come into existence. Because from inanimate matter a living being can never arise, certainly not a being who is so enormously complicated as a human being! And to further prove that He really exists and reigns, God has performed countless miracles throughout history, and has spoken prophecies that have later come true. This glorious God has everything in His hands! He has created all the beauty and splendor in the universe. And He wants to be our loving Father for all eternity, that is: if we submit ourselves to Him, and trust in the sacrifice of His Son, the Lord Jesus, who gave Himself unto the death, so that we might obtain the eternal life! Should we not love and honor then this Savior and this God with the dedication of all our being?
Click HERE for more pictures about the universe.
