Ever look up at the stars
in a pitch-black desert night far away from the encroaching light pollution of a
metropolis or an urban sprawl? The stars seem to dangle over the horizon like
sparkly Christmas lights on the lowest branches of a tree. The
enormity of the heavens is breathtaking and overwhelming. The seemingly endless
expanse causes me to rejoice in the splendor of the work of the Lord’s hands
(Psa 19:1). Truly, gazing upwards into the vastness of space conjures up
feelings of inconsequentiality as a son of Adam, and I share David’s feelings,
“When I consider
Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have
ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You
visit him” (Psa 8:3-4)?
Did you catch that
phrase “the work of Your fingers” (cf. Psa 33:6; Gn 1:1)? The universe pales to
the immensity or magnitude of our God! Praise the LORD that our significance
and immeasurable worth are found in Christ
Jesus as a son of God (Gal 3:26)!
Living in our 4-D world of
space-time, we are sandwiched by the incomprehensible dimensions of outer space
and the minuteness of inner space. We haven’t even gotten to the realm of
eternity and beyond to infinity yet which is in Part 6! It may surprise you
about eternity!
Here comes the numbers I
promised you in Part 3. Take your time as you think in terms of light-speed distances in the starry expanse or magnifying
your thoughts near the atomic realm. You may hate math, but blowing by these
astounding numbers will rob you of a greater appreciation of the greatness of
our Creator. Creation is mind-boggling from two opposite perspectives: its greatness
and its smallness.
To gain some idea of how immense
creation is, we need to understand the standard for measuring astronomical distances in the universe – the speed
of light. It is defined as 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum. To
convert into miles we have to divide that number by 1609.344 to get a light
second (a unit of distance not time).
A light second is 186,282.3970512208701185 mps. The speed
of light is usually expressed as an integer or a whole number of 186,282 miles
per second, truncating all the digits to the right. Rounding light speed would be 186.3 thousand miles a second.
To
find a light minute we have to multiply the speed of light in miles by 60
seconds.
A light minute is 11,176,943.82307325220711
mpm or 11,176,944 or 11.2 million miles.
To
determine a light hour or the mph of light, we have to multiply the speed of
light in miles by 3600 seconds (1 hour).
A light hour is 670,616,629.3843951324266
mph or rounding to 670,616, 629 mph or 670.6 million mph. Is that hauling or
what!
To
discover how far light travels in a year we have to multiply the speed of light
in miles by 31,557,600 seconds (86,400 seconds per day x 365.25 days or 1
year).
A light year is 5,878,625,373,183.6077308515756
miles or 1 light year (365.25 days) equals 5,878,625,373,184 miles or 5.9
trillion miles! Selah.
Assuming the speed of light
in a vacuum is constant; if we traveled the speed of light we could
circumnavigate the earth along the equator (~24,909 miles) approximately 7.5
times in one second, not much time for sightseeing! Say, “One one thousand” and
imagine you just circled the globe 7.5 times during that one second: one one
thousand!
Light years as you can
see are very big numbers. Scientists use scientific notation to handle these
numbers. Even if the light is shown to be slower than the gold standard of
186,282.3970512208701185 miles or 186.3 thousand miles per second in a vacuum,
the size of our universe is still phenomenally enormous or seemingly infinite,
but it doesn’t extend linearly forever! We will talk more about that in the
next part of our series.
“Then God made two great
lights: the greater light to rule the day” Gn 1:16)
“God has made a
home in the heavens for the sun. (5) It bursts forth like a radiant bridegroom
after his wedding. It rejoices like a great athlete eager to run the race. (6) The
sun rises at one end of the heavens and follows its course to the other end.
Nothing can hide from its heat” (Psa 19:4b-6, NLT).
The sun’s distance from the earth – the AU (the astronomical unit used for the Earth-sun distance) was revised
to a fixed number. The distance from Earth to our sun is now 149,597,870,700
meters. Converting to miles we divide that number by 1609.344. How many miles
are we from the sun? The answer is 92,955,807.273025 miles or roughly 8.3 light
minutes away from us (miles to the sun divided by the distance light travels in
a minute).
“Then God made two great
lights …, and the lesser light to rule the night” Gn 1:16). The moon’s distance
from the earth – the moon at its closest point (perigee) is 225,662 miles from the earth; at its greatest distance from earth (apogee), the moon is 252,088 miles
from earth b. If we divide the speed of light by the moon’s
perigee, it is 1.2 light seconds away from the earth.
“Thus says the LORD, Who
gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for
a light by night, who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar (The LORD of hosts is
His name)” Jer 31:35.
One day folks – “The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for
brightness shall the moon give light to you; but the LORD will be to you an
everlasting light, and your God your glory” (Isa 60:19; cf. Rev 21:23).
Looking up into the
heavens there are still unseen star systems beyond the eyes of NASA’s Hubble’s
telescopic detection, including eternity and beyond infinity. Currently, the
furthermost galaxy at this time is claimed to be beyond 13 billion light years
from earth b! The wonders of outer
space are simply spectacular!
There are also realities
in the opposite direction that are imperceptible to the naked eye apart from
various microscopic devices ranging from optical, electronic, and atomic force.
The latter enables the observer to peer into the nanoworld (one billionth of a
meter) of an object. The infinitesimalness of the nanoworld loses its meaning
like the immenseness of outer space for me! The realm between the atomic scale
and the microscale is nanoscale.
There is some debate over
what constitutes the nanoscale, but generally, it is held to be between 1-100 nm
(nanometers), the creative region of nanotechnology of putting atoms together
to make whatever. This is very exciting while at the same time some very scary
stuff. Man split the atom, and we all
know the results of that. Now scientists (good or mad?) are assembling atoms to
build whatever. This is often referred to as “bottom-up” nanotechnology or
molecular manufacturing.
Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Horst Stormer is quoted as saying, “The nanoscale is the first point where we can assemble something – it’s not until we start putting atoms together that we can make anything useful,” and possibly harmful, I might add b. Who monitors and controls what’s good for man versus what is potentially harmful to man and the environment from nanotechnology?
Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Horst Stormer is quoted as saying, “The nanoscale is the first point where we can assemble something – it’s not until we start putting atoms together that we can make anything useful,” and possibly harmful, I might add b. Who monitors and controls what’s good for man versus what is potentially harmful to man and the environment from nanotechnology?
A nanometer is considered to be one billionth of a meter [10-9 of a meter]. How do we relate to a nanometer (nm)? It challenges the mind! Since we are made up of atoms like everything else in creation, an atom is ~0.01 nm in diameter. The nucleus is said to be ~0.00001 nm or 10-5 or 1/100000. Living cells are considered nature’s “nanomachines”b.
A Nano101 website gave a
couple of illustrations to help us relate to nanosize. “There are 25,400,000 nanometers in an inch; a
sheet of newspaper is about 100,000 nanometers thick; on a comparative scale,
if a marble were a nanometer, then one meter would be the size of the Earth”b. I wonder how many nanometers (nm) is the
thickness of my skull right now…?
Remember the song, “It’s
a small world after all” at Disney theme parks? It’s smaller than we think. I am
concerned but not overly so with man’s exploration into the nanoworld and its
exploitation “for the good of man.” How far God will allow man to venture in
there is unknown; some potentially terrible things could emerge from this
frontier science of the nanoworld given man’s sinful nature.
It is hard to think of anything worse than a nuclear explosion, but nanotechnology could open up a whole new can of worms like every country wanting to go nuclear, particularly terrorist states chanting death to America and Israel. Israel’s enemies need to read this passage (Jer 31:35, 36, 37)! I am thankful for God’s sovereignty and verses like Rom 8:28. This verse comes to mind when I think of inner space and outer space; God is in control,
It is hard to think of anything worse than a nuclear explosion, but nanotechnology could open up a whole new can of worms like every country wanting to go nuclear, particularly terrorist states chanting death to America and Israel. Israel’s enemies need to read this passage (Jer 31:35, 36, 37)! I am thankful for God’s sovereignty and verses like Rom 8:28. This verse comes to mind when I think of inner space and outer space; God is in control,
“He is before all things,
and in Him all things hold together” (Col 1:17, NASB).
In utilizing these large
numbers the only intent here is to impress you with the greatness of God (cf.
Psa 111:2). I may have told you before that I majored in aftermath in school;
so if I had made an unintentional error, it is what it is. Reflect if you will upon God’s
omnipresence extending beyond the immensity of creation. Recall that the starry
expanse is estimated to be, at the least, over 13 billion light years away
based on what is observable! Now, think of the incomprehensibility of God’s
omnipresence in all of this (cf. Psa 139:7)! What a great and mighty God we
love and serve and who loves us (Rom 11:33-35, 36; 8:38, 39)!
I cannot escape the
thought of what joy it will be when we are off this rock and with the Rock of
Ages forever in glory. Everybody is trying to rule the world and kill each
other! Noah must have been one miserable man before the flood. Being heaven-bent is not a bad angle or worldview when you think about it.
You know; not one word
uttered to God, spoken or in silence, is required to travel through the starry
expanse to reach His throne (cf. 2 Chron 6:21). If that was so, our prayers would outlive us as our
praise and petitions made its way toward heaven in eternity (Job 22:12; Isa
57:15). Speed, like the speed of sound (768 mph), or the average speed of a bullet
(1,700 mph), or the speed of a space-going rocket (17,000 mph, Earth to low
Earth orbit b), or the speed of light (670.6
million mph) is not going to get our praises and requests there in time! Our
prayers need to be delivered faster than any mechanism we are aware of. We need God’s
ear now! Speed is irrelevant just like distance when we pray (cf. 2 Chr 6:21).
Why? Because God is with us
right where we are in the present tense (Heb 13:5)! I can say, “LORD,” and
immediately He will say to me, “Yes, my son?” Now that’s fast! Selah. Jesus is
the throne of grace (Heb 4:16), and another thing, He lives within our hearts if
we have been born from above (Jn 3:7; Rom 10:9, 10, 13). He can’t get any
closer than He already is, inside of us at regeneration. This is way too cool.
Heaven-bent is an awareness that
God is in our presence forever from the very moment we asked Him into our hearts.
Glory! The path doesn’t get any straighter than being heaven-bent. <><
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