How high is “up?” When you look up into the night sky and see countless twinkling lights, what are you looking at?
In one sense, with your unaided eyes, you are seeing the same sky – though perhaps a different portion – that the patriarch Abraham observed in his nighttime vigils. He could have counted, if he had wished, up to perhaps 2,000 stars. So could you, if you have the time and take yourself as far away as possible from any man-made illumination.
But astronomy has come a long way from the naked-eye stage. By now, thanks largely to the combination of modern telescopes and modern photography, astronomers have a much larger concept of what is out in space… much larger!
In terms of distance, space has been found to be so vast that it is measured in millions of light years. A light year is the distance light travels in one year, at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. Since there are more that 31 million seconds in a year, you can see that light is able to travel a tremendous distance in a year’s time – yet scientists now believe that space stretches over a distance more than six billion light years in extent. The question of whether there is any end at all to space is still under debate.
This huge volume of space contains so many stars that if you were to hold up a small coin at arm’s length, you would conceal more that 15 million stars from your view. You cannot see them, for they are so far away that only a few feeble rays of their light reaches us across the vast reaches of space and time. But they are there. They can be detected with long exposures of photographic plates. For every star that Abraham could see on the clearest night, a thousand million more have been revealed.
Our own galaxy, called the Milky Way, is estimated to contain 100 billion stars. But other galaxies, with their own millions or billions of stars, may eventually be found to number in the billions. Already, samplings in deep space indicate that there are as many as 40 million galaxies presently detectable in the heavens. When even more efficient telescopes are available, astronomers expect the count to rise to one billion galaxies. Even that may not be the end.
When we consider the amount of matter which these galaxies contain, we find more incalculable numbers. Just one galaxy, found in the constellation Virgo, contains the mass of 40 million-million suns. Our sun contains more than one billion times as much matter as our planet Earth. Thus, if we tried to estimate the mass of the galaxy in Virgo in pounds or kilograms, the resulting number would be too large to comprehend. Yet this galaxy is so far away that we can’t even see it with the naked eye.
If fact, so numerous and so distant are the galaxies in the heavens that more than half of the starlight which reaches Earth comes from these invisible galaxies. They are too remote to be seen individually, but their numbers more than make up for their faintness.
Truly, the heavens are vast, almost beyond our capacity to imagine. But where did it all come from? So many stars, so much matter… from whence?
Shall we dismiss the question, pretending the problem doesn’t exist? Many present-day scientists do just this. They propose and debate endless theories on how the universe evolved, without ever confronting the primary fact that a super-abundance of matter exists. They seek to explain the transformation of the universe, but not its origin.
How much wiser we would be to acknowledge with the Psalmist that, “The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1) There is a Creator. Surely, no other answer can account for the vast work of creation.
Matter does not create itself. Certainly this should be obvious to everyone. Bricks do not make bricks. Atoms do not create atoms. Nor do stars make stars. (It is true that living things have been given the power to reproduce themselves, but this is not the same as creation of basic matter. The hydrocarbons of which flesh is composed, and the calcium in bones, are borrowed from nature, and returned after death occurs. The basic elements are merely transformed in each case.)
Not only did God create this unthinkable expanse of space with all its contents, He also knows its inventory. The Bible says, “He counts the number of the stars. He calls them all by their names.” (Psalm 147:4)
Again, the Prophet Isaiah enjoins us to, “Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their army by number. He calls them all by name by the greatness of his might…” (Isaiah 40:26)
How great and marvelous are the works of God! Truly, He is clothed in majesty. Yet He also has the heart of a father, and as a father He yearns over His wayward ones. He wants us to know Him. That is why He has left so many clues in nature which point to Him as Creator. As the Bible says, “For the invisible things of him [that is, His attributes] since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made…” (Romans 1:20)
Stars were made by God. You and I were made by Him. Let us rejoice in His creation, and give Him thanks!
(All Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible translation.)