Trying to Grasp the Grandeur
There are somewhat more than 500,000,000 millions of stars (suns) in the heavens.
This constitutes an extraordinary mental exercise for us in forming a concept to which we can truly relate and yet maintain a balance perspective of the world in which we live.
The enormity of the heavens represents adventurers in physical exploration as well as in spiritual perception as we try to advance our knowledge of the stars. This knowledge is constantly expanding in volume and bringing us news that is amazing such as the discovery a few years ago of a giant ring of stars extending beyond the known limits of the Milky Way- our ‘local’ galaxy. Later it was later discovered to be a separate structure beyond it, and comprised of about 100 million stars and stretching 120,000 light years across.
Astronomers working on the Sloan digital sky survey embarked upon an ambitious task to make a detailed star map of over twenty per cent of the entire sky.
To talk of light years is enough to make most of us dizzy. But many items of new discoveries can make a stir in public consciousness such as new planets found circling suns relatively close to Earth by astronomical standards. This stimulates new questions about whether human life exists elsewhere in the universe.
The discovery of over 240 planets that have been given the name ‘exoplanets’ inclines astronomers to estimate that the major number of stars indeed have planets.
There are estimates that that 100 billion known galaxies, each containing billions of stars could be harbouring a possible 100 billion trillion worlds that exist out there….and that’s not all……..
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