I’ve enjoyed following the Artemis II astronauts journey around the moon the last several days. Did you see any video feeds from the spacecraft? Artemis II traveled 252,757 miles from earth, marking the furthest distance any human has traveled from our planet. Their 10 day mission broke several space travel records. 250+ thousand miles is a long way… I travel 1009 miles every year to Florida and that takes me 14+ hours — they just went 252 times as far as my winter hiatus. A few days ago, I heard one news commenter say, “Artemis II has just entered deep space.” Hmmm… I celebrate NASA’s and the crew of Artemis II’s accomplishments… but deep space? Not quite.
Did you know it takes light 1.2 seconds to reach the moon? The journey that took Artemis II 5 days only takes the time of a quick breath for light. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second making it the fastest element in the Universe (at least that we are aware of). Light leaves earth for the moon… one-one-thousand… it’s there! Now, it takes light eight minutes and 20 seconds to travel from the sun to the earth — that is 416 times longer. The sun is approximately 93 million miles from earth.
But let’s say that we would like to travel out of our solar system to the nearest star… just how far is that? Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light years away from earth. That means, that traveling at 186,000 miles per second… it would take 4.25 years to arrive at Proxima Centauri. The closest star to us.
Maybe you have bigger delusions of grandeur than Proxima Centauri… you look up at the night sky and see the brightly shining stars of Orion’s Belt. Let’s go there! Traveling at 186,000 miles per second, you would arrive at Orion’s Belt in 1,200… YEARS. Let’s back off juuussst a bit on Artemis II reaching “deep space” talk, shall we?
The vastness of the Universe is quite literally beyond human comprehension. We can’t grasp it — it is simply beyond our limited abilities. Don’t believe me? From earth we can see 0.000005% of our Milky Way galaxy with the naked eye — that’s it.
Traveling at 186,000 miles per second it would take 200,000 years to cross the Milky Way. Did you know that scientists estimate that there are between 2 and 6 trillion galaxies… here’s the kicker… in the observable universe? Yeah, from earth, we can only observe less than 1% of the Universe.
Now, I hope you will forgive the science lesson, but this week I am pondering the vastness of the created cosmos, and my ponderings have led to this question: Why did God create the Universe so vast? I mean, just the Milky Way alone would have been quite impressive — it holds somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars. Yet, it is but one galaxy among trillions.
I don’t know if anyone can truly answer that question, but I’m going to take a stab at it. As vast as the Universe is… God is even more!
“But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you.” 1 Kings 8:27 “Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord. Jeremiah 23:24 “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” Isaiah 40:25-26 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:1
As vast as the Universe is… God is vaster… er, more vast… vast-il-licious? Yeah, you know what I mean. The Created Order will never outshine the Creator. And yet… and yet… this wonderful, vast, all powerful, creator God… names you as His beloved child (1 John 3:1). The next time you look up at the stars — remember just how much God values you!
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