The Coming Solar Storm

As humans we depend on the light of the Sun. The astrological Sun feeds our vitality and quality of being, and when there is a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection we are affected here on earth. Cosmic rays disrupt the electrical systems on earth, and as humans we are surrounded by an elecromagnetic grid that can be affected by solar changes.

- http://astrodynamics.net/astrologicalmusings/2013/08/06/the-suns-magnetic-field-is-about-to-flip/

"Every particle of rock or water or air has God by its side leading it the way it should go; The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness; In God's wildness is the hope of the world."

-John Muir, Travels in Alaska 

"I am an attendant of the sovereign Sun... A vehement love for the splendors of this god took possession of me from my youth; in consequence of which, while I was a boy, my rational part was ravished with astonishment as often as I surveyed his etherial light; nor was I alone desirous of stedfastly beholding his diurnal splendors, but likewise at night, when the heavens were clear and serene, I was accustomed to walk abroad, and, neglecting every other concern, to gaze on the beauty of the celestial regions with rapturous delight: indeed I was so lost in attentive vision...."

-Julian the Apostate, Oration to the Sovereign Sun 

“...he would be able to look at the Sun and contemplate its nature, not as it appears when reflected in water or any alien medium, but as it is in itself in its own domain....And now he would begin to draw the conclusion that it is the Sun that produces the seasons and the course of the year and controls everything in the visible world, and moreover is in a way the cause of all that he and his companions used to see.”

-Plato, Allegory of the Cave, Republic, 516ff)

"Our motion is regulated by some measure of the amount by which it has not yet been accomplished."

-NorbertWiener, Cybernetics, p.116 

Sunrise in Sunningdale (Photo CG Garvie)

Some Sundays, despite my love for worship, I would rather want to walk the beach or simply listen to the scheduled "Radio Amateur News Bulletin" than suffer spartan benches and discordant music!

I am a licensed Radio Amateur (ZR5ADZ). Not an active one but a philosophical one, one that constantly monitors the 2 metre bands networking with an invisible band of channellers. I even have an Android application (Echolink) to communicate worldwide (or should I say, after Bucky Fuller, "world-around"?) using my smartphone! Some regard "hams" as a somewhat esoteric breed of enthusiasts.

Last Sunday I did in fact tune in to the South African Radio League News broadcast and one item caught my attention. I was riveted. We are currently in the midst of a solar cycle peak. Solar Cycles and sunspots are a peculiar, ubiquitous interest of hams. Extreme arcane ghost-like concepts from electron holes to sunspots and even black holes interest us, indeed anything that has to do with propagation, transmission, or connectivity. Back to that news item....

SUN MAGNETIC POLES READY TO REVERSE

SARL NEWS SUNDAY 11 AUGUST 2013

According to measurements from NASA-supported observatories, the sun's vast magnetic field is about to turn over. The Sun's magnetic field changes polarity approximately every 11 years. It happens at the peak of each solar cycle as our home star's inner magnetic field generator reorganizes itself signalling the mid-point of a Solar Cycle.

Todd Hoeksema is the Director of Stanford's Wilcox Solar Observatory which is one of the few that monitor the sun's polar magnetic fields. He says that we are no more than 3 to 4 months away from a complete field reversal and that this change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system. This is because of the Sun's magnetic influence, also known as the Heliosphere, which extends billions of kilometres beyond the minor planet Pluto and almost to interstellar space.

When solar physicists talk about solar field reversals they are also referring to something known as the Sun's Current Sheet. This is a sprawling surface jutting outward from its equator where it's slowly rotating magnetic field induces an electrical current. During field reversals, the current sheet becomes very wavy. As Earth orbits the sun, it dips in and out of the current sheet. Transitions from one side to another can stir up stormy space weather around our planet which in turn can affect radio propagation to some degree.

As the field reversal approaches, data from the Wilcox Solar Observatory shows that the sun's two hemispheres are out of synch. According to Solar Physicist Phil Scherrer the Sun's North Pole has already changed sign, while the South Pole is racing to catch up. Soon both poles will be reversed, and the second or downhill half of Solar Max will be underway. For amateur radio it likely means that good DX openings especially on the higher bands could be fewer and far in-between.

What caught my attention was the remark, "..... this change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system." Disturbing, apocalyptic language, as this may sound, there is nothing to be alarmed about really. I myself have lived through six such flips already and have happily survived....May 1947, March 1958, November 1968, December 1979, July 1989, March 2000, and now August 2013! Of interest to radio amateurs, of course, is the effect of solar activity on propagation, communications, and electronic equipment. Cosmologists, Astronomers, Astronauts, Electrical Engineers, Neurologists, Psychologists even Astrologers and Homing Pigeons are interested in these solar rhythms too. Perhaps Cybernauts and Theologians should be too. Every Sunday evening I religiously tune in to "Sterre en Planete" ("Stars and Planets) on RadioRSG to get the week's update on what is up with the Sun. Julian the Apostate would be impressed by my devotion!

Magnificent CME_Eruption (Wikimedia Commons)

Little ripples can have humongous consequences but we are not expecting Earth to be toasted to a crisp this time round. These ripples are relatively subtle. Your GPS might be out of kilter for a bit so watch where you are going. The Internet might go down here and there much to the annoyance cyber junkies. There could be a power outage like the New York blackout of 1977. ATMs might be uncooperative. But the Solar Flip does not have to be a conflagration. It could be a joyful, expansive jubilation moment, a time of illumination. Clement of Alexandria said: “The healthful Word or Reason (the Logos), who is the Sun of the soul...has risen within the depths of the mind, the soul's eye is illuminated” (Exhortation to the Greeks 6). In the Hermetic Corpus we find: “But when the Sun did rise for me, and with all-seeing eyes I gazed upon the hidden [mysteries] of that New Dawn...” (Virgin of the World, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, III,60). Let us see where the ripples takes us.

We touched on this in my previous blog about "Trim Tab"Fuller.

We talk about feedback loops, chain reactions, the butterfly effect, cybernetics, governors , or servo control systems. Positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events while negative feedback have a dampening effect. Jesus may also have alluded to small effects with massive outcomes when he spoke of the mustard seed and the leaven in the lump.

For instance, in Stellar Physics the theory is that a remarkable magnetic braking system controls, governs, or regulates stellar effects such as the angular momentum of a star including our Sun. Mysterious mechanisms shields us from harmful bombardments. All parts of a complex but delicately balanced control system.

Coronal Mass Ejection (Wikimedia Commons)

We know that solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CME), if directed earthwards can knock out entire power grids. Could they not also impact on our behaviour? Do we flare up in sympathy with solar activity? There is considerable evidence that we do! These are called "circadian rhythms". Inasmuch as some might be moonstruck we can also be solstruck. One might even speculate whether there are magnetic braking systems governing our own physical and psychological well being at molecular DNA levels ensuring balance and equilibrium in harmonious resonance with the Sun and/or even the Galaxy as Plato deduced: “the Sun … controls everything in the visible world.”

Dr Robert Becker said back in 1963: Subtle changes in the intensity of the geomagnetic field can affect the nervous system by altering the living body's own electromagnetic field." (Newsweek, 13 May 1963). Changes elsewhere in distant galaxy pulsates through us affecting and effecting us in subliminal ways modulating waves as they pass through us. We are an intrinsic element in a vast cosmic self-adapting ocean.

MichelGauquelin of the Psychophysiological Laboratory at Strasbourg University in 1966 wrote:

....the sun is responsible for a mass of strange effects which seem to influence all of life on this sphere through the weather, the atmosphere, and magnetic disturbances.

However, perhaps not all cosmic effects on earth come from the sun and the moon. There remains in the universe a huge field of influences which have yet to be explored: the influence of galactic forces, the disturbing influence of planets in the solar field, cosmic rays coming from distant space, and no doubt many other things which we know nothing about at the moment. When we do know more, we will understand better what goes on between the sky and ourselves.

(Astrology and Science, p.199)

More recent studies have refined these assumptions.

Jo A Joselyn in a paper, "The impact of solar flares and magnetic storms on humans" says:

Solar flares may disrupt radio communications in the HF and VLF ranges. Energetic particles pose a special hazard at low-earth orbit and above, where they can penetrate barriers such as spacesuits and aluminum and destroy cells and solid state electronics. Energetic solar particles also influence terrestrial radio waves propagating through polar regions. Magnetic storms may disturb the operation of navigation instruments, power lines and pipelines, and satellites; they give rise to ionospheric storms which affect radio communication at all latitudes. There is also a growing body of evidence that changes in the geomagnetic field affect biological systems.

Sometimes our chronobiological clocks might miss a beat or two in sympathy with the Sun. 

Apollo 14 astronaut, Edgar Mitchell "became profoundly aware that each and every atom in the Universe was connected in some way, and on seeing Earth from space he had an understanding that all the humans, animals and systems were a part of the same thing, a synergistic whole. It was an interconnected euphoria," says Ian O'Neill in an article "The Human Brainin Space: Euphoria and the 'Overview Effect' Experienced byAstronauts". 

One need not be a Moon Astronaut to experience this "interconnected euphoria". It can be enjoyed equally in the woods and desert places of our own planet. Naturalist, John Muir wrote: "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." Visiting Yosemite he wrote, "We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us."

In short...the solar cycle has a direct effect on humans. There could be solar butterflies affecting emotional tornadoes in our minds and behaviour on our streets, in our universities, temples, mosques, synagogues and churches. Possibly the Arab Spring has its wells on far distant planets or deep within the magnetic poles of the Sun.

So hang on to your hats and sunblocks, take off your shirt and feel the Sun...you never know precisely when the Sun will flip your mind!

Sunset in Sunningdale (Photo: CG Garvie)

Further Reading:

Anthropic Principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
Bioelectromagnetics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioelectromagnetics
Butterfly Effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
Chronobiology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronobiology
Grandfather Paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox
Holism: http://www.environment.gen.tr/holistic-view/111-what-is-holism.html
Retrocausality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality
Reversal of Stellar Magnetic Field: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_magnetic_field
List of Solar Cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_cycles
Stellar Magnetic Fields: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_magnetic_field

Teleology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology

©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

Immensity!

However one might imagine the cosmic immensity, God is present at every discrete point, from the smallest speck, the tiniest sparrow, every niche of time and space, to the uttermost parts of the seas and heavens, and unknown galaxies.

-Thomas C Oden, John Wesley's Scriptural Christianity, p.34

Viewed from the being of God as holy love, omnipresence means nothing less than the ability of divine love to maintain itself everywhere unhindered by limitations of space.

-Albert Truesdale, A Contemporary Wesleyan Theology, Vol.1, p.126

The Andromeda Galaxy (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

In my previous blog, "Awesome!", I reflected on the immensity of space and by implication, of time. I wondered, where does God fit in this picture? Can we even apply "where questions" to God? Can we even ask a question such as, "Where is the Universe?" Dr Albert Truesdale reminds us that, "God's omnipresence has nothing to do with how a physical entity can nevertheless be unbounded by spatial restrictions. God is Spirit..." (ibid.)  Whatever, instead of negating our understanding of God, our new cosmologies and biologies have served to enhance and enrich theology tremendously. I agree with Kit Pedler... 

I began to study the works of people with legendary names: Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger and Dirac. I found that here were not clinical and detached men, but people and religious ones who imagined such unfamiliar immensities as to make what I have referred to as the 'paranormal' almost pedestrian by comparison. (Kit Pedler, Mind Over Matter, p.11)

In relation to the universe three attributes of God comes to mind: Infinity, Eternity, and Immensity. Much of my own theological understanding of God has its roots in Wesleyan theology. I agree with John Wesley where he says in his sermon, "The Imperfection of Human Knowledge"...

...our desire of knowledge has no bounds, yet our knowledge itself has. It is, indeed, confined within very narrow bounds; abundantly narrower than common people imagine, or men of learning are willing to acknowledge: A strong intimation, (since the Creator doeth nothing in vain,) that there will be some future state of being, wherein that now insatiable desire will be satisfied, and there will be no longer so immense a distance between the appetite and the object of it.

...

Who is able to comprehend how God is in this and every place how he fills the immensity of space? If philosophers, by denying the existence of a vacuum, only meant that there is no place empty of God, that every point of infinite space is full of God, certainly no man could call it in question. But still, the fact being admitted what is omnipresence or ubiquity Man is no more able to comprehend this, than to grasp the universe. The omnipresence or immensity of God, Sir Isaac Newton endeavours to illustrate by a strong expression, by terming infinite space, "the Sensorium of the Deity."

We occupy a minuscule sliver of time (three score years and ten of 14-billion) and a mere wedge of space (a speck in the vastness of an immeasurable universe), aware of only a very tiny slice of the full electro-magnetic spectrum of light. We are severely confined creatures!

Another of John Wesley's sermons is his homily "On the Omnipresence of God", or what he terms the "ubiquity of God."  In the homily Wesley addresses deistic tendencies, the idea that the Creator is remote or absent from creation. Wesley argues that however immense the universe might be, that God is all pervasive, immanent in time and space. Contemporary theologians sometimes describes this as “panentheism”. Wikipedia defines panentheism as “a belief system which posits that the divine interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it.”  Church of the Nazarene/Methodist theologian Thomas Jay Oord advocates panentheism, but he prefers the word "theocosmocentrism". 

Dated 1788, I still find Wesley's sermon, despite the limited scientific knowledge of the time, refreshingly contemporary:

The Macrocosm

God is in this, and every place. The Psalmist, you may remember, speaks strongly and beautifully upon it in the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm; observing in the most exact order, First, "God is in this place;" and Then, "God is in every place." He observes, First, "Thou art about my bed, and about my path, and spiest out all my ways." (Ps. 139:3.) "Thou hast fashioned me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me." (Ps. 139:5) Although the manner thereof he could not explain; how it was he could not tell. "Such knowledge," says he, "is too wonderful for me: I cannot attain unto it." (Ps. 139:6) He next observes, in the most lively and affecting manner, that God is in every place. "Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit, or whither shall I go from thy presence If I climb up into heaven, thou art there; if I go down to hell, thou art there also.'(Ps. 139:7, 8.) If I could ascend, speaking after the manner of men, to the highest part of the universe, or could I descend to the lowest point, thou art alike present both in one and the other. "If I should take the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there thy hand would lead me," -- thy power and thy presence would be before me, -- "and thy right hand would hold me,' seeing thou art equally in the length and breadth, and in the height and depth of the universe.

In a word, there is no point of space, whether within or without the bounds of creation, where God is not. ...The universal God dwelleth in universal space.

The Microcosm

If we may dare attempt the illustrating this a little farther, what is the space occupied by a grain of sand, compared to that space which is occupied by the starry heavens? It is as a cipher; it is nothing; it vanishes away in the comparison. What is it, then, to the whole expanse of space, to which the whole creation is infinitely less than a grain of sand? And yet this space, to which the whole creation bears no proportion at all, is infinitely less in comparison of the great God than a grain of sand, yea, a millionth part of it, bears to that whole space.

God acts in heaven, in earth, and under the earth, throughout the whole compass of his creation; by sustaining all things, without which everything would in an instant sink into its primitive nothing; by governing all..... having a regard to the least things as well as the greatest; of his presiding over all that he has made, and governing atoms as well as worlds. This we could not have known unless it had pleased God to reveal it unto us himself. Had he not himself told us so, we should not have dared to think that "not a sparrow falleth to the ground, without the will of our Father which is in heaven;" and much less affirm, that "even the very hairs of our head are all numbered!"

....

Omnipresent

If I remove to any distance whatever....to any conceivable or inconceivable distance; above, beneath, or on any side;, it makes no difference; thou art still equally there: In thee I still "live, and move, and have my being."

Empty Space

Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud

Wikimedia Commons

And where no creature is, still God is there. The presence or absence of any or all creatures makes no difference with regard to him. He is equally in all, or without all. Many have been the disputes among philosophers whether there be any such thing as empty space in the universe; and it is now generally supposed that all space is full. Perhaps it cannot be proved that all space is filled with matter. But the Heathen himself will bear us witness, Jovis omnia plena: "All things are full of God." Yea, and space exists beyond the bounds of creation (for creation must have bounds, seeing nothing is boundless, nothing can be, but the great Creator), even that space cannot exclude Him who fills the heaven and the earth....for it is well known, the Hebrew phrase "heaven and earth," includes the whole universe; the whole extent of space, created or uncreated, and all that is therein...

In extra-mundane space, (so to speak,) where we suppose God not to be present, we must, of course, suppose him to have no duration; but as it is supposed to be beyond the bounds of the creation, so it is beyond the bounds of the Creator's power. Such is the blasphemous absurdity which is implied in this supposition.

Of course this is a sermon and not a scientific treatise. Elsewhere Wesley reflects on the mysterious immensity of creation:

Wesley on the "Goldilocks Zone": 

The Copernican System

That [God] who dispenses existence at his will, should multiply, extend, enlarge, and add a kind of immensity to his works, is not properly what surprises me; at least my amazement is chiefly founded on my own extreme littleness. But what astonishes me most, is to see, that notwithstanding this my extreme littleness, he has vouchsafed to regulate his immense works, by the advantages I was to receive from them! Thus he has placed the sun just at such a distance from the earth on which I was lodged, that it might be near enough to warm me, yet not so near as to set it on fire.

-John Wesley, A Compendium of Natural Philosophy, VOL. III.p.253

Wesley on the "immensity of the great chain of beings": 

Great Chain of Being. Retorica Christiana, written by Didacus Valdes in 1579

Between the lowest and highest degree of corporeal and spiritual perfection, there is an almost infinite number of intermediate degrees. The result of these degrees composes the universal chain. This unites all beings, connects all worlds, comprehends all the spheres. One SOLE BEING is out of this chain, and that is HE that made it.

A thick cloud conceals from our sight the noblest parts of this immense chain, and admits us only to a slight view of some ill-connected links, which are broken,and greatly differing from the natural order.

We behold its winding course on the surface of our globe, see it pierce into its entrails, penetrate into the abyss of the sea, dart itself into the atmosphere, sink far into the celestial spaces, where we are only able to descry it by the flashes of fire it emits hither and thither.

But notwithstanding our knowledge of the chain of beings is so very imperfect, it is sufficient at least to inspire us with the most exalted ideas of that amazing and noble progression and variety which reign in the universe.

-John Wesley, A Compendium of Natural Philosophy, Vol IV, p.60

Since Wesley there has been an eruption of knowledge. Our knowledge is still severely imperfect. 

Wesley concluded his sermon of 1788 with this mindful application which is as applicable today as it was in the 18th Century:

If you believe that God is about your bed, and about your path, and spieth out all your ways, then take care not to do the least thing, not to speak the least word, not to indulge the least thought, which you have reason to think would offend him. Suppose that a messenger of God, an angel, be now standing at your right hand, and fixing his eyes upon you, would you not take care to abstain from every word or action that you knew would offend him Yea, suppose one of your mortal fellow-servants, suppose only a holy man stood by you, would not you be extremely cautious how you conducted yourself, both in word and action How much more cautious ought you to be when you know that not a holy man, not an angel of God, but God himself, the Holy One "that inhabiteth eternity," is inspecting your heart, your tongue, your hand, every moment; and that he himself will surely bring you into judgement for all you think, and speak, and act under the sun!

Acknowledgements:

John Wesley Sermon Project General Editors: Ryan N. Danker and George Lyons, Copyright 1999-2011 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology. http://wesley.nnu.edu/?id=787

Charles Carter Ed., A Contemporary Wesleyan Theology
Thomas C Oden, John Wesley's Scriptural Christianity

H Orton Wiley and Paul T Culbertson, Introduction to Christian Theology.

©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

Awesome!

Here, in the dark immensity of the of the heavens, we shall meet with glories beyond description and witness scenes of inexpressible splendor. In the great black gulfs of space and in the realm of the innumerable stars, we shall find mysteries and wonders undreamed of.

-Astronomer Robert Burnham, Celestial Handbook, Vol.1, p.13. 

What are the odds that we are alone in the universe?

I was but a toddler growing up on a farm called "Gemakstroom" (Afr. Comfortstream) in the foothills of "Skurweberg" (Afr. Rough Mountain) when one dark starry night my father took me up in his arms and we went outside to show me what I think was supposed to be a lunar eclipse. I had no idea what he was on about. How could I? I was hardly three! To say it was incomprehensible is putting it mildly.

Now that I am almost 70 it is no less incomprehensible. Louie Giglio rightly says it is "indescribable"! Then he is only scratching the surface of what our limited intellectual capacity can grasp. We hardly apprehend even the minutest sliver of the undefinable reality in which we “live and move and have our being”.

View Louie Giglio's "Indescribable"

I am presently engaged in a course in "Mathematical Philosophy" grappling with the notion of infinity. Needless to say I cannot even begin to wrap my mind round what the lecturer is trying to explain despite his assurance that high school math will suffice! I cannot even begin to comprehend the magnitude and magnificence of the universe. It defies our best descriptions and formulations.

The Psalmist exclaims...

The heavens declare the glory of God, the vault of heaven proclaims his handiwork, day discourses of it to day, night to night hands on the knowledge. No utterance at all, no speech, not a sound to be heard, but from the entire earth the design stands out, this message reaches the whole world. High above, he pitched a tent for the sun, who comes forth from his pavilion like a bridegroom, delights like a champion in the course to be run. (Psa 19:1-5 NJB)

As we know, our sun is but a star, one of many billions of stars. I once sat on Battery Beach in Durban with my teeny-bopper grandson, Dane. Taking a handful of beach sand in my hand with grains streaming through my fingers I asked, "Dane, how many grains of sand?" "Billions!" he replied. "And how many grains of sand on Battery Beach and all the beaches in our world?" I pressed. I  knew he intended to become a marine biologist one day. "Uncountable!" he told me somewhat pleased with himself. I then said something stupid like, "Dane, do you know that there are more stars out there than all the grains of sand on the beaches of planet earth?" I didn't think I was exaggerating. Even John Wesley anticipated this great vastness when he wrote, "This assemblage of vast bodies is divided into different systems, the number of which perhaps exceeds the grains of sand which the sea casts on its shores" (John Wesley, Compendium of Natural Philosophy, Vol.IV, p.51). Totally befuddled and bewildered, all Dane could say was, "Bull!" That was pretty smart, I thought, an exclamation of sheer brilliance!

Dane was right. Later that night I pointed out to him the fascinating constellation of Taurus the Bull, rich in legend, myth, and religious tradition and significance which in ancient times marked the beginning of the course that our sun ran like a groom across the skies replete with "uncountable" stars. I pointed out the beautiful Pleiades in Taurus to which Dane's ancient Khoikhoi ancestors presented every new born Khoi baby. (See More Khoi Starlore...and Theology: The Pleiades.)

Age of Taurus the Bull

Equinox 4000BC (Stellarium)

The Sumerian high god Enki was referred to as "The Bull". The supreme deity of the Canaanites, El, was represented wearing a crown adorned with the horns of a bull. In the oldest of the Egyptian inscriptions, the Pyramid Texts, the king is addressed...

Behold, thou art the Enduring Bull of the wild bulls of the gods who are on earth...of the gods who are in the sky... Endure, O Enduring Bull, that you may be infinite in strength as the ruler of all, at the head of the spirits forever...  (Quoted Robert Burnham, Burnham's Celestial Handbook, An Observer's Guid to the Universe Beyond the Solar System, Vol.3, p.1814)

In our galaxy alone, the Milky Way, there are estimated to be more than 100 billion stars! Many billion of these are "sun-like stars"

Carl Sagan also said, "Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the Earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours. In every one of them, there's a succession of incidence, events, occurrences which influence its future; countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time."  (Cosmos, Episode 8, “Journeys in Space and Time” )

The Milky Way

Michael Moyer in Scientific American wrote:

Look up on a starry night. Almost every one of those tiny pricks of light is home to an unseen world. Our Milky Way galaxy is full of planets-100 billion or more-and many of those planets are Earth-like rocks (although our solar system still appears to be an oddball).

An estimated 17 billion. "Almost all sun-like stars have a planetary system," said Francois Fressin, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Fressin's research indicates that about one in six stars is home to a rocky, Earth-like planet.

We are just talking about our galaxy explains Michael Moyer....

John Johnson of the California Institute of Technology says that Red Dwarfs make up 70 percent of all stars in the galaxy, and these are absolutely full of planets. We can estimate that the Milky Way is home to at least 100 billion planets. "Our solar system is rare among the galaxy's population of planetary systems," says Johnson, "because our star is not a red dwarf." But with 100 billion possibilities to choose from, who would bet that there's one not like us peering back through that darkness? 

It boggles the imagination. We can not even begin to appreciate the number of possible earth-like planets swirling around out there. However, there is more! There are universes, how shall we say? Universes within universes ad infinitum!

According to an article in National Geographic entire universes exist tucked away within so-called "black holes"! Our universe may be in such a hidden tuck of another. At our own galactic centre is a black hole too that could well be a portal to another universe!

Our Galactic Centre (Photo: NASA JPL)

A supermassive black hole resides in the bright white area, right of the center.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Center_of_the_Milky_Way_Galaxy_IV_%E2%80%93_Composite.jpg

Ker Than writing for National Geographic News says, "Like part of a cosmic Russian doll, our universe may be nested inside a black hole that is itself part of a larger universe. In turn, all the black holes found so far in our universe-from the microscopic to the supermassive-may be doorways into alternate realities.

This is a remarkable theory which, though Dane is now 21, I still hesitate even to mention to him!

The psalmist harps...

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. (Psa 8:3-5 KJV)

...and I begin to wonder and ask myself, "Who then are the angels, the "elohim," of whom the psalmist sings?" Clearly in his mind we are not alone in the universe, we cannot be the only form of intelligent life in a universe so indescribably and infinitely vast. If there be such diversity of “wonders undreamed of” out there, how much more then, the diversities of all the hosts of heaven and the imponderable “glories beyond description”!

©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

When I Consider the Crystal Night Skies...

When I Consider the Crystal Night Skies...


The other day, a friend having read my previous blog where I quote Carl Sagan without any comment, wondered, "Why no comment?" What could I say? What more could I add? Very succinctly, Sagan had said it all. One considers the immensity of time and space and one is lost for words and left with a sense of the numinous, the misterium tremendum. With a dramatic force of words and imagery Sagan ponders our apparent insignificance against the vast staggering expanse of the universe. Though the Psalmist had no Voyager I, no means of looking back at himself as Sagan did, yet he too was awestruck:

'I often think of the heavens your hands have made, and of the moon and stars you put in place. Then I ask, "Why do you care about us humans? Why are you concerned for us weaklings?"' (Psa 8:3-4 CEV)

The KJV says, "When I consider...". There couldn't be a more appropriate word! Joseph Parker of City Temple reminds us that "sider comes a long way up the track of language; it was born sidus... Sidus means star; it is the root of sidereal heavens, the starry heaven, the stellar universe... Con-siderealize -- when we star together -- put the planets into syllables and words and paragraphs; when I considerealize, make a lesson book of the stars; when I punctuate my discourse with milleniums, then I pray". (CTP vol.1 p.228) Whether as an astronomer Sagan was ever led to pray, I don't know, but the starry skies affected David. Who wouldn't be?

Job certainly was, he hears God asking him:

'Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it? "Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the cornerstone thereof, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?' (Job 38:4-7 KJV)

In Contact, Sagan writes:

"There were so many pieces of the sky to look at, so many hundreds of billions of stars to search out. You couldn't spend all your time on only a few of them. She was troubled that in their haste to do a full sky survey in less than a human lifetime, to listen to all of the sky at a billion frequencies, they had abandoned both the frantic talkers and the laconic plodders."

Perhaps I am one of those "laconic plodders". I am privileged to live under African skies. Far from the city lights that isolate and alienate us from the immense "Out There", the days and nights are beautiful beyond words. One can only but gaze in silent reverence. At night, I can't suppress the temptation to go and take a quick quiet look at the stars no matter what predatory danger might lurk out there in the African veldt. And what do I look at?

Sometimes, if I am looking up at the moon, I always look for the first lunar landing spot, where Armstrong touched "soil" as it were, where incarnate earthdust first mingled with moondust. Perchance I might even spy footprints, humanity's imprint upon the moon. I imagine it is me and I look back at earth and at myself and wonder, "Who am I really?"

I also always look at another very particular star though in fact I cannot see it with the naked eye but I know where to look. It is Proxima Centauri. Alpha Centauri is the brighter of the two Pointers of the Southern Cross. Proxima Centauri is a smaller companion of Alpha Centauri orbiting it. Next to the Sun, Proxima is our nearest star, hence its name. It is special for me in a very parochial sense...it was first discovered by a Scottish-South African astronomer, Robert Innes. I imagine there's a planet there much like ours and on that planet, conscious intelligent life is looking back at us asking, "Who are they? What on earth are they doing?"

What can I say? Nothing! Like Job I am lost for words:

"Behold I am vile (lit, "insignificant") What shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth." (Job 40:4)

What happens when we gaze upward and outward? Peter Senge et al explains:

'If you gaze up at the nighttime sky, you see all of the sky visible from where you stand. Yet the pupil of your eye, fully open, is less than a centimeter across. Somehow, light from the whole of the sky must be present in the small space of your eye. And if your pupil were only half as large, or only one quarter as large, this would still be so. Light from the entirety of the nighttime sky is present in every space - no matter how small. This is exactly the same phenomenon evident in a hologram. The three-dimensional image created by interacting laser beams can be cut in half indefinitely, and each piece, no matter how small, will still contain the entire image. This reveals what is perhaps the most mysterious aspect of parts and wholes; as physicist Henri Bortoft says, "Everything is in everything."' (Presence, by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, Betty Sue Flowers)

Sagan quotes William Blake (in Contact):

Little fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

(William Blake, Songs of Experience, "The Fly," Stanzas 1-3)

When I gaze upward, then suddenly, "I-a-fly" senses.... Someone has "brushed my wing"!

oOo

Apollo Lunar Landing Sites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ApolloLandings.jpg
More about Proxima Centauri http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri
And more about Robert Innes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Innes


©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za/