Doubly Amazing
No one knows how big the universe is. Indeed, if not for trustworthiness of the scientists and their equipment, it is hard to accept the figures given by them, which are in trillions. If we divide the galaxies among ten billion humans, we will still be left with millions of galaxies unoccupied, writes SYED IQBAL ZAHEER.
The Planetary System in which we have been placed consists of 8-10 planets (counting all). If you look out your window, in a starry night, you see thousands of stars in the sky. But, barring a few, they are not stars. They are galaxies, but because of the vast distances from us they appear as stars.
The galaxy which houses our Solar System is called the Milky Way.
The diameter of this Milky Way is thought to be 100,000-120,000 light years. It is made up of at least 200 billion stars (more recent estimates speak of around 400 billion stars).
From Earth, the Galaxy is visible as a luminous band spanning the sky.
The nearest star to the Sun is known as Proxima Centauri within the Milky Way.
It is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. It is about 2.5 light years from the Sun. (That is, light travelling at the speed of 300,000 km a second will reach us in 2.5 years. It takes eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth).
The Milky Way contains billions of stars and is made up of several hundred billion solar-like systems.
Going by the average, there could be ten planets (like our Mars, Mercury, our Earth, etc.) in every Solar-like planetary system. That is, billions of planets in all, in our Galaxy alone.
Of the billions of galaxies that surround us, the closest is a galaxy called Andromeda. Its distance from our galaxy (the Milky Way) is estimated to be approximately 2.54 million light-years.Its diameter is approximately 250,000 light-years.Its mass is estimated at 300 to 400 billion solar masses.The total mass is around 1.2 trillion solar masses. Or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, i.e. 1018 (ten to the eighteenth power).
Modern scientific estimate is that the size of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years, and that there are two trillion galaxies in the visible universe.
We state that “size of observable…” because the boundary is un-observed, unknowable.
Actually, no one knows how big the universe is. Indeed, if not for trustworthiness of the scientists and their equipment, it is hard to accept the figures given by them, which are in trillions.
If we divide the galaxies among ten billion humans, we will still be left with millions of galaxies unoccupied.
Is it not amazing then that Allah (swt) should have sent Revelations – His own uncreated words –to these insignificant (and, perhaps, unworthy) humans?! (‘like ants,’ as a scientist has said, ‘looked at from clouds’).
And it is doubly amazing that they should ignore this inimitable, the Last, word from Him – the Qur’an.
How rightly, but politely, the Qur’an has remarked: “(Man) is, indeed, ever transgressing, ever ignorant.” (33: 77)
