THE HEAVEN DECLARE THE GLORY OF GOD

In the Beginning

See Genesis 1:14-19...

It is estimated that there are between 100 and 400 billion stars and at least that many planets in our Milky Way Galaxy. It is estimated that there are around 200 billion galaxies in the known universe.

Psalm 147:4 “He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.”

With a radius of 43,440 miles, Jupiter is 11 times wider than Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Jupiter would be about as big as a basketball. Jupiter's diameter is about 11 times that of the Earth's and the Sun's diameter is about 10 times Jupiter's. You can fit around 984 Jupiters inside of the Sun!

The volume of the Sun is so huge that it could hold over 1 million Earths.

The biggest star in the universe (that we know of) is UY Scuti. It is so big that almost 5 billion suns could fit inside of it.

Hebrews 1:3 “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”

The Purpose of the Lights

It shows the glory of God.

To separate the day from the night.

For signs, seasons, days, and years

To give light on the earth.

He gave the sun and moon to rule, or dominate the day and night.

The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. It took us about 600 miles to drive home from Alabama last week. So if we could travel there at the speed of light, we could be there before you could blink. At that speed, you could travel about 6 trillion miles in one year.

It would take you about 1.3 seconds to travel to the moon at that speed. It would take about 8 minutes to travel to the sun.

Now let’s say we wanted to travel out of our solar system. It would take about 3 minutes to get to Mars, 33 minutes to get to Jupiter, 67 minutes to Saturn, and about 4 hours to get to Pluto. Now to get to the very edge of our solar system, it would take about 1.87 years. Keep going to Proxima Centauri, our nearest neighboring star, and plan on arriving in 4.25 years at light speed.

What about if you wanted to travel from one end of our galaxy to the other? How long would that take? About 100,000 years traveling the speed of light. It would take about 2.5 million years to get to our neighboring Andromeda galaxy. It is 220,000 light years wide, so it would take another 220,000 years to travel across it. Keep in mind, it is estimated that there are about 200 billion galaxies in the known universe. The amount of time it would take to travel the universe at the speed of light is beyond our comprehension.