The year 2019 started with a stellar accomplishment. The speediest man-made object (New Horizons space probe) travelled outside our solar system and conducted a reconnaissance flyby of an object (Ultima Thule) that was the furthest away from “home” mankind has ever travelled.
The stuff of dreams.
But after an appropriate time of celebration, we would do well to stand back and take a sober second look at what was accomplished from the perspective of the universe.
What’s next? Perhaps the closest star? That would be Alpha Centauri located a mere four light years away. Our New Horizons spacecraft, while speeding along at a world speed record of approximately 50,000 km/h is moving at a snail’s pace compared to the speed of light. It would take approximately 86,000 years to cover that “short” four light year distance. And if we set our sights on visiting another galaxy, of which there are about a trillion, we would first have to get out of our Milky Way home galaxy.
Given that the Milky Way is 100,000 light-years across and assuming that we are in the middle (we’re not) it would take us a mind-blowing 1 billion years.
The New Horizons space probe was launched on its mission 13 years ago to gather data from far away objects with the hope that it might give us a clue as to the origins of our solar system and the universe.
I would suggest that if the day ever comes that we are able to see back to the origin of the universe the scientists will be surprised to see that the theologians had been there all the time. In the beginning, God created….
I would humbly suggest that while we are inquisitive members of the universe we are not in any way masters of it.
Brian Kroeker