I have thought about writing a post like this for a long time. Part of it is just to share something interesting, part is to give perspective on how unique we really are, and part of it is to put out there why I believe it is is rational to believe in God (that there is an intelligent design) without ever putting a single line of the Bible into a discussion. We also discuss a lot on this site and sometimes we focus in on the little things pretty deeply. So I thought maybe you would like to see what “big” is and maybe get a perspective on just how little space we take up in this universe.
Please note, some of this is from memory and simple estimates.
1. There are about 100 billion stars in our galaxy… There are 100 billion galaxies.
100,000,000,000 x 100,000,000,000 = 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Or simply 10 sextillion (10^21) stars in the universe. That means there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth. Next time you go to the beach, pick up a handful of sand. There are more than 1 million grains in a handful of sand.
2. Since it is hard to imagine numbers that big so lets come back down to some smaller numbers. The speed of light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Light can travel around the Earth 6.89 times per second (186,000 / 27,000 = 6.88888888888888~).
The sun is 8 minutes away. [(60 x 
x 186,000 = 89,280,000] or 89.28 million miles away from you. The nearest star is 4 light years away. Our galaxy is 100,000 light years across. The universe is estimated at 93 billion light years across. It has existed for 14 + billion years. Our planet is 4.5 billion years old. Life has existed for about 2 billion years on this planet.
So lets think about a few other things in our Universe. 3 out of 4 Stars are in binary systems (3/4) and we can not exist in a binary system from the amount of radiation and the variation of the habitual zone. Only a small portion of a solar system, less than 10%, is in the “Goldie Locks Zone” where life has a chance (1/10). Only 2 object in our solar system have flowing liquid of the 154 planet and satellites that are known (1/77). Only one planet has a large moon to protect it and keep it’s geology active (1/8). Out of all the species that are on the Earth (right now there are 3-30 million) only one is intelligent and self-aware or at least claims to be (on the low end it is 1/3,000,000,000).
We could get into the odds of life existing (1%) and the odds that it is intelligent (1%), or the odds of intelligent life existing at the same time as moon being able to eclipse the Sun (moves 1” away a year), but that of all of this stars that are singular, there is a rocky planet, that has a moon, that is large, that it is in the Gold Locks Zone, that has flowing liquid, and has enough species’ to produce intelligent life.
| Stars | Zone | Liquid | Planet | Species | ||
| 1/4 | 1/10 | 1/77 | 3/8 | 1/3,000,000 |
(3/4) * (1/10) * (1/77) * (3/8) * (1/3,000,000) = 4.06 ^-11
Or a 0.00000000406% chance of intelligent life happening. So maybe there could be a God or “Intelligence” that has helped along life. Kind of low odds for it to exist otherwise. Now what are your thoughts….
One way or the other, watch the video below and marvel at how small we really are. It is HD (so it says) and you can watch it full screen. Welcome to being a grain of sand on a very large beach and I hope you enjoy the video below.
Please Val. We’re just a random quirk (not quark). If not for the coincidental happenings caused by a fallen coke bottle, there wouldn’t even be us…silly girl.
And you know, (this is what the guy on the radio was saying the other day) if you go the opposite direction and start looking at cells, you’ll find that it is just as intricate and amazing how they work. He compared them to a computer code…said one of the guys he works with was kind of miffed when he realized that computer codes were nothing new…they existed all along on a cellular/molecular level. As with all things, we did not INVENT computer codes, but rather discovered them…
Wow…
we were put here on this perfect planet.
The you tube video at the end sure makes a person feel small!!!
I would love to take credit for this – however, it was Stu that wrote it.
After seeing all this, and knowing that it is true (all you have to do is go to http://www.nasa.gov to verify the stats) I just can’t see how anyone can say we were an accident – a freak of a natural element.
Great, fantastic – thanks Stu,
Love this stuff … spent some time going through the similar presentations on U-tube at the end of this video!
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This is ‘humbling’ to say the least …. on a macro scale (planets, galaxies, etc), we humans are so very tiny …. and on the micro scale (cells, molecules, atoms and quarks) we ‘physically’ are non-existent! [We are even 'forced' into a much different notion of what 'physically' means].
And even time seems so relative …. why in several hundred million years our galaxy will ‘collide’ with our twin galaxy and the earth will perish in the resulting inferno.
There is no mention that recorded history (in pictographs) is only @7,000 years old. And written language is a wee bit younger than this. Space exploration only began at the end of the last century. Discovery is only in is infancy!
One of THE greatest crimes is the purposeful dumbing-down of vast amounts of knowledge. Instead of embracing the uniqueness of our species, we try to finish the adventure before it has begun. Talk about dumb ………… we even kill our kids!
We must get off this ‘pride role-coaster’. The phenomenon and glory of being human is very, very special. Teilhard de Chardin though that in this whole universe living and living as humans was not replicated anywhere else … that is NOT ANYWHERE.
John,
If you look at us at the atomic level, 99% is just open space. The atom is 99% space, 1% material.
“and part of it is to put out there why I believe it is is rational to believe in God (that there is an intelligent design) without ever putting a single line of the Bible into a discussion.
I know that it is finals for many people who comment but I’m still surprised none of the people who have said Intelligent Design can’t be proven scientifically haven’t jumped on this one.