The Universe – what’s out there and how did it come to be?

I was recently reading an article about the 1960’s and the space race between America and the then Soviet Union, latterly the Russian Federation. For those of a younger age group, the US and the USSR were the two super-powers that emerged after World War 2. They then engaged in a competition to build-up an arsenal of nuclear and other weapons which could have destroyed our world many times over. Back then, they were also engaged in another competition – the space race. Ever since the discovery of powerful rockets, the race began to launch man into space and to begin to discover worlds other than our own. For the record, the Soviets were the first to get a man into space - Yuri Gagarin orbited the world in 1957. But of course the Americans were the first to put a man on the moon in Neil Armstrong in 1969.

All of that is historical record but it is not our story for today. Back then, I was very aware of the arms race and the space race. Indeed, there were some very scary moments when we weren’t sure our world would survive at all. Thankfully, good sense eventually prevailed and indeed armaments have now been reduced to some extent. But parallel to all this, there was yet another race going on, of which I had no knowledge, nor did I know anyone who had. The race may seem very, very strange nowadays or even hard to believe. They were actually competing to be the first to bore a hole which would reach the center of the earth. The Americans were doing it; the Russians were doing it; I'm not sure but I think the Chinese were doing it also. There may have been other countries that were doing it as well. To me and to most people nowadays, it seems farcical but back then, it was very serious indeed. What they hoped to discover, no one knows. Perhaps they thought they would find rare minerals or some such treasure. I think the Americans gave up at something like 5000 meters, which when you think of it is five kilometers into the earth. When you dig our earth, you first encounter black clay, then you have yellow clay, and you hit rock, probably after two or three meters. Obviously, after a while, the drills become super-heated and even using diamond drill bits is pointless. Now, for a moment, suspend disbelief. The Russians actually won that race because they went down over 12,000 meters. Imagine, twelve kilometres into the earth. And the hole is actually still there, apparently marked for posterity. To my mind, it’s a monument to madness.

Now, I'm not a scientist or an expert of any description but I believe they had to give up after 12,000 meters because they weren't really going anywhere; they weren't discovering anything. They realised that it was a pointless exercise and a waste of valuable resources. But here’s the thing – at 12,000 meters, they had barely gotten to scratch the crust of the earth, the Earth's surface. There are a whole lot of layers within the earth; the initial or outer layer is the crust and it extends for about 100 kilometres. The inner core is around 6,500 kilometres deep. There are numerous other layers, but no one has ever gotten there. So, all of the resources of the most powerful nations on earth could barely scratch the surface of the earth.

The earth is one planet of eight in the solar system. It is one of the smallest. In fact, more than 99.9% of the matter in our solar system is made up of the Sun. Jupiter and Saturn make up about 0.08% with the other planets and moons etc making up less than 0.02%. Taking it a stage further, our solar system is part of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is estimated to be 100,000 light years across and is estimated by scientists to potentially contain up to ten million planets with potential for life forms similar to earth. As one light year is effectively infinity, it is unlikely we will ever encounter any of them though. Now, The Milky Way is one, yes, one galaxy. It’s one of innumerable galaxies out there. Scientists say that if you want to estimate how many galaxies there are in the universe, start by counting every grain of sand on every beach in the world and you might get close. They have also measured that the diameter of the observable universe is 93 billion light years. Don’t even think about trying to imagine that. What’s a light year? Light travels at 180,000 miles per second so go figure. The sheer vastness of the universe is obviously far too large to comprehend, let alone to discover. We can see small parts of it through telescopes but many people just find its enormity to be mind blowing. Include me in that number.

So, let’s recap briefly. Our earth is, to us, enormous. It contains eight billion people who speak over five thousand languages. Its mass is so large that if I were to list it in tons, it would take up an entire line of zeros. Mathematicians use sixty kilos to the power of twenty four. Yet it is a mere dot or even less than a dot in terms of the size of the Milky Way alone. If we measure it against the Universe, it doesn’t even figure as a speck of dust. It is effectively invisible.

If you gaze at the night sky on a very clear night, you can't see into infinity but you get the impression that you can. Everything you see, every star, every piece of light, is a sun and that sun is for a solar system within a galaxy. Trying to estimate numbers brings us into the realm of fantasy or the impossible. The question which has fascinated mankind for as long as it has been around is where all this came from? I'm not a religious person. I'm not a follower of any particular faith or church or whatever but I respect everyone’s right to choose for themselves. What I will say is, you can’t tell me there isn't some superior being out there who created all this. There has to be. I know all about the big bang theory and evolution and all that and that’s fine. But it all comes back to a central point. Who started it all? It’s phenomenal and beyond our comprehension. I’m not saying this superior being is God or Allah or whoever people worship. Perhaps the superior being doesn’t even want anyone to worship them? Who can say? This doesn’t necessarily mean that there is life-after-death or any of the other tenets posited by the various religions. I have no idea. I would venture to suggest that neither have they. All I am saying is that the Universe is Universal, never-ending, impossible to contemplate and out-of-this-world incredible. Someone has to have created it.