A Special Place

     A small speck of dust floating on nothingness (or "suspended in a sunbeam" as Carl Sagan puts it)... the "Pale Blue Dot" description of Earth aptly describes the isolation of of our planet within the vast emptiness of space...

     Six thousand years ago, when people still thought the Earth was flat, and thousands of years before Ferdinand Magellan's group of explorers went around the world to prove once and for all that the Earth is round, the writer of the "Book of Job" depicts the most accurate picture of Earth in space:

"He stretched out the north over empty space and hangeth the earth upon nothing" (Job 26:7)

     The Earth's ability to support life, much more intelligent life like us, relies on the fact that the planet orbits the sun in a "sweet spot", not to near the sun that water would boil, and not too far that air would freeze. The earth's mass is also just sufficient for it to maintain an atmosphere without air escaping out into space or without making the air too heavy for us to breathe.

     The other planets, stars, galaxies, black holes, supernovas, dark matter, anti-matter and all those known and unknown objects scattered throughout space, even the farthest galaxy  -- all these exist and exert their influence on Earth and on our Solar System via the universal law of gravitation and via other universal laws yet unknown to us. In essense, the Earth is where it is and what it is today, able to support complex and intelligent lifeforms, because of the complex interactions of all the objects and forces in our universe.

     From a creation perspective, the entire universe, everything in it, has been created to provide a complex and interwoven support system that enables planet Earth to support life as we know it today. It is not by some freak accident that we came into existence in our own corner of the universe, but rather, by astute planning and by divine wisdom and intervention that is incomprehensible to man, we came to be.

     God doesn't play dice, according to Einstein. The entire universe in all its vastness and glory had to be carefully planned out and meticulously created so that one tiny speck of dust floating inside a solar system within some spiral galaxy will be able to have just the right environment to support complex lifeforms.

     Earth is indeed one special place for us. The Earth and the entire universe that goes along with it has been created just for us so that we have a place to live in and enjoy our existence. To us, it is our interplanetary vehicle in outer space. It is our self-contained biosphere. It is our home, it is our place, it is our very own space.

     But then, a more special place awaits us still -- to those who believe in the One He sent, God's one and only Son Jesus Christ.

     Earth, special as it is, becomes but a brief pilgrimage and a mere transit point to our final destination -- to some other place more beautiful than the universe itself.  That final destination is not just a pale blue dot and not just a mere speck of dust in outer space.

     It will be our very own special place.

     And what a destination it will be!

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"We know that if the life we live here on earth is ever taken down like a tent, we still have a building from God. It is an eternal house not built by human hands." (2 Corinthians 5:1)

A Small Speck of Dust

Moving at a speed of 10.5 miles per second, the equivalent of more than 38,000 miles per hour, Voyager 1, launched on September 5, 1977, is now the most distant man-made object from Earth, having traveled more than 10.8 billion miles. Last December, after a 33-year journey and after sending thousands of spectacular images of the various planets and moons in our solar system, Voyager 1 has already reached the outer limits of our solar system.

One of the most famous images ever snapped by Voyager 1, taken on June 6, 1990, was dubbed the "Pale Blue Dot," depicting Earth on a scale never before seen.

 Of the "Pale Blue Dot," astronomer Carl Sagan said:

That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

This sure makes us feel kinda small... living on a small speck of duct in a seemingly vast and infinite creation that is the universe.

Reference: NASA