NASA’S VOYAGER SPACECRAFT, launched nearly a half century ago (1977), is still heading away from Earth, at a rate of 38,000 miles per hour. By the year 2025, it will be 48 years and 13.8 billion miles from Earth. A few years ago, it escaped the heliosphere, the outer fringe of our sun’s gravitational pull, having passed through a region of solar winds raging at an estimated million miles per hour. Voyager has thus far escaped annihilation by big rocks (asteroids and meteoroids) and balls of ice (comets; the edge of this solar system is estimated to have more than a trillion of these huge [where huge means a few miles to more than a million miles wide], dirty iceballs orbiting the sun).
As spectacular, and risky, as the journey seems, in terms of light years, Voyager has traveled a distance of less than one day. Relative to the presently perceived expanse of the universe, more than 90 billion light years, it’s a mere moment. If Voyager had been sent towards the nearest star other than our sun, Proxima Centauri, one of The Pointers, it would arrive in 86,000 years. Coming back, if that were possible, would take another 86,000 years. Voyager of course has no form of earth-life aboard, so a regular channel of communication with intelligent life, if Proxima Centauri’s planets were found to have any, and if Voyager could communicate with that form of life, would have to survive repeated journeys of 172,000 years and be able to withstand the distance and perils of space. If that could happen, even once, within 172,000 years from now, what message could it deliver that would be relevant and useful to us today? Not a thing.
Now, if Voyager had been launched towards Polaris, the North Star, the journey would last about 8.5 million years, each way; that’s not happening in our lifetime or in the human history of Planet Earth.
There is obvious mass in the nebulae, stars, planets, asteroids, meteoroids, and comets which Voyager has been sent to investigate, though 21st-century science can account for less than 10% of the inferred mass of the universe. Even the “empty spaces” between bodies of visible matter must have some kind of mass, but the unknown 90% is vaguely explained by science as dark matter. No helpful hypotheses of dark matter’s nature or composition currently exist. Despite the extraordinary advances of modern science, scientific concepts or processes can’t fathom or begin to explain fundamental matters such as, what is spirit? What is intelligence? What is life? Why and how are we here?
A century ago the “view” of the universe was perceived to be no larger than the Milky Way. Now we perceive a bit more, such as giant galactic manufacturing machines, nebulae, that are nurseries for galaxies, stars, and their planets. No one in the science world a century ago even guessed that planets and stars and galaxies were forming and expiring. Nor can such bodies be counted even in our day. The authors believe that none of these things can be explained satisfactorily in any way other than by acknowledging a Creator who knows and is interested in us. The mysterious pieces of the puzzle still missing to science will come to light one day, but the most profound leaps have already arrived and will continue to arrive by revelation rather than by research. God reveals Himself by His works and may add more in His own way and time.
Meanwhile, the vast reaches of space are a cold vacuum, inhospitable and beyond the practical traveling or communications considerations of mortals, beyond the reach of mankind’s history of a few thousand years. Since Earth-life has been deliberately, it seems, tucked far away from the rest of creation in its own tiny sliver of remote space, it should not be surprising that there has been no random or unauthorized contact with beings from elsewhere. We have been sent here, said Paul, to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).” Though thrilled by the march of science and exploration, we posit that no one can offer light or hope or assistance better than the scope of the Plan of Salvation offered by God through Jesus Christ. No mere resident of Earth can overcome or hope to overcome the brokenness of this world or heal our frailties or open up the vast reaches of the created universe. Yet for God, all things are present, all things are known and numbered: time, space, stars, planets, geography, history, all of life and creation including you, me, us, everyone, from A to Z, even the depths of our very thoughts and needs. Our only hope, our grand opportunity, is to, “Look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2)”. Our faith concludes that there is no other name, no other plan, no other way to overcome the vacuum-sealed limits of Spaceship Earth. Thank God for His grand plan of happiness and the matchless gift of His Divine Son. No one else is coming to the rescue. No one else can.
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