THE GALAXY SPEAKS ABOUT ITS CREATOR
How Great Thou Art!
ACCORDING to a recent study, the Milky Way is at least 50% bigger than previously estimated. Research conducted by an international team at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US has established the presence of a bulging ring of stars beyond the known plane of the Milky Way. Their findings show that the features previously identified as rings are actually part of the galactic disk, extending across the known width of the Milky Way from 100,000 light years1 to 150,000 light years.
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a unique astronomical phenomenon of which our Solar System is only a tiny part. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the universe. Edwin Hubble in the early 1920s with his new telescope was able to produce astronomical photographs that resolved the outer parts of some spiral nebulae as collections of individual stars. A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space. He was also able to conclusively estimate the distance to the nebulae and found that they were far too distant to be part of the Milky Way.
1 Light year = distance that light can travel in one year = 9,500,000,000,000 kilometres.
The Milky Way, a disc-shaped barred spiral galaxy, is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars. The Solar System is located within the disk, about 27,000 light-years from the Galactic Centre, on the inner edge of one of the spiral-shaped concentrations of gas and dust called the Orion Arm. The Sun is 25,000–28,000 light-years from the Galactic Centre. The Galactic Centre is marked by a concentration of mass best explained as a supermassive black hole with an estimated mass of 4.1– 4.5 million times the mass of the Sun.
There are billions of other galaxies in the universe. The Milky Way has several satellite galaxies and together with the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy, it is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which is a component of the Virgo Supercluster, which is itself a component of the Laniakea Supercluster of galaxies.
The Creator is truly great! He made such a vast universe, of which our galaxy is only a tiny part!
If a person could be far away in space and have a telescope with which he could view the entire Milky Way, he would be able to see a mindboggling spectacle. He would see that, in the vastness of space, there is a magnificent starry galaxy. It would take more than 3000 years to count the stars in the Milky Way at a rate of one star per second. On one spiral arm of this galaxy, our Solar System is situated. The planet Earth is part of this Solar System which, along with other planets, is continually revolving around the Sun. The Quran says: “God’s throne extends over the heavens and the earth; and their upholding does not weary Him.” (2: 255)
Such a spectacle of stunning proportions will compel the gazer to exclaim in wonderment: The Creator is truly great! He made such a vast universe, of which our galaxy is only a tiny part!