Black Hole & Our Universe

Posted on Jan. 17, 2010 at 11.00 AM - Chennai, India

Yesterday, I watched Fox History Channel that talked about black hole. Scientists believe there are tens of millions of black holes out there in the universe. And if one of them is close enough to our solar system, it will produce catastrophic effects. It will eat up our biggest planet first, Jupiter. It will then eat up our heat producer, the sun, before eating up the earth which is not inhabited anymore at that time. It’s a very scary scenario.

However, I believe this scary scenario will NOT happen now or in the near future, because I believe God created us with a purpose in life. He created this vast mind boggling universe for us to explore. Furthermore, He created this earth not to be left empty but to be inhabited - Ps 105:4. So, this black hole thing eating up our solar system will not happen at least until human being has been given time to prepare the technology to overcome it.

While talking about this breathtaking scale of universe, one name seems to stand out more than the rest. Albert Einstein. In 1905 he wrote a special theory of relativity, which showed that distance, time, and mass are not absolutes. In 1907, after a flash of intuition that he termed “the happiest thought of my life”, Einstein began to develop his general theory of relativity, which he published in 1916. In this revolutionary work, he wove gravity, space, and time together and refined the physics of Isaac Newton.

Another name which also stands out in this field is astronomer, Edwin Hubble. In 1929, he presented evidence indicating that the universe is expanding. When first Hubble first estimated the distance to one Great Nebula in the constellation Andromeda, he concluded that the nebula was actually a galaxy a million light years away. That put it well beyond the Milky Way, which has a diameter of a ‘mere’ 100,000 light years. He also noticed that distant galaxies were receding from us, the farther the galaxy, the faster the recession. Those observations imply that the universe of yesterday was smaller than the one of today. Or in other words, the universe is expanding.

In 1998, researchers who were analyzing light from a special kind of supernova (exploding sun) found evidence that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating! At first the scientists were skeptical, but evidence soon mounted. They name this mysterious form of energy (which causes the accelerating expansion of the universe, which works in opposition to gravity) as dark energy, and believe that the current universe is made up of nearly 74% of this energy.

Dark energy is not the only oddity discovered in the recent years though. Evidently, in 1980s scientists found out that there must be some form of matter in the middle of every galaxy which holds its celestial bodies together. Since the gravitational force of this dark matter is so strong, not even light can escape from it. It’s popularly known as black hole.

According to the current estimates, normal matter account for only about 4 % of the mass of the universe. The other 2 big unknowns – dark energy and dark matter – appear to make up the balance. Thus about 96% of the universe remains a complete mystery!

With the current understanding, I have to agree with King Solomon of old, which says “He had made everything beautiful in his time: also he had set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God make from the beginning to the end.” Ec 3:11

Life is beautiful! Let's make it meaningful and colorful!