The universe

							(“What is Man?”)
  For the next few
 minutes let’s try to
understand just how
 large the universe
      really is.
 The speed of light is
  commonly used to
measure large distances
because light travels so
         fast.
That speed is usually set
 at 186,000 miles per
       second...
 ...but 186,000/sec is a
      little hard to
understand, so let’s use
     an illustration.
  Let’s pretend that a
bullet, shot from a gun
 you are holding, can
 travel at the speed of
          light.
And let’s pretend that
 this bullet traveled
around the earth like
         this:
 That bullet would go
  through you 7 times
before you could fall out
       of the way!
Our special bullet
would travel to the
 moon in just 1.3
    seconds.
  But, that same
 bullet would take
500 seconds (over 8
 minutes) to reach
      the sun.
Our Sun is way
  out there!
  Now let’s look at
how large our sun is.
    Can you find
the planet Mercury?
Right!
   Mercury




                   the surface of our Sun



 Mercury is 36,000,000 (36 Million)
miles closer to us than our Sun in this
           photo of the two.
   Mercury




             EARTH
                     the surface of our Sun



If you were to place our Earth where
Mercury is, it also would be very small
        compared to the sun.
   Mercury




             EARTH
                     the surface of our Sun



It has been estimated that you could fit
 over one million earths inside the sun.
  Mercury




                 the surface of our Sun


Besides being far away, our sun is

            huge!
Several planets revolve around our sun
creating what we call the Solar System.
Light takes about 11 hours to cross
        our Solar System.
This is what we normally
see on a winter’s night in
         the USA.
               The Belt
                and Sword of
                     Orion
 Let’s take
  a quick
look at this
    star.

Orion
This is a sun called Betelgeuse.



 Our Sun is huge,
  but Betelgeuse
 is much larger!
Remember our Solar System?
              Earth




As fast as light travels it still takes
 light 8 minutes to reach Earth...
   Jupiter (fifth from the sun)




… and 45 minutes to reach Jupiter.
So, how big is Betelgeuse?
  Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and
Jupiter could all orbit around the Sun
          inside Betelgeuse.
 Betelgeuse and our whole Solar System are
just tiny specks inside a galaxy like this one.




  (We have named our galaxy the Milky Way.)
        Our Milky Way Galaxy
would look something like this if viewed
 from edge-on and from very far away.

                        We would
                         be about
                        right here!
    Our Milky Way Galaxy would look
 something like this if we could view it from
         above or below the disk.




(which we cannot do because of it’s size, as you
              will see shortly)
Just how large is our
Milky Way Galaxy?
If you & mom were on opposite sides
and you called her on the telephone it
          would take over
                                 Mom



You

 100,000 years for her to answer and
another 100,000 before you heard her!
Using the speed of man’s fastest space
probe it would take over 18,000 years
    just to get to the closest star.


                   Our Solar System



         Our closest neighboring sun
  Even traveling at the speed of light
(about 6 trillion MPH) it would still take 1,500
 years just to get to the area of Orion,
      and Orion is a close neighbor.

                        Our Solar System



                                 Orion
From the time our Earth was created
(about 6,000 years ago) until now,
light from our Sun would only have
traveled about this far.

                       Our Sun
      As you can see,




we live on a tiny speck in a
      HUGE Galaxy.
Galaxies are not rare either.
         Almost every object in this
            photo is a galaxy.
           Each galaxy contains at
          least several billion stars.
            Some even contain
        hundreds of billions of stars.

How many GALAXIES do you
suppose are out there anyway?
Scientists, using the
   Hubble Space
 Telescope, looked
here for 10 days to
 try and find out.
In a part of the sky
about the size of the
 head of a straight
 pin held at arms
       length

     this is what they found:
  Thousands of
Galaxies, about 10
billion light years
       away.
          This is the 2004
   Ultra Deep Field from Hubble.




 It took almost 3 months to take this
one picture and shows at least 10,000
 galaxies 13 billion light-years away.
When you consider just how large
  the known Universe is when
     compared to our little
      Milky Way Galaxy...
  And how large our Milky Way
is when compared to Betelgeuse...


                     Betelgeuse
And how large Betelgeuse is when
     compared to our Sun...
     EARTH




And how large our Sun is when
  compared to the Earth...
And how large our Earth is when
compared to us,
    it makes you wonder.
What is man?
Why does God even care
about us at all?
Why did He
come here?
Oh, the height and depth
 of the love of Christ!
 “This is real love. It is
 not that we loved God,
but that he loved us and
    sent his Son as a
 sacrifice to take away
    our sins.” 1 John 4:10
“Behold, what manner
of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us, that
we should be called the
  sons of God.” 1 John 3:1
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