NASA /JPL/-Cal Tech
We do not often think of the Milky Way galaxy as being “our home” but, in truth, it really is! We all live between a matched pair of Milky Way galactic spiral arms 26,000 light-years from its brilliant central core. The photograph on the right reveals the elongated curvature of one of the spiral arms extended from the rotating central core seen beyond the right foot of the exalting man.
Each spiral arm is made up of a multitude of star clusters. Some of these clusters contain up to a million stars. Also included are dust and dense molecular clouds, debris from exploding or colliding stars, giant stars, dwarf stars, dwarf galaxies, and nebulae of all shapes, sizes, and densities. All together our Milky Way galaxy contains about 400 billion stars! WOW!—-Double WOW!! —-Even Triple WOW!!!
The space between the two parallel spiral arms is known as the Galactic Habitable Zone, commonly known as the Goldilocks zone. Our star, the Sun, with all its system of planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and Oort cloud, is in this zone. The popular conception is that our planet is in a perfectly safe zone but that’s not altogether true. Multitudes of stellar interactions through collisions, gravitational influences, and supernovas could happen at any time within this zone.
There are relativity few spiral galaxies in the universe (about 6%) and most of these are noted for multiple structural and gravitational problems; but, the Milky Way spiral arms are unusually stable. The star clusters in our spiral arms rotate with gentle up and down oscillations and side to side motions. This has the effect of greatly reducing star gravitational interactions and stellar collisions. God has designed and structured with incredible precision this protection and other major safety parameters within the galactic system to keep our Milky Way Home safe! Such collisions near our planet in this zone could release torrents of deadly radiation with an intensity so great that it would annihilate all life on our planet!
The incredible surge of recent research advances in astrophysics and cosmology have opened to all mankind a caring Intelligence far beyond anything we could have ever imagined before!
As the psalmist observed it best: “The heavens proclaim God’s splendor, the sky speaks of his handiwork; day after day takes up the tale, night after night makes him known; their speech has never a word, not a sound for the ear, and yet their message spreads the wide world over, their meaning carries to the earth’s end!” Psalm 19 (Moffett Translation).