What’s Out There?

I was watching a programme on the universe the other night and far from helping me understand what it’s all about, which is what I was hoping it would do, I switched off after it had finished, more confused than ever. I mean, what exactly is going on out there? Anybody know?

Take the earth – we’re part of the Solar System which formed from some bits of gas, sand, rocks and stuff approximately 4.6 billion years ago. An awfully long time. And it seems that the sun, the centre of our solar system and on which all life on earth depends, will flicker and die in about another 5 billion years (according to the programme) so worry not – we’ve got as long to go as we’ve already had.

But back to the main part of the lesson. Earth is in a galaxy called the Milky Way (why’s it all about chocolate bars – galaxy – milky way ?) and there are apparently at least a billion stars in a galaxy. Now there are supposedly billions of galaxies – our nearest is Andromeda which is only 2.5 million light years away, a light year being 5.8 trillion miles. So, go on then – work that one out. What’s 2.5 million miles multiplied by 5.8 trillion miles? Quite far I would say.

My point is – how do they know this? I guess some bright spark (pun intended) worked out how far light travels in a vacuum (the speed of light) but how did they then know how far Andromeda is? It’s definitely not on the AA Route Planner. And how do they know there are at least a billion stars in your ‘normal’ galaxy? Did someone do a count?

And so we get to the main point of this posting. WE ARE NOT ALONE. How can we be? If a galaxy such as ours has over 1 billion stars and there are over 1 billion galaxies, it would be awfully churlish to say that life does not exist out there somewhere amongst the billion billion things floating in space. And if you’re of a religious persuasion which insists that God created life, who’s to say that there aren’t other God’s out there creating garden paradises and messing about with ribs and apples and stuff?