{"id":13020,"date":"2020-05-02T08:57:33","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T15:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=13020"},"modified":"2020-05-02T10:16:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-02T17:16:04","slug":"count-the-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2020\/05\/02\/count-the-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Count the Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/h6>\n
Big me, little universe. Isn’t that how we usually see things?<\/h6>\n

When we think of wonder, it’s pretty easy to think about the stars. That is, unless you live where I do and don’t see them very much at all. But do you remember when you were in the desert, or high on some mountain? It’s almost like there’s more light than dark. One can wonder, \u201cHow did they get there?\u201d Or more, \u201cHow did I get here?\u201d<\/p>\n

God said to Abraham, \u201cCount the stars . . . if you can.\u201d*<\/p>\n

I love that, \u201cif you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who can? The more you look, the more you see. Astronomers get closest to it. They deal with such massive numbers, I wonder that they don’t walk around all day in a daze. Or all night.<\/p>\n

Some time ago I heard there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy . . . and there are 100 billion galaxies . . . that we know of.<\/p>\n

That we know of?!!!!<\/p>\n

That’s a big disclaimer. Makes me wonder whether we know very much at all.<\/p>\n

A physics and astronomy professor friend of mine tells me there are 400 billion stars in\u00a0the Milky Way. That’s 400,000,000,000 in our own homey galaxy. And, while ours is not small, it’s not as large as your average galaxy out there in the night sky (or day sky, if we could see it) .<\/p>\n

A google search shows the latest count for galaxies is now around two trillion.<\/p>\n

A trillion looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000. Now double that.<\/p>\n

Then consider the massive sized stars, the incredible distances between them, that new stars and galaxies are being discovered all the time, that the whole universe is continuing to expand outward, and accelerating . . .<\/p>\n

\u201cCount the stars, Abraham, if you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s all too much for me. I think I’ll go make a sandwich.
\n______________<\/p>\n

*Genesis 15:5<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I just remembered I had this painting, an attempt of the edge of the Milky Way. Seems I should paint in a tiny little sign down near the corner, “YOU ARE HERE.”
\nThat would put things in perspective.
\nSort of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we think about wonder, it’s almost too easy to think of the stars. But when we think about the stars, it’s almost too easy stop wondering about them at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13020"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13020"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13042,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13020\/revisions\/13042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}