- Series:Astronomy, Transcript English
Deuteronomy 4:19
“And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.”
Of the many short stories written by sci-fi author Ray Bradbury, one of my favorites is “The Golden
Apples of the Sun”. The story describes a spacecraft flying close to the Sun in order to scoop up some of the material from the Solar atmosphere. I thought about this story when NASA launched their Parker Solar Probe in August 2018. A major difference is that Bradbury’s imaginary voyage had a human crew, whereas, more sensibly, PSP is an unmanned spacecraft. The tiny spacecraft is protected by a solar shield with a diameter of 7½ feet made of carbon fiber reinforced carbon. All scientific instruments are in the center of the craft, and all direct light is blocked, so PSP should be able to withstand outside temperatures of 1,370 °C (2,500 °F) as it enters the lower corona.
I am sure that PSP will obtain a lot of very useful data, and my personal opinion – I know some of you may disagree – is that such exploratory missions are fully justified. However, data is of no use by itself, and its interpretation will be carried out, according to the interpreters’ worldview. At the time of writing this Creation Moment, research papers describing the initial data are said to help “understand the process by which stars are created and evolve.” When God made the Sun on Day Four, He created a complex object, and PSP’s data, when interpreted by a biblical worldview, will cause us to praise Him all the more.
Prayer: Everything in Your universe was created by You to bring glory to You, Lord. We acknowledge this as we thank You for men of science who explore and expand our knowledge further. Amen.
Author: Paul F. Taylor
Ref: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. “NASA’s Parker Solar Probe sheds new light on the sun.” ScienceDaily, 4 December 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191204144903.htm>. Image: Filtered photo, showing a finger of solar corona, CC BY-SA 2.0 Unported.
© 2021 Creation Moments. All rights reserved.
