A few days ago astronomers released a study of a supernova first discovered in 2016 and declared it the brightest in the sky — five hundred times brighter than the average supernova. Most of you are probably aware that a supernova is the remains of an exploding star.
After seeing this news I read several articles on science websites, including Nasa Science’s. By definition a supernova has at least five times the mass of our own sun. Our “little” sun has room for 1.3 million earths inside. You can imagine a bit of just how large this supernova, designated SN2016aps, is.
Linda and I are listening to a great book by Ravi Zacharias, Recapture the Wonder. In chapter one he has this quote, “President Theodore Roosevelt had a routine habit, almost a ritual. Every now and then, along with the naturalist William Beebe, he would step outside at dark, look into the night sky, find the faint spot of light at the lower left-hand corner of Pegasus, and one of them would recite: “That is the Spiral Galaxy of Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It is seven hundred and fifty thousand light years away. It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our own sun.” There would be a pause and then Roosevelt would grin and say, “Now I think we feel small enough! Let’s go to bed.”
Like Ravi, I’ll now encourage you to read these words from Psalm 8, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. . . . When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers . . . , what is man that you are mindful of him? . . . You made him ruler over the works of your hands” (verses 1, 3-4 and 6).
Indeed, look to the skies and feel true wonder at the hands of our God.
remadepreacher 