The Vastness of the Universe

With the advent of the telescopic observation of space, new galaxies and new stars began to be revealed. Recently, such a revelation was made by a team of western scientists while observing events in space from the Cote d’Azur Observatory. This team discovered a star which is 1,300 times bigger than our sun and is situated at a distance of 12,000 light years from the earth. It is about 1 million times brighter than the sun.

Found: A Yellow Star that is 1,300 times bigger than the Sun

The largest-ever yellow star, measuring 1,300 times the size of our sun, has been discovered nearly 12,000 light-years from the earth. The star, dubbed HR 5171 A, located in the constellation Centaurus, is the largest known member of the family of yellow stars to which our sun belongs. It is also one of the 10 largest stars found so far – 50% larger than the famous red supergiant Betelgeuse and about one million times brighter than the sun. The team, led by Oliver Chesneau of the Cote d’Azur Observatory in Nice, France, found that the yellow hypergiant star had a diameter 1,300 times greater than that of the sun. (The Times of India, March 14, 2014)

Before the invention of such devices as the telescope and the microscope, humans knew very little about the wonders of the cosmos. The twentieth century is an age of knowledge explosion. In this age, many unique revelations have been made about the universe and this is an ongoing process.

Now the time has come for man to discover the Creator on a far higher plane, achieve a far greater realization of the Majesty of the Creator and discover the new aspects of the signs and wonders of God. With such wonderful apprehension of the Majesty of God, the believer will spontaneously say: “Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds.” (1:2)

There is a tradition of the Prophet on this aspect of the Quran: “The wonders of the Quran will never cease.” (Sunan at-Tirmizi, Hadith No. 2906). These wonders are not the wonders of the book, but are rather the wonders of the God who has sent us the Quran. In later times, all the discoveries relative to the universe are only indications of God’s Omnipotence and Omniscience, and as such are expressions of the unlimited Majesty of the Creator.

One important aspect of this space discovery is that a newly discovered star and the sun belong to the same family. Just as the newly discovered celestial body is a star so also is the sun a star. But the newly discovered star is thirteen hundred times bigger than the sun. Had this star been in place of the sun and sun in place of that star, the earth would have been so hot that no kind of life would have survived here. There would have been neither human life nor any kind of water, vegetation and animals.

This positioning of stars is extremely meaningful. The Quran alludes thus to this aspect of space: “I swear by the setting of the stars–and, indeed, that is a most mighty oath, if you only knew.” (56:75-76)

In this verse, ‘swear’ means bearing witness and ‘setting’ means the light of the stars vanishing with the coming of the day. The very positioning of the stars at exactly the right places in the vastness of space is a great testament to the limitless power and limitless wisdom of the Creator. The position of the stars cannot be accidental. This meaningful placement testifies to the fact that the Creator of this universe is a Great Being who has established the system by means of His great power. There is no other explanation for the great happenings in the universe.