Amazing design of our galaxy and solar system
While most people know something about our planet’s fine-tuning, until I started reading about it, I was unaware that our galaxy and solar system had to be just right in order for us to live here on planet earth. From Hugh Ross’s tour de force, Improbable Planet (2016), I began to get a glimpse of just how dazzling the design of our “neighborhood” is:
Our galaxy is the just right size for life
Our galaxy’s location is in the right neighborhood, not too close to a galaxy-rich cluster or another very large galaxy and not too far away from dwarf galaxies
Our galaxy is the just right shape, with the right amount of mass distributed between the central bulge and the spiral arms
Our galaxy is just the right type, not too elliptical and not too irregular
Our solar system revolves around our galaxy’s center at the just right distance to allow for stability
Our solar system has the just right “wobble” across the galactic plane
Our solar system is located close enough to the right number of supernova eruptions
Our solar system features the right number and location of gas giants to act as body guards to protect planet earth from too much interstellar debris
These are a tiny sampling of the many known features of our galaxy and solar system that must all be present in order for intelligent life to be possible.
While some of these individual features are known to exist elsewhere in the universe, for them all to be present in one place, even given the huge number of galaxies, stars, solar systems, and planets, is astoundingly improbable without divine intervention. If these many features were not just right in our galaxy and solar system, we wouldn't be here to marvel at them. The clear evidence is that a brilliant, powerful, and caring mind deliberately brought these features together in order for intelligent life to exist.
This blog article is an excerpt from my book: Five Languages of Evidence: How to Speak about Reasons for Christianity in a Post-truth World. Not yet published; available upon request.
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