milky way

Our Solar System🪐🌍🌠

Sometimes it seems like the sun☀️ is moving. It is not the sun that moves; it is the planets that move. We move, for example, and Mars moves also. Within one to two months, it can move quite far from one part of the sky to the other.

Mars is a planet that has seasons like we do. Not all planets do. Mars actually had water (we found that out in the 1950s and 1960s). Could there have been life? Mars also has two small moons🌕🌖. We have one.

As you know, the rover that recently landed on Mars, Perseverance, made a huge breakthrough by landing on such a rough terrain. It was a first time event that will mark history. It happened last year in August.

It gets so cold on Mars it can be like -100 Fahrenheit. The air is very thin. Your weight on Mars would be one third of what it is here. Mars is called the red planet. There is no “blue” or water anymore.

Mars is actually small. It’s only one fourth of the diameter on earth. It has low gravity. However, billions of years ago Mars was covered in water. So what happened? On earth, wherever water appears, life appears🌊🐃.

Was there life on Mars that disappeared and dried up? The dinosaurs on earth became extinct 65,000,000 plus years ago. The rover, again, Perseverance is searching to see if there was ever life on Mars.

The mission is using a special device to explore the soil. Perseverance will leave tubes of soil on Mars for eight years and then bring them back to earth to detect if there was ever life there.

The sky in Mars is kind of pinkish. Mars is just one sibling planet, though. There are many other planets, so we can begin by looking at planets nearest to the sun🌞. Mercury and Venus are close by.

One difference between Venus and Mercury is that Mercury can get really hot and cold at the same time. There can be a 1000 degree difference between night and day. Mercury is not even the hottest planet. Venus is the hottest.

It’s not as close to the sun as Mercury, but it’s hotter at times. Venus is always 860 F. It doesn’t change. The air is thick; it’s like being half a mile down in the ocean. The pressure is intense. NASA observes Venus from orbit through a radar map.

Most of Venus consists of rolling planes, and it’s kind of like Iowa. There are no oceans. But there are volcanoes. Venus is sometimes called the sister of the earth, but it is incredibly different.

Which planet would you want to go to first, if the time ever comes to send humans to other planets? Let’s take a look at some more planets near the earth. Saturn is famous for its rings around it. Jupiter🪐 is famous for the clouds.

Juno is a mission that’s orbiting Jupiter by NASA. There is at least one mission to every single planet in the solar system. They are all robots; we haven’t sent a human yet. The storms on Jupiter go on for decades and hundreds of years. We suspect there was a storm even going on for millions!

That is a little background on our solar system in our galaxy, the Milky Way🌌. Marvel at all the Lord has done. There are about 125 billion galaxies in the observable universe that we know of so far. But I’m sure there’s more! I believe it’s infinite and that there are multiverses.

The Milky Way is just one galaxy. Scientists estimate that there may be tens of billions of solar systems in our galaxy, alone, perhaps as many as 100 billion. Think about that. Ponder on God’s grandeur! Never doubt his power and magnificence. He holds the galaxies and stars in place; he will hold you together also!

Here is the course offered by Liberty Science center in New Jersey as part of the Varsity Tutors StarCourse series:

About Zina

Zina Hermez authored the best selling book, Not Without God: A Story of Survival. She’s been featured in numerous articles, guest posts, podcasts, websites, newsletters, and magazines. Recently she was featured on ESPN’s ‘Solutions from the Huddle’ broadcast. Zina’s written hundreds of articles and has taught students from all over the world spanning many different backgrounds and cultures. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Suite T blog and Southern Writers magazine among other places. She writes on faith, science, and overcoming adversity. Her goal is to help others. You can connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, or Twitter.

Some things you may want to know🪐

Do you want to know how there is proof that a Big Bang or ‘Big event’ started everything? It’s called microwave background radiology. Look it up. The early universe did not look the way it does now. The Milky Way got its name because it looked like “spilled milk.” The sun is at the center, not the earth, as some thought. Our planet revolves around the sun. The moon revolves around the earth. At first, the galaxies were just starting to take their form for the first billion years. Now, we have a hundred billion of them that we know of so far! If the earth’s oceans were any closer to the sun, they would evaporate and melt. God’s work is perfect. He doesn’t make mistakes.

Sadly, the dinosaurs became extinct due to an asteroid over 65 million years ago. It has been documented that we may have gotten here within the last 5 million years. I’ve read we are just a few hundred thousand years old, but I believe we’re older than that. Some believe the universe may have always been there. I think it was, but God caused the “swelling” of the universe; He created it. And the expansion is happening up until now! Every one of our bodies is traceable to the Big Bang. We are basically, stardust. We are made from the same elements that stars are.

Newton’s Laws of Physics helped us figure out that things are “on Earth as they are in heaven” when he figured out the laws of motion. The force of gravity pulling apples from their orchards also directs the moon in its gravity around the earth. This Law of Physics is universal and contained throughout all the entire universe(s). Gravity is everything.

If there is “life” outside of this planet, they are abiding by the same laws of physics that we are; however, the aliens would not speak English or have the exact social expectations that we would. We could imagine them as having two hands. But we don’t know that they would have two hands for sure. A handshake may not necessarily mean a greeting to them, either. We would have to communicate with them through science and nothing more.

The speed of light is faster than anything in the universe. Nothing has ever gone as fast as the speed of light. We thought we would not do many things: like go to the moon or travel to Mars, for example. We have done more than we imagined, and there is still a lot more. I believe that God oversees all of the universe(s) and his magnificent creation! The more proof we find (through math and testing) that there could be multiverses, the more of a chance that other life could exist out there.

I never thought I would say this, but I believe they do. I think they know God too, even Jesus. They are harmless. Professor Brian Greene, the famous physicist and New York Times best-selling author, says, “If there is other life out there, they are at least 2-3 billion years ahead of us. We are a new planet.”

So imagine how much more advanced than us they are? He believes they exist. I do too. I had a dream as a teenager. Well, it was more like a vision that felt so real after I came out of it, I didn’t feel like I was sleeping at all. Anyway, I had a dream I was visited by two beautiful spaceships. They came in front of my bedroom window deep into the middle of the night. They were glowing, peaceful and breathtakingly beautiful. I will talk more about it more in a later post. Some of these notes are based off of ‘Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.’ It is Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s book.

About Zina

Zina Hermez authored the best-selling book “Not Without God: A Story of Survival.” Her stories have been featured in various guest articles, medical journals, magazines, newsletters, and over 300 of her own blog articles. As an educator for more than twenty years, she’s had the privilege of working with tens of thousands of students from different backgrounds and parts of the world. Her upcoming book, “Not Without God: Hope In the Storm” will be out later this year. Her writing endeavors earned her an invitation to speak at the Harvard Faculty Club’s “Business Expert Forum.” Zina’s goal is to help others overcome adversity, and she strives to do what she longs to–help other people. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Southern Writers magazine, and Suite T blog, among other places. Socializing with friends, taking business trips, listening to music, and meeting new people are among her hobbies. She was recently featured on Color Speak (a Grace and Truth Radio World! podcast). You can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, or Twitter.

God’s love is BIG enough to love only us!

The multi-verse theory is more than you can imagine. Picture a trillion trillion+ other universes. If there is a vast multiverse with all sorts of things going on, the likelihood of ‘other life’ out there becomes higher, says Sean Carroll, world-renowned physicist, and mathematician. I think they’re out there, and they know God. I mean God, the Holy Father, and Jesus.

Famous physicist Brian Greene says, “If there is alien life out there, they are at least 2-3 billion years ahead of us!” So, why would they care about little old us? Well, if other life does exist, it may be so far away and so much more advanced to even care about us or what we’re doing here.

The probability that the multiverse theory is true is based on data. If there are many different ‘regions of space,’ life can exist in these sub-places. What is the probability that this is true? It’s high. It’s based on math. Mathematical principles tend to drive physics.

String theory says that the Laws of Physics can be different from place to place. But we don’t know if that is true for sure. However, the multiverse is very sensible to consider. Because God exists, life exists. Without God, there would be no life on earth or potentially anywhere for that matter.

Atheists don’t see a God who can be a caring or loving being that has a place set up for us, the afterlife. Few scientists especially cannot accept this. I’ve heard that if there was a God, why would he hide himself? But God is not hiding. He is all around.

We can see him in nature. We can see him in each other. We can adhere to his voice. We can say our prayers. We can find his inspiration from reading the Bible. He talks to us through our intuition. If it is good, pure, right, and whole; it is from the Lord. When God is involved, there is no doubt or shadow of turning.

I’ve heard the argument that if there were a God, entropy still would be the same way it was (low) as in the ‘early universe.’ What people don’t understand, though, is that God is perfect. He doesn’t have to make sense.

I’ve watched a demonstration of a Hubble space telescope in Sean Carroll’s talk that discusses all the galaxies with each having a hundred billion stars, and he says that none of them are necessary for us to exist on earth. So, why are they there?

Sean tends to think that we can’t argue that God would put them there for us to exist. Because they can be there with or without us, that is true. We are very tiny compared to a vast universe, now we suspect, universes. So, why would God make us? He doesn’t need to make ALL that to make us.

Why wouldn’t God only make our home the Milky Way? God’s love for us in a multiverse with a trillion trillion-plus universes is BIG enough to love just ‘us.’

His love is BIG enough to choose us. It may be big enough to love ‘others,’ perhaps, out there. Regardless, God’s love is BIG enough to not only love just ‘us.’ It is big enough for God to love ONLY you, all by yourself!

About Zina

Zina Hermez authored the best-selling book, “Not Without God: A Story of Survival.” Her stories have been featured in various guest articles, medical journals, magazines, newsletters, and over 250 of her own blog articles. As an educator for more than twenty years, she’s had the privilege of working with thousands of students from different backgrounds and parts of the world. Her upcoming book, “Not Without God: Hope In the Storm” will be out later this year. Her writing endeavors earned her an invitation to speak at the Harvard Faculty Club’s “Business Expert Forum.” Zina’s goal is to help others overcome adversity, and she strives to do what she longs to–help other people. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Southern Writers magazine, and Suite T blog among other places. Socializing with friends, taking business trips, listening to music, and meeting new people are among her hobbies. She was recently featured on Color Speak (a Grace and Truth Radio World! podcast). You can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

God’s Throne Room✨⭐️🌟

Apparently, God’s throne room is a cluster of stars and even has a name. NASA has a picture of the cluster of stars that I’ve copied below here. This cluster holds our Milky Way Galaxy together and time slows down there. When you apply Einstein’s theory of relativity, a day in heaven is equivalent to a thousand years on earth. And that is how it is there, in heaven.

‘That’s because time varies based on velocity, energy, and mass (gravity). Let’s take mass (gravity). According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, as gravity increases, time slows down.’ Time moves more quickly for someone in a low gravity environment than it does for someone in a high gravity environment.

This may explain why time moves slower in God’s throne room, again. The Lord dwells where gravity is high relative to that on earth. We know that His throne is in a ‘star cluster’ containing many large stars, something which would create massive gravity and slow it down perhaps to where a day is ‘equivalent to a thousand years.’

Abraham 3:2 reads: “And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God: and there were many great ones which were near unto it.” The name of the one nearest to God’s throne is Kolob. Abraham tells us that Kolob “govern[s] all those [worlds] which belong to the same order as that upon which [Abraham] standest.”

Kolob could be at the center of our galaxy. The gravitational pull created by this cluster of huge stars (along with gravity from dark matter) holds our galaxy together and keeps the outer rims (where we are) from flying off into the intergalactic space.

The massive gravity in that cluster would slow down time, perhaps to the point where one day equaled a thousand years on earth. The Book of Abraham was canonized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1880.

About Zina

Zina Hermez authored the best-selling book, “Not Without God: A Story of Survival.” Her stories have been featured in various guest articles, medical journals, magazines, newsletters, and over 250 of her own blog articles. As an educator for more than twenty years, she’s had the privilege of working with thousands of students from different backgrounds and parts of the world. Her upcoming book, “Not Without God: Hope In the Storm” will be out later this year. Her writing endeavors earned her an invitation to speak at the Harvard Faculty Club’s “Business Expert Forum.” Zina’s goal is to help others overcome adversity, and she strives to do what she longs to–help other people. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Southern Writers magazine, and Suite T blog among other places. Socializing with friends, taking business trips, listening to music, and meeting new people are among her hobbies. You can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, or Twitter.