When my granddaughter was two or three years old she once observed the night sky at our home in rural Illinois. Her family lived in an urban area near Chicago. When she first observed our dark skies, she inquired, “Grandpa, are those stars?” In our modern day it is sometimes difficult to observe the wonders of the sky by looking overhead at night. A minority of our population lives in rural areas and might be able to perceive the full panoply of visible stars at night. However, a majority of our urban residents have seldom been able to view the wonder of the nighttime heavens owing to the problem of “light pollution.” Illumination from street lights or even from outdoor house lights may be a benefit for security and safety issues in the suburbs, but a detriment to folks interested in astronomical wonders.
Treasured memories from my science teaching experience were “star watches” we offered to students. These observational sessions took place several hours after the sun had set. We made sure the students arrived for the event after astronomical twilight arrived—the darkest time of the day. Observations of the night sky were made when the sky was darkest in order that stars and planets appeared at their brightest.
After our naked eye observations and a few telescopic views of the night sky, our students were sent home and instructed to return to the school’s soccer field, our observational venue, in total darkness after a few hours of sleep. While students slept the earth continued to rotate. The stars they observed the following morning had apparently moved to a different position in the sky. Thoughtful students were startled by what happened in the sky overnight. Each star moved in a circular path around Polaris, also called the North Star. The circular star paths traced out a sort of mirror image of Earth’s rotation. We hoped our public school students would contemplate the beauty of creation as manifest in the sky.
The Bible refers to human emotions of worship when we observe the glory of creation in the skies above us. Many Old Testament Scripture writers were observers of the sky. Psalm 8:3-4 exults, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of him?” Or Isaiah 40:26: “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name.” Old Testament observers were some of the earliest naked eye astronomers as well as believers in a divine Intelligent Designer. Telescopic astronomy would not be instituted for another two thousand years. For many years scientists had speculated that other planets orbited around distant stars.
In the early 17th century, the first primitive telescopes were developed. Since then telescope technology has advanced significantly, but we still appreciate the naked eye astronomy of divinely inspired scripture authors. Modern cosmology focuses on the entire universe in its totality. We close with a discussion of two of the most famous modern telescopes of hundreds of instruments produced since World War II.
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched on April 4, 1990. The HST was launched into low earth orbit about 360 miles above Earth’s surface. It was a public relations boon for people interested in astronomy. One of its finest achievements came in 1995—the discovery of the first proven exoplanet—a planet orbiting a star similar to our sun. The telescope revealed startling images of the distant universe. Some pictures revealed what became known as the “pillars of creation,” attractive plumes of hydrogen gas and dust enhanced by color filters. Objects in deep space such as galaxies are clearly visible. Proof of the expanding, accelerating universe is evident. Its achievements, however spectacular, were overshadowed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The recent JWST was launched December 25, 2021. Its cost was $9.7 billion and took 25 years to complete with some assistance from international agencies. It does not replace the HST. Rather, it exponentially amplifies the mission of the Hubble telescope. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross explains: “The JWST has already provided evidence of the structure and history of the early universe that carries big bang implications.
“The JWST is as tall as a 3-story building and as long as a tennis court. The diameter of its main mirror is 6.5 meters (21 feet). The JWST’s main mirror has more than seven times the light collecting area as the HST…..Unlike the HST the JWST is designed to detect the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Hence, it is ideally suited to explore…that part of the universe that reveals the first few billion years of cosmic history.”
The huge telescope was not placed in orbit around our Earth. It was launched to remain almost one million miles from the Earth at what is known as the L2 Lagrange point. At this point several natural forces balance each other and very little energy is needed to keep the huge telescope in an ideal location. The L2 Lagrange point is a region of space which revolves around the sun in one year in tandem with Planet Earth. At this location the JWST is shielded from extremely hot or cold temperatures which would disable the telescope.
There are a number of YouTube videos available dealing with the astonishing capabilities of the JWST. In our opinion the building and successful launch of this telescope may have been a divine miracle enabled by the Creator of All Things to instruct humanity concerning the divine creative act described in Genesis 1:1. God has enabled scientists to invent telescopic means of looking back into the distant past to view creation events close to the “Beginning of Time.”
