Whether you believe in God or not, you have to accept that some uncreated entity, outside our physical universe, resulted in the origin of our universe over 13 billion years ago. Call it God, the multiverse, or whatever, it is a major unsolved scientific mystery.
NASA's Nancy Roman Space Telescope is expected to dramatically expand the search for planets beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets. Scientists estimate the mission could uncover about 100,000 previously unknown worlds, a remarkable increase compared to the nearly 6,300 exoplanets discovered so far through NASA missions and other observatories.
NASA's Kepler mission transformed exoplanet science by monitoring roughly 100,000 stars and demonstrating that planets are extraordinarily common throughout the Milky Way. NASA's now-retired Kepler mission's survey of 100,000 stars revolutionized the field of exoplanets over a decade ago, and taught us that planets are even more common than stars in our galaxy.
During Medieval times Christian theologians accepted the Ptolemaic earth centered Greek view of the universe as an absolute universal truth. Some Christians still think that humans must be at the literal center of God's creation.
Even in America today, many Christians avoid learning about new scientific discoveries. According to a study "Religious Understandings of Science", among members of non-Christian religions; 42 percent of Jews, and 52 percent of Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus (taken as a group) are twice as interested in new scientific discoveries compared to only 22 percent of Protestant evangelicals.
I do not know why they believe that the rarity of life in our universe proves that God must have created life only on this planet. Perhaps they believed that if intelligent life were found to exist on other planets; it would diminish the miracle of God's creation of Human Beings. For me the opposite is true.
Scientists have now uncovered new types of organic chemistries in icy geysers spouting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, bolstering the likelihood that this ocean world may have compounds and conditions suitable for life. The scientists found molecules in fresh grains, confirming they came from the moon's underground sea, as well as new chemical compounds.
The Qur'an and the Hebrew Bible teach that the Living God created the whole universe to be conducive to the universal evolution of life. The Qur'an says, "We have not sent you but as a blessing for all the worlds." (
Al-Anbiya 107) Many commentators say this refers to the 18.000 inhabited worlds created by Allah. Our world is one of them. (Mir'at-e-Kainat, vol.1, p.77).
The Hebrew Bible says in the Zabur of Prophet David, King of Israel; " Your kingdom is a kingdom of all the worlds; and Your dominion is for all generations." (Psalms 145:13) And the Zohar, the central book of Jewish mysticism, says there are 12.000 inhabited worlds. (2:196a)
I am a Reform Rabbi who first became interested in Islam 66 years ago, when I studied it at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I have continued my study of Islam off and on since that time. I now consider myself to be a Reform Rabbi and an Islamic Hebrew. Actually I am an Islamic Hebrew i.e. a faithful Jew submitting to the will of God, because I am a Reform Rabbi.
As a Rabbi I am faithful to the covenant that God made with Prophet Abraham the first Hebrew (Genesis 14:13), to become a Muslim, and I submit to the commandments that God made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. Thus, I see scientific things from the perspective of both the Qur'an and the Torah.
Science provides many clues to an astrochemical mystery: Where does carbon, the building block of life, come from and go to in the universe? Researchers have detected pyrene, a type of large carbon-containing molecule known as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon in the Taurus molecular cloud which is close to Earth at 430 light years away.
There are about 100-200 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy and most of them have multiple planets. So scientists believe that there must be millions of earth like planets in our galaxy. Life developed on Planet Earth within the first billions years, so life is not hard to develop and will be plentiful. But human intelligent life only developed in the last 1/100 of 1% of life on Planet Earth, so intelligent life is rare and widely spread out in space.
Planets similar to Planet Earth within 50 light years of us and in the habitable zone should be well over 100.
The first planets beyond our solar system were discovered over three decades ago. Since then, over 6,300 exoplanets have been confirmed in our galaxy and astronomers have detected another 5,000 planetary candidates that need a second sighting to be confirmed.
Telescopes can now analyze the atmospheres of planets orbiting distant stars, looking for chemicals that on Earth can be produced only by living organisms. The first flicker of such a discovery has come. The possible sign of a gas that, on Earth, is produced by simple marine organisms was detected in the atmosphere of a planet named K2-18b, which is 120 light years away.
And a new analysis shows that there are probably many more Earth-like exoplanets with liquid water than had been thought, significantly increasing the chance of finding life. The work finds that even where the conditions are not ideal for liquid water to exist at the surface of a planet, many stars will have geological conditions suitable for liquid water under the planet's surface. There are more than 6,300 confirmed exoplanets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.
And water, along with carbon monoxide, also has been detected in the most massive galaxy in the early universe which is located nearly 12.88 billion light years from Earth. Detection of these two molecules in abundance suggests that the molecular universe was going strong shortly after the elements were forged in very early stars.
Both the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an teach that the Living God created the whole universe to be conducive to the universal evolution of life. Recent astrophysical studies discover ever more evidence of the truth of this Biblical and Qur'anic view.
Space may be vast, but it isn't lonely. New research indicates the Milky Way is teeming with billions of planets like ours, circling stars just like our sun. Astronomers calculate that in our galaxy alone there are at least 8-9 billion stars (22%) like our sun with Earth-sized planets that are 'not too hot or not too cold' for life to develop.
The Zabur of David says, "Your kingdom is a kingdom of all worlds; and Your dominion is for all generations." (Zabur-Psalms 145:13); and the Qur'an says, "We have not sent you but as a blessing for all the worlds." (Al-Anbiya 107). Muslim commentators say this refers to the 18.000 inhabitable worlds created by Allah. Our world is but one of them. (Mir'at-e-Kainat, vol.1, p.77) And the Zohar, the central book of Jewish mysticism, says there are more than 12.000 inhabitable worlds. (Zohar 2:196a)
It's been only three decades since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet around a star. Since then, scientists have learned that most stars have planets orbiting them, and that Earth-size planets are relatively common in close-in orbits that are too hot for life. But even if only one in a thousand earth size planets are in the habitable zone just right for life to develop; there must be millions of them.
All of the potentially habitable planets found in the team's survey are around K stars, which are cooler and slightly smaller than the sun. But the researchers' analysis shows that the result for K stars can be extrapolated to G stars like our sun. "If the stars in the Kepler field are representative of stars in the solar neighborhood, ... then the nearest (Earth-size) planet is expected to orbit a star that is less than 12 light-years from Earth" the researchers wrote in their paper.
Each new discovery in astronomy yields new evidence of God's wisdom and power. As the Qur'an says, "Verily in the heavens and on the earth are signs for those who believe."
(45:3) And prophet David says, "The heavens declare the glory of God. The universe proclaims God's handiwork." (Zabur-Psalms 19:2)
Perhaps this why Jews and Muslims are so open to learning about new scientific discoveries. During Medieval times Christian theologians accepted the Ptolemaic earth centered Greek view of the universe as an absolute universal truth. The Catholic Inquisition even punished those who dared to voice other ideas. Some Christians still think that human beings must be at the literal center of God's creation.
Thus, even in America today, many Christians avoid learning about new scientific discoveries. According to a study "Religious Understandings of Science", among members of non-Christian religions; 42 percent of Jews, and 52 percent of Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus (taken as a group) are twice as interested in new scientific discoveries compared to only 22 percent of Protestant evangelicals.
And according to a Gallup survey on human origins, 40% of Americans said they believe that God created humans in their present form. No evolution for them, because they think evolution is Godless.
But as Albert Einstein put it: "What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in asking it? I answer, people who regard their own life, and that of their fellow creatures, as meaningless, are not merely unfortunate, but almost disqualified for life." (The World as I See It, Sacramento, Ca. Citadel Press, 1993 p.5)
Beauty Belongs to Allah
