In the Headlines

Supernova Destroys "Pillars of Creation” January 10, 2007

—In a thousand years, astronomers predict, people on Earth will see the iconic "Pillars of Creation" get toppled by a supernova, the explosive death of a giant star.
The pillars are dense clouds of gas in the Eagle Nebula, a star nursery in the constellation Serpens, near Sagittarius. They were made famous by a dramatic 1995 Hubble Space Telescope image (inset).

The tricky part is that the forecast is based on evidence that the pillars were demolished by the supernova's shockwave about 6,000 years ago.

"[They] have been destroyed. I use the past tense because the nebula is 7,000 light-years away," said Nicholas Flagey, a French doctoral student working for NASA. In other words, light from the nebula has taken 7,000 years to reach Earth, and everything we see is that much out of date.

This recent infrared image of the Eagle Nebula shows a bubble of hot, rapidly expanding material directly behind the pillars, Flagey reported on January 8 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Washington.
www.nationalgeographics.com

Do you know what amazes me the most about this headline? Well it’s that God is bigger than our universe and the next. He is bigger than a nebula 7,000 light-years away. He is the creator, bigger than all he universes, and yet he cares so deeply for every hair on your head, and every beat of your heart.
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” –Mark 6:28-30