Science Discovers Eternal Wisdom

Author(s): Amarendravijay, J D Lodaya, Bhuvanchandra
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Academy

Page 73

Our galaxy was thought to be the entire universe by astronomers at large, until discoveries in 1920. Today, we know the milky way galaxy is only one of the billions of galaxies. In whatever direction we look deep into outer space, we can detect clusters of galaxies.
Let us first see how the huge proportions of the cosmos as envisaged in the scriptures match with the expanse of the universe envisaged by modern astronomy that explores it with telescope, spectroscope, radio-telescope and other sophisticated equipment.
Normally on a clear night, we can see about three thousand stars with naked eye, but the astronomers inform us that this figure runs into infinity because in the area of sky as large as that covered by moon when seen by naked eye, there could be as many as six hundred galaxies packed in the outer space; and remember, there is not a single corner of the cosmos untenanted by galaxies.
The wonders of the milky way :
Ancient scriptures had devised much bigger units of time and space to describe astronomical distances, where day-to-day measurements would fall inconveniently short. Similarly, science too has adopted different units of measurement to show interstellar distances which cannot be put in conventional units like miles or kilometers. One such unit is light year. A light year denotes the distance covered in one year's time by light which travels at the speed of one hundred eighty-six thousand miles or roughly three hundred thousand kilometers per second. Light from the moon takes about one and a quarter seconds to reach the earth - a distance of about two hundred twenty-five thousand miles or 3,84,000 kms.; light from the sun takes about eight minutes to reach the earth - a distance of ninety-three million miles or
47