The vastness of Allah’s creation
Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky. It is more than 1000 light years away.
The nearest star to us is approx 4 light years away.
I heard a story once, which I am paraphrasing. I don’t know of it’s authenticity but it is as follows:
Once Musa(AS) spoke to Allah(swt) and said to Allah, that “Oh Allah, you created all this(i.e, the Earth, its oceans, its land, the animals and every living thing, the heavens, the stars, the moon etc…) What was the purpose of all this creation?”
So Allah(swt) the Lord of the worlds, in order to demonstrate the vastness of His creation replied as follows:
Allah(swt) said “O Musa, I have got one Beast. And this Beast can consume the whole of this (i.e the whole universe) as one morsel of food. And not only have I got this one beast, but I have got many of these beasts, in a place of which only I know”
SUBHANALLAH!!!! Glorified be Allah! The creator of everything
And what is our significance before all this, yet it is mentioned that when a person is in prostration, that person is closest to Allah, as he is prostrating at the feet of Allah, the Most Merciful.
Calculation of a light year
A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers).
Let’s say that a star is 1 million light years away. The light from that star has traveled at the speed of light to reach us. Therefore, it has taken the star’s light 1 million years to get here, and the light we are seeing was created 1 million years ago. So the star we are seeing is really how the star looked a million years ago, not how it looks today.
In the same way, our sun is 8 or so light minutes away. If the sun were to suddenly explode right now, we wouldn’t know about it for eight minutes because that is how long it would take for the light of the explosion to get here.
This really does give a good sense of scale. It actually makes me feel quite small and insignificant.. But in a weird way also makes me feel quite safe.