Daytime and Nighttime of the Universe
One Japanese astronaut who first got into the International Space Station was impressed with his discovery that the universe was dark or black, in deed, while the blue earth was shining.
A century or more ago, scientists wondered why the night sky was dark while it was thought that there were almost infinite starts in the space.
As long as the number of starts are infinite, they thought, the sky or space in night should have been more brighter that it looked actually. Actually the stars we can see in the night sky are almost all in our Milky Way Galaxy where the number of fixed stars, such as our Sun, is 100 to 300 billion, while we can see, with our eyes without telescopes, only one outer galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy, and a few semi-galaxies such as Magellanic Clouds and Large Magellanic Cloud accompanying our Milky Way Galaxy; yet it is supposed that two trillion or more galaxies are in the whole space. (So, the number of suns or fixed stars in the whole universe is almost 2 x 10^11 multiplied by 2 x 10^12, namely 4 x 10^23 or 10 to the 23rd power.)
As the earth is round, we can see theoretically 50 to 150 billion stars. However we can actually see only 3,000 stars, since our eyes can only get glimpse of stars of the first magnitude (apparent magnitude ) or more to the sixth magnitude. For example, the number of stars of the first magnitude or brighter is only 21.
The brightest fixed star (next to our Sun) in the night sky is Sirius whose apparent magnitude is minus 1.46. The distance of Sirius from the earth is 8.6 light-years. The nearest fixed star to the earth is Proxima Centauri whose apparent magnitude is about the 11th and whose distance from the earth is 4.2 light-years.
Whereas there are about 200 billion fixed stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, the diameter of the Galaxy is about 100,000 light-years, so that the distance between two solar systems or fixed stars can be measured and expressed effectively only by the unit of light-year, namely the distance light travels in one year (for example, the distance between the earth and the Sun is 8 light-minutes).
So, in this magnitude of the space, even within our Galaxy, the fixed stars are placed or arranged too sporadically, or the number, 200 billion, is too small to make the space brighter than we are actually seeing. Therefor, we can see only 3,000 stars in night, which are too few to make the whole sky bright like in the daytime.
If 200 billion sulphur matches are stuck and lighted on the moon in night in the period of new moon or when the moon is not irradiated by the Sun, can we see bright light? For example, it is said that a lit cigarette can be seen five miles away or about eight kilometers away. But the moon is about 380,000 km or about 50,000 times distant. As brightness decreases inversely with the square of distance, it needs 50,000 x 50,000 (2.5 billion) cigarettes to be seen as one lit cigarette at distance of five miles away or about eight kilometers. So, as we don't see it so bright if we see 100 cigarettes at distance of five miles away or about eight kilometers at night, the surface of the moon with 250 billion lit cigarettes cannot look so bright (in the case that this analogy is appropriate). The Milky Way Galaxy looks so vast for fixed stars.
And it takes about 250 million years for the Sun or our solar system rotates once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. When the earth was at the same position in the Galaxy as it is today, dinosaurs were evolving toward their total extension 65 million years ago.
So, for the ruler of this Milky Way Galaxy, 250 million years is equivalent to one year of the mankind.
And for the God, these 13.8 billion years, the life period of the universe to date, may be just a half day for the mankind. Or, the "daytime in the whole universe" when the whole space was so bright like in the daytime on the earth of today, even if observed from the International Space Station, if any, might have gone and now it is in the "nighttime" in the whole universe.
So, the universe is dark today even if observed by the Japanese astronaut from ISS. We must be in the night for the God, the Creator of the Universe.
But when the next day will start for the God, if He is within the universe?
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Luk 2:20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
Luk 2:21 And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
