Milford chronicle., 1958-01-24
Sputniks, Outer Space
And God


THE touch of the eternal presence
The fringes of the sunsets and the
hlLS.
Each Sunday morning Christian
people in their respective places OF
worship join in that historic con-
fession OF faith called the Apostles
Greed. All too glibly they recite
the opening sentence, II believe in
God the Father, almighty Maker of
heaven and searth," seldom pausing
a mental moment to weigh the in
finity of meaning that lies in those
words. 1t should not be so; these
words are worthy of some sober
thinking and especially so in the
light of our time and the success
sion of events that solicit our at
tentiOn today.
In the matter of time the COM
ing of another new year leads us
20 note again that what we call a
year is simply the length of time
taken by the earth to make a COM
plete revolution around the sun.
The path it follows is called its
orbit, and in this orbit the earth
travels at the rate, of about sixty
eight thousand miles per hour,
which one scientist has computed
% be fifty times the speed of can
ION ball.
IN the study of current events ii
S a narrow bridge for US to go in
our thinking from the earth orbit
ing around the sun to a consider
.tion of the related achievements
Of Russia in dispatching their Sput-
nikS into outer space. And it is
only short step farther to en-
gage in the conjecture as to how
soon scientists will find it possible
20 rocket one of their numbers into
space and return him safely to the
earth to report his observations to
a deeply interested world.
Now, in a moment of fancy, let
us imagine that such an observer
would be you and that some magi-
cally powered Sputnik had carried
you to an observation point far off
n space from which you could
watch the earth speeding by. What
/ spectacle that would be- At first
you might find it difficult to dis
.inguish the earth from surround
ng stars; then you would see it
growing larger and larger. Soon
It would look as large as the moon,
not long after it would cover half
Of the sky, close enough for, you to
zee the blue of the ocean, the green
Of forests and plains, the yellow
Of the desert and the white of snow
clad hills-aIl flying by you with
incredible speed. Then, before you
could recover from your surprise,
everything would move away again.
You would see only a gigantic sill
very ball in the sky, fast dimin-
ishing in size and soon looking
again like a little star in the far
depths of infinite space. If such
could be your experience how
much more it would mean for you
when in the Greed you affirm your
faith in the almighty Maker of
heaven and earth.
To realize more fully the vast
ness of the universe that has come
from the creative hand of GOD
the Father, almighty" | invite your
attention to some astounding facts
astronomers disclose to us. Clyde
Fisher, curator of the American
Museum of Natural History, stag
gers one with the magnitude of
some of the heavenly bodies. He
states, for example, that star call
ed Betelgeuse has a diameter of
270 million miles, which is three
times the distance from our earth
to the sun. Yet Betelgeuse is
dwarfed by Alpha Hercules, a star
so Enthusiastically large that if it
occupied our suns position it would
engulf the earth and extend out
beyond the orbit of Mars. The star
seems small to us because it is so
many, many millions miles away.
DIR. Fisher also states that about
$500 stars are visible to the naked
eye, 10000 may be seen with a
good pair of field glasses, while the
telescope of Mt Wilson has count
ed more than fifteen hundred mil
lion. Yet there is no crowding