© 2011 Santiago Rodríguez
© 2011 Urantia Association of Spain
| The unification of the personality (second part) | Luz y Vida — No. 26 — September 2011 — Index | UAI Leadership Symposium and News |
I would like to inaugurate this section, in which I will be placing scientific, sociological or other reviews of any kind, and where we will try to locate advances in knowledge that somehow reflect the direction indicated by UB himself.
It is not my intention that the credibility of the contents expressed in the UB are subject to the fact that the advancement of knowledge, of human knowledge, reveals ideas that are consistent with the ideas of a scientific nature that dot those contents. I refer in this regard to the very statement of the limitations of revelation (UB 101:4.2 “The limitations of revelation, Doc. 101, «The true nature of religion”).
Nor does it make sense, and therefore I do not intend to, to speculate on specific data that may be considerably altered over time; I will only outline ideas or generalities of various facets of knowledge that in one way or another fit into the ideas and philosophy shown in the contents of the UB.
¶ There are extrasolar planets
The UB is littered with allusions to planets orbiting other stars. They are so abundant that it easily seems absolutely trivial and logical to us to assume that the other stars we observe in the firmament have planets orbiting around them.
However, although since the 19th century scientists have postulated the existence of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun (so this revelation in no way contravenes the limits imposed on unearned knowledge), it has not been until recently time that our scientists have been able to corroborate something that was suspected a hundred years ago.
In the year 1990, in the constellation of Virgo and approximately 980 light years from Earth, a star (PSR B1257+12) with the characteristics of a pulsar was located. It is a star in an advanced stage of its life, which has led it to become a neutron star with a rotation period of 6.22 milliseconds. From the study of this star, in 1992 the existence of at least two planets that orbit it was confirmed in principle. One of them with 2 times the mass of the Earth and with a translation period around its star (the pulsar) of 25 days, and the other with a mass of more than 4 times the mass of the Earth and with an orbital period of 66 days.
Currently, a third planet has been found around this pulsar, with almost 4 times the mass of Earth and an orbital period of 98 days.
In 1995 “51 Pegasi b”, a Jupiter-like planet (hot gas giants), was discovered in a relatively close star, about 48 light-years from us. It is a star that can be seen with binoculars and is very similar in size, mass and temperature to our Sun.
Recently, around a red dwarf named Gliese 581 in the constellation of Libra and at 20.3 a.1., “Gliese 581 g” was discovered in September 2010, and it is configured as the planet most similar to Earth and the best exoplanet candidate with the potential to support life found to date.
All this information is happening with alternating news that deny and confirm it; It is normal in a world where advertising pays you.
The Kepler telescope was launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral on March 7, 2009 with the specific goal of locating planets similar to our Earth. Equipped with a modest mirror barely one meter in diameter, but with 42 digital cameras of about two megapixels, the telescope continuously observes a region (about one hundred square degrees) in the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra. In its first year of searching, it has already found more than 1,200 planet candidates with at least 54 planets similar to Earth (in size, and in distance from their star, such that they can support life).
The scientists responsible for this project have extrapolated this data, and the result is “astonishing”: they would lead us to conclude that in the Milky Way we would have 50,000 million planets, of which some 500 million would be able to have liquid water on them. , and therefore would be habitable with a biology similar to the one we know today.
There is no doubt that the international scientific community is greatly interested in the study of planets outside our solar system, and the results are conclusive. What until recently was a revelation, and although many believed that it could not be otherwise, now the study by the researchers is scientifically proving what the revelation poured into the UB had already told us.
This is the inevitable first step in the search for extraterrestrial life. We have to find suitable places for it, and we see that in the universe we are exploring there are many places capable of hosting it.
¶ References
- Light and Life Magazine (all old issues): https://aue.urantia-association.org/numeros-antiguos-del-lyv/
| The unification of the personality (second part) | Luz y Vida — No. 26 — September 2011 — Index | UAI Leadership Symposium and News |