{"id":3972,"date":"2024-09-04T07:14:25","date_gmt":"2024-09-04T11:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3972"},"modified":"2024-09-04T07:15:50","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T11:15:50","slug":"a-planetary-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/04\/a-planetary-parade\/","title":{"rendered":"A Planetary Parade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>

If you\u2019re willing to walk outside early in the morning during the next two weeks, you\u2019ll be treated to an other-worldly show.

Four of the five planets that are visible to the naked eye will be simultaneously on display about 30 minutes before sunrise.

Keep this phrase in mind: My Motorcycle Just Stalled<\/em>. Those letters correspond to the order of the planets as they are currently aligned from the eastern horizon to the west: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Venus, which is typically the brightest of the visible planets, currently appears in the night sky a few minutes after sunset. Uranus and Neptune are also in the morning parade of planets, but as noted in the image above, they can\u2019t be seen without a telescope.

Ancient observers named those meandering lights in the sky (\u201cplanet\u201d comes from the Greek verb planao<\/em>, which means \u201cto wander\u201d) for gods and goddesses. It\u2019s easy to see how those names became associated with the seven days of the week:

Sunday<\/em>: The first day honors the brightest light.
Monday<\/em>: Since this is the moon\u2019s day, does that mean only lunatics go to work on Monday morning?
Tuesday: <\/em>The French Mardi Gras <\/em>(\u201cfat Tuesday\u201d) reminds us that this day historically honors Mars.
Wednesday: <\/em>The Spanish miercoles <\/em>betrays its connection to the planet Mercury.
Thursday: <\/em>This derives from the Norse \u201cThor\u2019s Day,\u201d which honors both Jupiter and hunky actor Chris Hemsworth.
Friday: <\/em>The French vendredi <\/em>is the clue that Venus is honored as the door to the weekend.
Saturday: <\/em>It\u2019s impossible to miss the semantic connection to the planet Saturn.

Hollywood lends the impression that visiting other planets isn\u2019t much more challenging than visiting West Virginia.

The characters in Star Trek, Star Wars, <\/em>and dozens of other sci-fi space operas drop in and out of various planetary environments, featuring ice, sand, mountains, and lush vegetation \u2013 usually with air that is delightfully breathable. 

If the planets in our own solar system are typical, however, a visit to another world is more likely to feel like a waking nightmare.

Mercury, which does not rotate, is permanently half-baked and half-frozen. Jupiter and Saturn are brutally cold, with gravitational forces that would flatten us to the surface \u2013 a surface of frozen methane gas that has the consistency of a Slushy. In fact, if you scooped up a handful of Saturn and put it into your bathtub, it would float.

Venus can best be described as the fulfillment of medieval descriptions of hell. Atmospheric pressure is 92 times that found at the earth\u2019s surface. Temperatures exceed 450 degrees Fahrenheit, and a \u201crain\u201d of sulfuric acid falls constantly. Probes that have landed on Venus stop working within 30 minutes. 

It takes Venus 243 \u201cEarth days\u201d just to rotate once, while gigantic Jupiter spins wildly on its axis once every nine hours.

Matt Damon may have made things work for a while on Mars, but the Red Planet lacks the liquid water, soil, sufficient sunlight, and natural resources normally associated with human life.

Which brings us to our own world \u2013 the so-called Goldilocks Planet. It\u2019s not too hot and not too cold, but is just right \u2013 the only place in the entire universe that we currently know is capable of sustaining life of any kind.

We orbit just the right kind of star, at just the right distance, in just the right part of just the right kind of galaxy. Our cycles of water, nitrogen, calcium, sodium, and multitudes of other components are exquisitely balanced. We have tectonic plates that recycle the earth\u2019s ingredients, and a just-right moon that refreshes our oceans by means of twice-daily tides so they don\u2019t become giant stagnant ponds.

The earth is a rare place, indeed \u2013 something that has not been lost on scientists.

How are we to account for this remarkable fine-tuning? 

Maybe it\u2019s inevitable. Toward the end of the 20th<\/sup> century some scientists were positing the existence of as many as 10 trillion advanced civilizations \u201cout there.\u201d The more we learn about the hazards of gamma rays and radiation in our turbulent universe, however, this position has fallen precipitously out of favor. Conditions that are favorable for life appear to be exceedingly rare.

Maybe it\u2019s a fluke. \u201cWe were just incredibly lucky. Somebody had to win the big lottery, and we were it,\u201d says geologist Peter Ward.

Or maybe our just-right planet was specially crafted so that certain creatures, made in the Creator\u2019s image, would have the privilege of experiencing its beauty and boundless variety of life.

If you\u2019re able to stand outdoors before sunrise sometime during the next two weeks, you\u2019ll have a chance to experience the same sense of wonder that gripped King David:

Lord, our Lord,<\/em>
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!<\/em>
You have set your glory<\/em>
    in the heavens\u2026<\/em>
When I consider your heavens,<\/em>
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
what is humanity that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?<\/em>
(Psalm 8:1-2, 4-5)

David was conscious of the fact that gazing at the stars and planets truly puts us in our place.

And what is that place?

It\u2019s to look upward and outward toward the immensity of God\u2019s creation and say, \u201cWow.\u201d 
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here If you\u2019re willing to walk outside early in the morning during the next two weeks, you\u2019ll be treated to an other-worldly show. Four of the five planets that are visible to the naked eye will be simultaneously on display about 30 minutes before sunrise. Keep this phrase in mind: My Motorcycle Just… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[741,800],"class_list":["post-3972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fine-tuning","tag-planets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3972"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3975,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972\/revisions\/3975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}