Witnessing The Universe

AN ASTRONOMER AT M.I.T., using his time with the new Web space telescope wisely, was fortunate enough to actually witness a Jupiter sized planet crash into the star it was orbiting, a collision which caussed quite a reaction from the solar mass itself, evidently causig it to throw up a large flare, sort of a "burp". All this happened many lightyears from the Earth, and would have been unknown to us in our inability to see it, until quite recently, the advent of the Webb telescope, prominently perched in orbit a million miles from the Earth and sun, and working beautifully, so far. The Webb telescope is totally opening up the univesse to our observation like nothing ever before has. The sights and views of the uiverse, deep space that we are getting from both the Hubble and the Webb telscopes are icredible, amazing, and beautiful, as anyone can see by logging on to the website "Astronony Picture of the Day". Actually witnessing the impact of a plaent the size of Jupiter with its parent star is not only incredibly good luck, it is also a profund step forward in our understanding of the unvierse, through the venerable science of astronomy. Astronomy was invented by ancient, primitive people, and was a prominent culture in all ancient civilizations. Our names for many stars and constellations, as well as our numbering system, come from ancient Arabian culture, for example. The Webb space telescope is merely our latest in a long line of historical scientific achievements which should make us all proud, as memebers of an intelligent, inquisitive, creative species of beings. Our world today is the result of science, more than anything else. In one of his many compelling books, Carl Sagan said that the biblical, Christian universe left him feeling dissatisfied, with a uninverse much too small, and simple. Well, Dr. Sagan can rest in peace knowing that the real universe, the one revealed by science rather than religion, is astoundingly huge, diverse, unpredictable, exciting, ever changing, and amazing generally. That is one reason why traditional, ancient religions, such as all the world's major religions are, in a sense, obsolete. They present an inferior, inaccurate, description of the universe, of reality. To simply admire nature, and venerate its creator through our even increasing understanding of it which we gain through scientific exploration seems much more appropriate than inventing anthropomorphic gods who, as they say, move in mysterious ways. Indeed, seemingly capricious, pernicious ways. Religion perpetuates ingorance, science replaces ingorance with knowledge, while preserving the wonderful sense of wonder and awe we feel at every level of comprehension. The more we learn about creation through science, the more reason we have to feel this admiration and veneration.