How big is the Universe?

[Cordoba]

Revealing The Undiscovered - Van Den Bergh 149/50 and Lynds Dark Nebula 1235 by Tom Davis



Over the past few weeks we've taken a look at some pretty incredible regions of space through astrophotography - Wolf Rayet stars, Thackeray's Globules, tidal interactions and even giant dust clouds bursting with star birth. This time, let's take a look at something so obscure that it might even be the first time that it's been photographed…

Revealing The Undiscovered - Van Den Bergh 149/50 and Lynds Dark Nebula 1235 by Tom Davis | Universe Today

 

[kaat]

Hi Cordoba & All,

A Muslim friend once told me that Islam/the Koran embraces a lot more of current scientific theory (on a variety of topics) than does Christianity/the Bible. I can't recall the specifics, but views on evolution were being discussed.

Do you find this to be true? Honestly, my friend might have been finding words to interest me as a potential convert to Islam.

 

[zenzero]

Friends,
Existence is only limited by what the mind figures or sees. If one has an ever expanding mind to one limitless, boundriless, timeless then it is exactly so.
Watch that MIND first.
Love & rgds

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Friends,
Existence is only limited by what the mind figures or sees. If one has an ever expanding mind to one limitless, boundriless, timeless then it is exactly so.
Watch that MIND first.
Love & rgds

Well said zenzero!

Without meaning to distract,...it really is a matter for each disciple to find out 'what' and 'who' they really are.

"The Kingdom of God is within" is a universal principle.

The idea that real truth can be obtained through reading and learning from external expert sources is an error.

 

[Cordoba]

Hi Cordoba & All,

A Muslim friend once told me that Islam/the Koran embraces a lot more of current scientific theory (on a variety of topics) than does Christianity/the Bible. I can't recall the specifics, but views on evolution were being discussed.

Do you find this to be true?

Hi Kaat

The Qur'an includes a number of scientific hints.

A number of years ago, a French scientist, Maurice Baucaille, wrote a book titled "The Bible, The Qur'an and Science"

(The Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light of Modern Science)

This is the table of contents, if of interest:

http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Books/MB_BQS/default.htm

Concerning the topic of this thread, it includes a number of quotations on Astronomy in The Qur'an and the Creation of the Heavens and Earth

 

[zenzero]

Friend ben d,

The idea that real truth can be obtained through reading and learning from external expert sources is an error.

No, nothing in the universe is in error as what appears an error is but a balancing factor.
Reading helps in understanding and understanding leads to realisation.
This life personally have no guru as take existence as the supreme guru but most inputs one gets from reading for that understanding that is what RF too is providing BUT when one uses this understanding to live life according to that understanding only then does the full realisation takes place only then are we wiser only then are we enlightened.
Reading does not mean one has to be literate, it can be gained by listening also. DAys of yore when humans had not developed languages then too they had the understanding by observating nature and so we find in yoga / tai chi / kungfu that animals have been studied in depth. Please understand that nature is always in tune i.e. in meditation except humans who have to cut out the mind to reach that state and only in that state of meditation or the state when mind is bereft of thoughts do es man comes in tune or is one with nature or existence or god.
Love & rgds

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Friend ben d,
No, nothing in the universe is in error as what appears an error is but a balancing factor.
Reading helps in understanding and understanding leads to realisation.
This life personally have no guru as take existence as the supreme guru but most inputs one gets from reading for that understanding that is what RF too is providing BUT when one uses this understanding to live life according to that understanding only then does the full realisation takes place only then are we wiser only then are we enlightened.
Reading does not mean one has to be literate, it can be gained by listening also. DAys of yore when humans had not developed languages then too they had the understanding by observating nature and so we find in yoga / tai chi / kungfu that animals have been studied in depth. Please understand that nature is always in tune i.e. in meditation except humans who have to cut out the mind to reach that state and only in that state of meditation or the state when mind is bereft of thoughts do es man comes in tune or is one with nature or existence or god.
Love & rgds

Zanzero said,..
"Existence is only limited by what the mind figures or sees. If one has an ever expanding mind to one limitless, boundriless, timeless then it is exactly so.
Watch that MIND first."

I understood from this post that you were pointing out the possibility of being united with the "one limitless, boundless, timeless MIND".

It was in this context that I posted,...
"Without meaning to distract,...it really is a matter for each disciple to find out 'what' and 'who' they really are.
The Kingdom of God is within" is a universal principle.
The idea that real truth can be obtained through reading and learning from external expert sources is an error."

Now it is my understanding that seeking knowledge from an external source implies duality but by definition the one MIND is immanent in all the universe and there is not another.. The very act of seeking for something implies duality,..an error of imagining that one is separated from that which one seeks.

Now there is no way around this difficulty of maya except through self realization of the inherent oneness by attaining to a state of union with the Oneness of all Being.
It is my understanding that an enlightened Mind reveals the truth of who we really are,... not as a belief, nor a concept, but in truth.

Now having said what I have said in the context of approaching the absolute Oneness, so far as the essential learning requirements appropriate for each stage of the path of each disciple, I am in general agreement with your comments in that context.

But at the end of these trials, the error of taking the perception of separateness as real will be finally be transcended. and the Unity that was always there will be revealed.

Ultimately Truth can only be received by Truth and the medium of conveying that Truth is Truth.

Again these words are mere concepts and as such mean little but to convey a mystery that awaits revelation, the awesome mystery of 'who am I?'.

 

[zenzero]

Friend ben d,
Your response was well understood and accepted in toto.
No differences there.
What you said is also correct that reading from external sources is an error; no doubt that when we are one then where is the need of the other. 100% agreed and accepted.
What was trying to point at is that there are no errors anywhere in existence and every thing is perfect as it is BUT they are meant for a purpose i.e. they are meant for others who are still not evolved. Please note there is no differences in general with your thoughts and no-thoughts.
AM sure this resolves our understanding of the misunderstanding.
Love & rgds

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Thank you Zanzero,
Always appreciate your well directed comments to 'raise' the discussion to higher 'altitudes'.

...Namaste

 

[zenzero]

Friend ben d,
thank existence as am part of it only; besides am still searching for that * I *.
Love & rgds

 

[Cordoba]

Closer to the Heart - 47 Tucanae

Written by Tammy Plotner



Those huge, gravitationally bound balls of stars know as globular clusters aren't without a heart.

Containing a thick concentration of 10,000 to more than a million stars in a region spanning just 10 to 30 light-years, globular clusters are more akin to seething masses of suns where the lightweights head for the outer edges while the giants collect in the core. What causes this process? Do globular clusters really have a way of getting some stars closer to the heart?

What you see here is 47 Tucanae, the second largest globular cluster in the Milky Way's busy galactic halo. As its name "47 Tucanae" implies, its core was first cataloged as a star and numbered the 47th in Tucana the Toucan - but not for long. On September 14, 1751 a French astronomer named Nicholas Louis de Lacaille was the first to discover its true nature with a half inch diameter spy glass and cataloged it as nebulous object. Next to observe and catalog it were James Dunlop in 1826, and John Herschel in 1834 when it became New General Catalog (NGC) 104.

At home some 13,400 to 16,000 light years away from our Earth, this inconceivably dense concentration of at least a million stars spans 120 light years at the outside, yet at its heart is more than 15,000 individual stars that are packed so densely that you couldn't fit our solar system between them. Believed to have all been born about the same time from the same cloud of gas, globular clusters like 47 Tucanae are a wonderful study of how stars evolve and interact.

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/19/closer-to-the-heart-47-tucanae/

 

[Cordoba]

[FONT=Arial,Geneva,Verdana,Sans-Serif]Scientists see supernova in action[/FONT]

Supernova 2007uy in the galaxy NGC2770 was already several weeks old on January 7, 2008 when NASA's Swift satellite took the image at left. The image on the right was taken two days later and shows Supernova 2008D as well. (NASA Swift Team)

A star trembled on the brink of eternity. Outwardly all was serene, but its inside was falling into chaos.

Far away on the day of Jan. 9, Earth time, a satellite telescope by the name of Swift, which happened to be gazing at the star's galaxy, a smudge of stars 88 million light-years away in the constellation Lynx, recorded an unexpected burst of invisible X-rays 100 billion times as bright as the Sun.

The supernova was of a sort known as Type Ibc, the rarest and most luminous of the explosions caused by the collapse of the cores of massive stars, the astronomers have concluded. Another kind, known as Type Ia supernovas, are believed to result from the destruction of much smaller stars and are beloved of cosmologists who use them to track the expansion of the universe and effects of dark energy.

The star that died last January could have been 20 times as massive as the Sun or even bigger, Soderberg said. It was probably a type called a Wolf-Rayet star. They are very hot stars with surface temperatures of 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit or more and are often blowing gas away in strong winds. Soderberg described them as "very violent stars, very massive."

Because it is gravity that stokes the thermonuclear furnace at the centers of stars, the more massive they are, the younger they die. In the case of a star 10 or 20 times as massive as the Sun, it could be only a few million years. "These stars live fast and die young. We don't know if they leave a beautiful corpse," Kirshner said.

Many of the elements necessary for life and its accessories, like carbon, oxygen, iron and gold, are produced in a thermonuclear frenzy during the final stages of these explosions, which then fling them into space to be incorporated into new stars, new planets, new creatures.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/22/healthscience/22nova.php

 

[Ben Dhyan]

The star that died last January ....

Yes,... and as proof to the truth behind the doctrine on reincarnation, there will be a rebirth emerging from the remnants!