Mankind’s understanding of the cosmos has never been as developed as today. Yet for many centuries, misunderstanding prevented people from recognizing the real reason for its existence. The key lies in seeing that God has always been and always will be at the center of the universe.

When we look up to the stars above, what do we see? The hand of our God? Or do we miss the point?

The universe we are privileged to observe is meant to reveal the God of creation, the God of Abraham, the God of the Bible. It is meant to reveal to us our purpose and place in the plan of God. It is meant to point us to God. It is meant as one of the greatest helps to a relationship with Him.

King David looked up into the heavens and wrote this: “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world” (Psalm 19:1-4, New Living Translation).

This passage is a perfect place to begin to develop a view of a God-centered universe. God created the universe to display His glory. Everywhere we turn our telescopes we see immense space and distance. We see astral bodies and systems that reveal more mystery. The more we see, the more we learn.

As Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stepped down from the lunar lander to the surface of the moon, his words describing the barren moonscape were simply “magnificent desolation.”

That desolation doesn’t end at the moon. We see a universe full of great and expanding power. Some physicists have argued that at some point billions of years from now, the universe could reach a point of full expansion and collapse back upon itself, into another point and then begin another expansion, another “big bang.” Many others disagree, contending the universe will expand forever, with all cooling to absolute zero and material cohesion ceasing—the supposed heat death of the universe. Others envision mysterious dark energy ultimately ripping everything apart.

None of these predictions provides a comforting scenario, leaving us with only meaninglessness, loneliness and despair.

But if we see the universe through the lens of it being God-centered, we are drawn to God and gain great hope and understanding. Know this: The universe and human life will not end with a bang or a whimper! But we have to understand the universe from God’s perspective. When we do, we find meaning and we find hope.

Centuries of wrong perspective

Mankind has not seen the universe this way because the first human beings rejected revealed knowledge from God in the Garden of Eden, and their descendants went further astray. As people looked to the heavens they began to see and worship a false conception of God and even other gods—ultimately “the god of this age,” Satan the devil (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Cut off from the knowledge of the true God and deceived by Satan, people came to imagine among the stars a false pantheon of divine beings. Their deceived view of the cosmos was carried down in various forms through history. As the sun and stars rose and moved through the heavens, people thought they were witnessing stories of conflict, lust, love, jealousy and war being played out. Gods and goddesses, imbued with human frailties, supposedly acted out dramas in the heavens that impacted life on earth.

Farmers thought these events determined whether or not they would have a good crop. Women sought fertility by worshiping the bright morning star as a female goddess who would grant the blessing of childbirth. Kings sought divine wisdom from a combination of stars thought to represent their chief god.

This vivid imagination ruled the thinking of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and the rest of the world. They all looked to the skies and saw false gods, not the true God. It led to the development of astrology—foretelling and reading the future events of one’s life by the position of the stars in the heavens—which many still believe in today.

Through astrology man made his first great leap into a scheme for describing how unseen forces from the greatest distance of space and time, from the very depth of the heavens, shaped everyday life. Instead of seeing the glory of the true God in the heavens, man embraced a false system of religion that is still with us. Instead of seeing God at the center of the universe, man saw divinity in the universe itself and its various aspects.

Another mistake man made was concluding that the earth was the center of the universe and that everything revolved around it. As the ancients imagined it, each day the sun god rose in the east and rode his chariot across the skies into the west. At night, he traveled the underworld in a boat to appear once again at the dawn of a new day.

The stars were seen to rotate around the sky. Earth was seen as a platform within a domed universe with a canopy of stars strung across the ceiling. The sun went around the earth in its daily and yearly courses. This conception provided an orderly explanation for people that lasted for centuries.

They concluded that planet Earth was the center of everything. This became the accepted cosmological view. A Roman astronomer in Egypt named Ptolemy described how this worked, and his view was accepted as truth for around 1,500 years. This even became religious dogma among those who professed to be Christian believers in the God of the Bible. But they were wrong, of course. Earth is not the center of the universe, and Scripture never said that it was!

A scientific revolution

It was not until the 16th and 17th century that a group of scientists beginning with Nicolas Copernicus began to question the earth-centered view of the universe. With the invention of the telescope, man obtained a closer view of the stars and planets and came to see that the accepted wisdom was false. The earth moved. The planets moved around the sun, and they did so in different orbits and at different speeds. Some of the planets, like Jupiter, had their own moons revolving around them.

Events came to a head when Galileo was being brought before the Inquisition for his “heretical” ideas. The Roman Catholic Church could not accept this intrusion into accepted dogma. Yet before long the age-old error was glaring.

By the time Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton finished their groundbreaking work, man’s view of the heavens, what we call today outer space, was radically changed. Society came to realize that the earth is not the center of the universe but is one of the planets circling the sun.

Yet for a long while the sun was then regarded as the center of the universe. But of course the sun is not the center either. In fact it was later understood to be a small star among many billions of stars in a galaxy that is itself one of many billions of galaxies.

In the last century our knowledge about the universe has multiplied many times over. Today we know that the universe, which scientists have estimated to be some 14 billion years old, is so immense that man is not able to perceive its full size. From all observation, it continues to expand in every direction wherever we aim our telescopes. We discover black holes—collapsed stars that suck anything that comes near them, even light, into a bottomless vortex.

We ponder what these might yet reveal about the universe. And the more we discover, the more we realize how much we don’t know. Everything we discover about the cosmos is astounding. Yet in its immensity we find that it is mostly space—dark, empty, cold, lonely space.

Is man alone?

Let’s stop and think about the history we’ve reviewed. Ancient man concluded the earth was the center of the universe. He looked at the heavens and imagined a host of gods. The pagan world gave us a false view of the divine. The medieval world also erred in seeing the earth and man as the center of the universe. Although that world accepted a form of Christianity, it remained devoid of much biblical truth and had a terribly distorted spiritual view of both man and God.

Sadly, society today isn’t really that much closer to understanding the full truth about the universe, God or man. We have moved from belief in an earth-centered, man-centered universe to focus on one that is vast and empty and, in the eyes of many, without God. This is the “progress” scientists have given us! And man feels even more alone.

When the telescope shattered the view that the earth was the center of the universe, it was part of a revolution in knowledge that led to a modern scientific world where human reason has reigned supreme. But what came next? Enter the evolutionary theory that man is merely the highest form of life, that through mere chance, carbon-based life came into existence and that there was no involvement of God or any supernatural power.

Academic science becomes god, and man is just another animal, the one that evolved enough to be able to ask, Who am I? Man has moved from wrong cosmic understanding and wrong theology about God to a more distant view of God and even to outright rejection of God. Yet Romans 1:20 declares what is patently true: “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God” (NLT).

Before his death, the late physicist Steven Hawking concluded the universe did not need a Creator to get started. Instead, he argued, natural processes could have come together to begin the cosmos. God was not needed. All this increased knowledge about the cosmos, its origins and how it works has led many to a rejection of God.

Now the focus of many scientists is on finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, lasted for decades and returned nothing. Many years and billions of dollars and attention have returned zero evidence of any other intelligent physical life out there. This has led to the great question, “Where is everybody?”

The truth is that for all our searching, it appears life on earth is the only known form of carbon-based life. Could it be that human life on earth is the only intelligent physical life form in all the universe? Some scientists have concluded that this is indeed the case—not least because the mathematical odds for random chance producing a planet like ours capable of hosting life are infinitesimally small.

A new approach

We ought to see, then, that it is time for a new approach. It is time to admit the obvious—that the earth was formed by a Creator God who reveals Himself in the Bible as the One who “in the  beginning . . . created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

As the same account goes on to show, the earth was created for man. From it God scooped a handful of dust to create man in His image. Earth was formed as a home for human beings made in the image of God—to be a place where a relationship between God and man and between fellow human beings could flourish and thrive.

The point we need to grasp is that the earth, our solar system, our universe and everything we can see and presently comprehend is God-centered. Not earth-centered, not human centered, but God-centered. The universe exists to fulfill God’s purpose and plan for mankind. For all the millennia of ignorance, superstition and defiant rejection of God, the focus has been on earth and man. For modern academic science, God is not in the universe. And many in the world give Him little thought. It’s all about man. And this leaves man empty, because from a human view, we are alone. Earth seems fragile and vulnerable in this vast cosmic danger zone.

Medieval thinkers persisted in an earth-centered view of the universe by badly misinterpreting Scripture. Now society’s academic leaders reject Scripture and shut out God. It’s time for a fresh, new appraisal. What does the Bible tell us? What does the universe tell us?

Psalm 19, quoted earlier, tells us. The universe is God-centered. It always has been and always will be. Man isn’t at the center of the universe, but man is at the center of God’s plan. We human beings can look up into the skies and, with the minds God gave us, ask questions about the origin and purpose of both the universe and ourselves.

In Psalm 8:3-5, King David observed, “When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place—what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?” (NLT).

Hebrews 2:1-10 quotes this same passage as a question and then answers it: God made man to be the crowning achievement of His creation. It is a God-centered universe with man as the only intelligent physical being able to ask questions about his origin and purpose.

Yes, we live in a God-centered universe. When we focus our mind on that key truth we will find the true meaning of not only the universe, but of human life. As Psalm 19 declares, “The heavens proclaim the glory of God.” Man’s future glory can be found in that picture!

Have you ever dreamed of traveling through space? The prospects sound exciting to most people.

Amazingly, we are already traveling through space—but without being aware of it! Our planet can rightly be compared to a giant spacecraft carrying more than 6 billion people and billions more animals and plants. American scientist Buckminster Fuller coined the fitting term "Spaceship Earth" to describe our planet.

We are truly hurtling through space on this giant spacecraft called Earth—at the incredible speed of 66,600 miles per hour! This is far faster than man's speediest aircraft. At the same time, this space vehicle is spinning at 1,000 miles per hour at the equator. Every year we complete an entire circuit around the sun—a journey of more than half a billion miles!

Yet perhaps the most amazing aspect of our voyage is that we don't feel the trip at all. Certainly as we travel in a car at 50 miles per hour, we can sense the velocity and see the scenery go by. But the paradox is, once we get out of the car and sit down, everything on the ground seems at rest—yet we are still traveling at an incredible speed through space.

If we finish our life's journey with an average life span, we will have traveled around the sun some 76 times, and completed a trip of more than 38 billion miles— the equivalent of traveling several times to Pluto and back! All of this happens without us ever feeling the velocity or being aware of the trip itself.

This is just one of the incredible features of our remarkable spaceship.

Our privileged planet

In the last 30 years scientific discoveries have undermined the idea, once popular among some scientists and scholars, that we live on an unexceptional planet. That idea was summarized in the view of astronomer Carl Sagan, who spoke of "the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe" (Pale Blue Dot, 1994, p. 7, emphasis added).

We have come quite far from the similar notion posed by philosopher Bertrand Russell that humanity is merely, as he put it, "a curious accident in a backwater" (Religion and Science, 1961, p. 222). As scientific discoveries have accumulated, planet Earth has turned out to be not a backwater region, but instead a very privileged planet.

Astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez and philosopher Jay Richards recently wrote a book about the latest scientific findings that refute Sagan's assertion that we live on an insignificant planet. They aptly titled the book The Privileged Planet.

Instead of a universe once thought to be possibly teeming with life, more and more scientists are now realizing the rare qualities of our terrestrial globe. Cosmologists Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee wrote the 2003 book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe to explain some of our planet's unique features and how difficult it would be to duplicate these conditions on some other planet.

Similarly, the influential science textbook Earth begins its introduction with a section titled "the uniqueness of the planet Earth" (Frank Press and Raymond Siever, 1986, p. 3). So many factors have to be just right to duplicate the feats of our amazing Spaceship Earth that hope is slowly fading of ever finding intelligent life on other planets.

"From the seventeenth to the twentieth century," explain Drs. Gonzalez and Richards, "many expected to find intelligent, even superior life on the Moon, Mars, and other planets in the Solar System . . . Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, despite PR blitzes from Martian-life enthusiasts, the search has moved from the planets to a few obscure outlying moons. At the same time, the aspirations have been substantially downgraded" (The Privileged Planet, 2004, p. 253).

What are some of the remarkable features of our Spaceship Earth? Let's explore some of these characteristics so we can appreciate how carefully crafted it is. We can then ask, Could all these precise conditions be only a lucky accident? Hand-in-hand is another crucial question: What is the ultimate purpose of our life's journey through space?

A marvelous "window" to see out into the universe

As every spaceship has a porthole to view the outside, so our atmosphere acts in the same way.

In fact, we have a much better window than an ordinary spacecraft. Our "window" on this Spaceship Earth is not limited to a certain viewing area, but actually covers the entire planet. It is like having a porous crystal 430 miles thick that allows everyone aboard to have a full view of everything outside our planet and yet still blocks out the airless outer space.

Some planets are covered in thick clouds that make it impossible to see out. But our atmosphere enables us to view and discover the universe around us. Our earth is thus an exploration vessel.

The transparent canopy covering the planet also houses a renewable supply of oxygen for human beings and animal life, and carbon dioxide and nitrogen for plants. It also provides the proper air pressure for living things, and the outer edge of this translucent shell is composed of an ozone layer that protects life from harmful ultraviolet rays.

Strange as it may sound, this canopy even comes equipped with a protective force field! It sounds like something out of the TV series Star Trek, but it's true. We have a magnetic field generated by the spinning iron core at the center of our planet that deflects damaging cosmic rays and deadly solar winds. Without these features, life here would not be possible.

Last but not least, this marvelous canopy contains an automatically adjusting "curtain" to shade the terrestrial orb from too much light hitting its surface. This delicate shroud is formed by clouds, which act as moving shades that cover some 60 percent of the earth's surface at any given time.

What's in the cockpit?

What if we enter the cockpit of Spaceship Earth? What do we find?

Incredibly, no pilot is aboard, but instead we find an "autopilot" system governed by carefully adjusted physical laws. Although no one is seen physically aboard our spaceship to manage the system, our planet faithfully obeys the programmed, finely tuned commands of the myriad of physical laws and completes its yearlong journey around the sun, dutifully returning to its starting point only to begin yet another circuit.

What keeps the earth in its orbit? It is mainly the gravitational force of the sun that keeps the planet on its circular path. Truly, as the Bible says about our invisible and omnipotent God, "He hangs the earth on nothing" (Job 26:7). That "nothing" is outer space, and the earth is able to "hang" suspended on nothing through the unseen force of gravity.

In this cockpit, although not seen, are the equivalent of hundreds of elaborate dials, each regulating an aspect of our planet's features. Each dial has been carefully calibrated to permit life to flourish on the planet. You can't see the great Engineer who set up the system, but you can measure the precision of each setting—and every one is just right!

Professor Robin Collins draws this comparison concerning the earth's precise settings: "I like to use the analogy of astronauts landing on Mars and finding an enclosed biosphere, sort of like the domed structure that was built in Arizona a few years ago. At the control panel they find that all the dials for its environment are set just right for life. The oxygen ratio is perfect; the temperature is seventy degrees; the humidity is fifty percent; there's a system for replenishing the air; there are systems for producing food, generating energy, and disposing of wastes.

"Each dial has a huge range of possible settings, and you can see if you were to adjust one or more of them just a little bit, the environment would go out of whack and life would be impossible" (quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 2004, p. 130).

Everything— everything down to the tiniest details— is "adjusted" just right for us to live comfortably on this planet. We get a glimpse of the marvelous Designer who set up the whole system when the Bible speaks of "the LORD, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth . . . who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited" (Isaiah 45:18).

Truly, our planet is not some lucky accident since the evidence shows it was carefully designed to be inhabited by mankind and all other forms of life.

The spaceship's engines

What drives this craft and propels it through space? There are "twin engines" aboard, one pushing the planet forward and the other keeping it spinning and fueling its interior heat.

The centripetal force caused by gravity keeps the globe in its orbit. When an object reaches a certain speed and is spun by centripetal forces, it stays in a stable circuit around the center. This is what the earth does when orbiting around the sun. And our planet's distance from the sun, though varying slightly, is perfect for life—not so close to the sun that we would all burn up, nor so far that we would freeze.

The earth travels through space at 66,600 miles an hour as it orbits the sun. That speed perfectly offsets the sun's gravitational pull and keeps the earth's orbit the proper distance from the sun. If the earth's speed were less, it would be gradually pulled toward the sun, eventually scorching and extinguishing life. Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, has a daytime temperature of about 600 degrees Fahrenheit (316 Celsius).

On the other hand, if the earth's speed were greater, it would in time move farther away from the sun to become a frozen wasteland like Pluto, with a temperature of about minus 300 degrees (minus 184 Celsius), also eliminating all life.

The second engine is deep inside the earth itself. There, the fuel is decaying radioactive elements that heat the planet and drive plate tectonics. Geologists Frank Press and Raymond Siever call this "a gigantic but delicately balanced heat engine fueled by radioactivity" (Earth, p. 4).

"Not only does plate tectonics help with the development of continents and mountains, which prevent a water world," adds astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, "but it also drives the Earth's carbon dioxide–rock cycle. This is critical in regulating the environment through the balancing of greenhouse gases and keeping the temperature of the planet at a livable level . . .

"This radioactive decay also helps drive the convection of the liquid iron surrounding the Earth's core, which results in an amazing phenomenon: the creation of a dynamo that actually generates the planet's magnetic field" (quoted by Strobel, pp. 182-183).

Surely, as Proverbs 3:19 says, "The LORD by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding He established the heavens."

The passenger cabin

What about the passenger cabin of Spaceship Earth? How well designed is it? We find that our planet provides all the comforts a space traveler could desire—abundant and delicious food, plenty of water, gorgeous and entertaining scenery, a comfortable climate, challenging work and plenty of room to have a family.

Our planet is a veritable Noah's ark of animals and plants traveling on its timeless journey through space. It is a self-contained unit with renewable resources that can last, if properly taken care of, for potentially thousands of years into the future.

The atmosphere in the passenger cabin is finely tuned for life. No other planet in our solar system has anything remotely like it. High in the atmosphere, ozone blocks cancer-causing radiation emanating from the sun. The atmosphere also shields us from meteors, burning up the overwhelming majority long before they reach earth. Otherwise they would cause great damage and loss of life.

Our atmosphere contains a mixture of gases in perfect proportions to sustain life. Oxygen makes up 21 percent of our air. Without oxygen, all animate life—including all human life—would die in minutes. But too much oxygen is toxic and makes combustible materials more flammable. If the proportion of oxygen in the air increased to only 24 percent, destructive fires would frequently break out and be much harder to bring under control. Objects around us could literally burst into flame.

Nitrogen, making up 78 percent of earth's atmosphere, dilutes the oxygen and serves a vital function as a fertilizer for plants. Every day around our planet, millions of lightning bolts generated by thunderstorms combine some nitrogen with oxygen, creating compounds that are then washed to the earth by rain, where they can be utilized by plants.

Carbon dioxide makes up much of the rest of our atmosphere. Without it plant life would be impossible. Plants require carbon dioxide, which they take in while giving off oxygen. Animals and human beings are the opposite, breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. Plant life sustains human and animal life and vice versa in a magnificent, precise, self-sustaining cycle.

Another condition that makes Spaceship Earth hospitable for life is its size, which determines its gravity and in turn affects its atmosphere. If the earth were only a little larger, making its gravity slightly stronger, hydrogen, a light gas, would be unable to escape the earth's gravity and would collect in our atmosphere, making it inhospitable to life. Yet, if the earth were only slightly smaller, oxygen—necessary for life—would escape, and water would evaporate. Thus, if our planet were slightly larger or smaller, human life could not have existed here.

But that's not all. Even the thickness of the earth's crust plays a part in regulating our atmosphere. If earth's crust were much thicker, it would hoard oxygen below the surface as oxides. But a thinner crust would leave us susceptible to frequent earthquakes and devastating volcanoes that would permeate our atmosphere with volcanic ash.

How important is the precise balance in our atmosphere? Our neighboring planet Venus suffers from what is thought to be a runaway greenhouse effect in which heat is trapped and cannot escape. NASA planetary scientist John O'Keefe noted that our sterile, lifeless moon "is a friendly place compared to Venus, where, from skies forty kilometers high a rain of concentrated sulfuric acid falls toward a surface that is as hot as boiling lead" (God and the Astronomers, 1992, p. 117).

To keep the temperature comfortable for the passengers, our planet remains in orbit at just the right distance from the sun and is designed with an optimum tilt of 23.5 degrees. As Fred Meldau points out in Why We Believe in Creation Not in Evolution, "If the earth had been tilted as much as 45 degrees instead of what it is, temperate zones would have torrid zone heat in the summer and frigid zone cold in the winter. On the other hand, if the axis of the earth were vertical to the plane of its orbit, January and July would have the same climate and ice would accumulate until much of the continents would be ice-covered six months and flooded the other six months" (1972, pp. 27-28).

Astronomer Hugh Ross points out some of the other ways our planet is perfectly balanced for life: "As biochemists now concede, for life molecules to operate so that organisms can live requires an environment where liquid water is stable. This means that a planet cannot be too close to its star or too far away. In the case of planet Earth, a change in the distance from the sun as small as 2 percent would rid the planet of all life . . .

"The rotation period of a life-supporting planet cannot be changed by more than a few percent. If the planet takes too long to rotate, temperature differences between day and night will be too great. On the other hand, if the planet rotates too rapidly, wind velocities will rise to catastrophic levels. A quiet day on Jupiter (rotation period of ten hours), for example, generates thousand mph winds . . ." (The Creator and the Cosmos, 2001, pp. 135-136).

In contrast to Jupiter's 10-hour rotation, our neighboring planet Venus rotates once every 243 days. If earth's rotation took as long, plant life would be impossible because of the extended darkness and extremes of heat and cold from such long days and nights.

Psalm 104:24 says: "O LORD, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of your possessions."

A protector fleet of spaceships

Not only does our terrestrial vessel have a magnetic force field and renewable resources, but it also has a number of accompanying spacecraft to stabilize and protect it.

The first of these is our moon. It is a veritable workhorse. Not only does it shield our planet from taking some meteor strikes (just look at its surface through a telescope!), but it stabilizes earth's vital tilt. Just as a clock has counterbalancing weights, so the moon acts as a counterbalance to the earth, keeping the planet's tilt carefully adjusted to allow the four seasons of the year. This tilt permits the sun's rays to uniformly heat the globe, much like a rotisserie slowly roasts a chicken.

The moon, along with the sun, also regulates our tides. The earth's tides help circulate the water in the oceans and sweep away waste products from the coasts. "If the moon were half as far away, or twice its present diameter," adds Fred Meldau, "great tides would wreck most of our harbors . . . If the moon were smaller and farther away, it would not have sufficient pull on our tides to cleanse our harbors or adequately rejuvenate (with oxygen) the waters of our oceans" (Why We Believe in Creation Not in Evolution, p. 31).

Also remarkable is the relative size and placement of the moon with respect to the sun. The sun's diameter is 400 times that of the moon, but it is also 400 times farther away—an arrangement that produces perfect solar eclipses when viewed from earth.

This extraordinary phenomenon has revealed crucial scientific facts about the composition of the sun and other stars, as well as providing concrete evidence of Einstein's theory of relativity (again illustrating how our earth is set up to allow us to make scientific discoveries about the universe).

Yet the moon is only the first of Spaceship Earth's protector fleet. The two gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn with their strong gravitational pulls, also help shield the planet by functioning as giant vacuum cleaners, sweeping the solar system of dangerous comets and asteroids. Astronomers witnessed a stark example of such protection in 1994 when Jupiter took a hit as the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet broke apart due to Jupiter's gravitational pull and smashed into its atmosphere.

Dr. Hugh Ross describes how these planets play a vital role in preserving life on earth: "Late in 1993, planetary scientists George Wetherell, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., made an exciting discovery about our solar system. In observing computer simulations of our solar system, he found that without a Jupiter-sized planet positioned just where it is, Earth would be struck about a thousand times more frequently than it is already by comets and comet debris. In other words, without Jupiter, impacts such as the one that is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs would be common.

"Here is how the protection system works. Jupiter is two and a half times more massive than all the other planets combined. Because of its huge mass, thus huge gravity, and its location between the earth and the cloud of comets surrounding the solar system, Jupiter either draws comets (by gravity) to collide with itself, as it did in July 1994, or, more commonly, it deflects comets (again by gravity) right out of the solar system. In Wetherell's words, if it were not for Jupiter, ‘we wouldn't be around to study the origin of the solar system.'

"Neither would we be around if it were not for the very high regularity in the orbits of both Jupiter and Saturn. Also in July 1994, French astrophysicist Jacques Laskar determined that if the outer planets were less [orbitally] regular, then the inner planets' motions would be chaotic, and Earth would suffer orbital changes so extreme as to disrupt its climatic stability. In other words, Earth's climate would be unsuitable for life . . . Thus even the characteristics of Jupiter and Saturn's orbits must fit within certain narrowly defined ranges for life on Earth to be possible . . ." (The Creator and the Cosmos, pp. 137-138).

As the book The Privileged Planet notes: "The existence of a well-placed moon, of circular planetary orbits . . . of the outlying gas giants to sweep the Solar System of sterilizing comets . . . all these and more are profoundly important for the existence of complex life on our planet" (p. 256).

Traveling in the right zone

Not only is Spaceship Earth just the right distance from the sun to have a temperate climate, but its solar system is in an excellent neighborhood of stars. It lies between two spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy, far away from the dangerous galactic core or the spiral arms, and is in what astronomers call a "safe zone."

"Certainly, our type of galaxy optimizes habitability," explains Guillermo Gonzalez, "because it provides safe zones. And Earth happens to be located in a safe zone, which is why life has been able to flourish here . . .

"Places with active star formation are very dangerous, because that's where you have supernovae exploding at a fairly high rate. In our galaxy, those dangerous places are primarily in the spiral arms, where there are also hazardous giant molecular clouds. Fortunately, though, we happen to be situated safely between the [Milky Way's] Sagittarius and Perseus spiral arms" (quoted by Strobel, p. 169).

This clear zone is a good vantage point for viewing our own galaxy and the rest of the universe—once again demonstrating the way our exploratory spaceship is set up for cosmic discovery.

Asking some tough questions

We can learn a great deal from examining the universe with telescopes or viewing life through a microscope, but even with the best scientific instruments we will never find the ultimate purpose of why we are traveling through space or what the meaning of our existence is.

All we can infer from the precise natural laws and the fine-tuned features of our planet is that the earth was optimally designed for life and for scientific understanding. Even a skeptical astrophysicist such as Stephen Hawking admits as much on the matter of life. "Wheeler agrees with Hawking and Carter," writes John Boslough, "that our own universe is uniquely fine-tuned to produce life, even if in just one small, lost corner" (Stephen Hawking's Universe, 1985, p. 125).

After surveying the astronomical and biological evidence, biochemist Michael Denton comes to this conclusion: "Four centuries after the scientific revolution science has provided no significant evidence that any alternative life is possible . . . Scientific exploration has found no token of another life, no shred of evidence for something other than ourselves or of our type of life as it exists on earth.

"On the contrary, science has revealed a universe stamped in every corner, riven in every tiny detail, with an overwhelmingly and all-pervasive biocentric [life-centered] and anthropocentric [human-centered] design" (Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, 1998, p. 380).

So here we are, traveling on this spaceship called Earth, and everything we see around us is carefully designed and calibrated to sustain our existence. No wonder the Genesis creation account concludes with this summary of God's handiwork: "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).