This was the picture that made people fall in love with astronomy and which fuelled the golden age of astronomy we find ourselves in currently:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051224.html
Astronomy is a humbling science because it shows us distances and sizes so vast and so incomprehensible to the human mind that it forces us to think about and speculate about who or what is beyond this universe and to start to consider "He who is above all else......."
This picture was taken on December 7th 2006 from a telescope in Turkey. In the early-morning sky three planets(children of the sun) can be seen: Mercury at about 1 o'clock on the upper right side; Jupiter at about 6 o'clock just below the dark cloud bank; Mars at about 3 o'clock just above the dark cloud bank and to the right of Jupiter. These three planets are seen from their sister planet the earth and all four planets are kept in perfect orbit around their parent star(the sun) by its immense gravitational pull:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061209.html
In our efforts to help "the whole of the Ummah.....become full and even leading participants in the Knowledge Society of the 21st Century"(Aga Khan 4), I bring your attention to this little bit of knowledge about the material universe: The planet Mars has two tiny moons orbiting around it, Phobos and Deimos. Below is a close-up picture of the moon Phobos, which is shaped like a Prince Edward Island potato. Unfortunately, Phobos is not stable in its orbit around its parent planet because it is orbiting too closely to it and the gravitational attractive tidal forces of the much larger planet are slowly(very slowly!) pulling the moon towrds it so that in about 100 million years, the moon will likely crash onto the surface of planet Mars. Nothing lasts forever in the material universe:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061203.html
The material universe is part of the structure of truth, the ultimate nature of which it is the goal of religion to reach.
easynash
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation:Aga Khan 4.
The God of the Quran is the One whose Ayats(Signs) are the Universe in which we live, move and have our being:Aga Khan 3
