Page 70 - The Creation Of The Universe

68 THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

uring the night of July 4th in 1054, Chinese astronomers wit-
nessed an extraordinary event: a very bright star that suddenly
D appeared near the constellation Taurus. It was so bright that it
could easily be seen even in daytime. At night it was brighter than the
Moon.
What Chinese astronomers observed was one of the most interesting
and catastrophic astronomic phenomena in our universe. It was a super-
nova.
A supernova is a star that is shattered by an explosion. A huge star de-
stroys itself in an immense blast and the material of its core is scattered in
every direction. The light produced during this event is a thousand times
brighter than normal.
Scientists today think that supernovas play a key role in the formation
of the universe. These explosions are what cause different elements to be
carried to different parts of the universe. It is supposed that the material
ejected by these explosions subsequently combines to form a new galaxy
or a star somewhere else in the universe. According to this hypothesis, our
solar system, the Sun and its planets including Earth, are the products of
some incredibly ancient supernova.
Although supernovas may seem to be ordinary explosions, they in fact
are minutely structured in their details. In Nature's Destiny Michael Denton
writes:
The distances between supernovae and indeed between all stars is crit-
ical for other reasons. If the distance between stars in our galaxy was
much less, planetary orbits would be destabilized. If it was much more,
then the debris thrown out by a supernova would be so diffusely dis-
tributed that planetary systems like our own would in all probability
never form. If the cosmos is to be a home for life, then the flickering of
the supernovea must occur at a very precise rate and the average dis-
tance between them, and indeed between all stars, must be very close
to the actual observed figure. 45
The ratio of supernovas and stars' distances are just two more of the