There are so many things in the universe that go beyond words to express and invite us to ponder. So I decided to start another blog category, called “Wonder and Mystery.” Maybe just a few glimpses of mine will invite you to think deeply about yours.

Space brings instant wonder to me: not the crucial details of mathematics as the language of space (think Stephen Hawking and other astrophysicists), but the broad sweep of it all. In fact, our human glimpses of it keep getting broader and broader.

I’m still awestruck by some of the Hubble telescope pictures, taken shortly after Hubble launched way back in 1990. For me, one of the most stunning ones is the Eagle Nebula, called “nursery of the stars” (main photo here). The scale of it is way beyond what I can picture, since every tiny dot is an entire galaxy.

Amazingly, Hubble is still sending back thousands of pictures, despite its being beyond our solar system now. Since it left Earth, more telescopes have gone up, including the Vera Rubin telescope, which looks for different things from the original gasses. A writer friend says Vera Rubin’s focus brings out zillions of tiny points, looking like a Brillo pad. Who knew? Every teeny one of those points is a galaxy, too!

The mystery of creation is so vast, it points way beyond what I can imagine. Let alone the Creator who made and sustains all this.

Sharing in the wonder,

Betsy Schwarzentraub