The universe is full of planets!

For thousands of years, mankind has known the universe is full of stars. When the Hubble space-telescope was launched in 1990, scientists began to number the stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone at more than 100 billion. But the assumption, based on Hubble data, was that there were very few planets outside our own solar system. Now, NASA's new and more powerful Kepler space-telescope is sending back evidence of planets outside our solar system--thousands of them. Based on the newly arriving data, scientists now think that the galaxy has "at least" one planet per star and likely more. This means hundreds of billions of planets! One Harvard University astronomer commented, "We're awash in planets where 17 years ago we weren't even sure there were planets outside our solar system." An astronomer from San Diego State University wrote, "Nature must like to form planets because it's forming them in places that are kind of difficult to do." He was referring to planets that circle two suns--for which we now have evidence (Associated Press, January 11, 2011). As scientists make new discoveries, it becomes more apparent how vast and diverse God's creation really is. The universe was created for an incredible purpose that is outlined in the pages of Scripture.