The agony and the ecstasy

September 19-20 were significant days for Dawn to Dusk - that was when we picked up our new computers and sat down to put them through their paces. Little did we realize at the time that while we were preoccupied with our own dramas a couple of far more significant events were playing out elsewhere. Physicists at the spanking new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe were dealing with teething problems that paled all ours into utter insignificance. According to a press release on the LHC's official website, at midday on the 19th , "an incident occurred. resulting in a large helium leak into the tunnel. Preliminary investigations indicate that the most likely cause of the problem was a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, which probably melted at high current leading to mechanical failure." Operations will now have to be halted until spring of next year. Ah, after a most promising startup only ten days earlier followed by days of smooth sailing, what agony.

The next day, NASA astronomers, whose bailiwick covers the opposite extreme to subatomic particles, were revelling in ecstasy. Instruments on the Swift satellite, launched in November, 2004, to study the universe's most energy-producing events - gamma-ray bursts - had detected a burst at what is believed to be close to the very edge of space and thus the very beginning of time. "The blast, designated GRB 080913, arose from an exploding star 12.8 billion light-years away." Which means, of course, that it happened 12.8 billion years ago. As Job 38:7 implies, the angels probably had a ringside seat; lucky ducks! Given that one of Swift's five main objectives is to use gamma-ray bursts to study the early universe, its planners cannot help being as pleased as punch.

What a year it has been for Swift and gamma-ray bursts. On

March 21st, a gamma-ray burst occurred of such monstrous proportions that, in spite of its distance of 7.5 billion light years, its glow could be seen by the naked eye, making it the most distant object ever known to be visible to human eyes.

But what is a gamma-ray burst, I hear you asking? As the name implies, bursts are just that - intense flashes of gamma rays (short-wavelength versions of electromagnetic radiation) that last from tiny fractions of a second up to, in one case, sixty minutes. Discovered in 1973, these beasts have tantalized astronomers ever since. Only since the turn of the century have astronomers been able to identify bursts with the explosion that often occurs when massive stars run out of fuel. Evidence suggests that what is the death throe of a humungous star translates into the birth cry of a black hole.

While astronomers stand in awe of such immense forces, believers stand in much greater awe of their Creator. When you stop to contemplate the power of the sun to roast human flesh exposed to its rays for too long from a distance of 93 million miles, you cannot help but be impressed with the staggering power of the One who made it. But the energy radiated by the sun second by second is miniscule by comparison with its total energy budget. When any star explodes, the energy released in the resultant nova or supernova beggars belief. No human mind can begin to grasp the even greater amounts of energy transformed into intense bursts of gamma rays somewhere or other in the universe on a daily basis. You see, many bursts release in seconds an amount of energy equivalent to that radiated by a trillion stars! What a God is the true God, the very same Being who was willing to enter flesh in Jesus Christ and experience pain and death for the atonement of human sinfulness.