For the past several millennia, this has been the mindset of Judeo-Christian cosmology. Much of the Western world has been taught that the universe revolves around the Earth.

Ancient Cosmology

That notion was an easy mistake since science, especially astronomy, began with Copernicus. While others toyed with a different cosmology centuries before Copernicus, his assertion was that the Earth revolved around the Sun. However, the average person bought into the assumption that the Earth was the center of the universe since the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Case closed...for a long time.

The Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation began questioning the long-held mistaken mindset. Those two types of intellectual upheavals created an opportunity for the Western world to ponder and question everything concerning science, especially astronomy. If Copernicus had added that the universe and our solar system aren’t the same thing, that would have rattled everyone. If he had dared to theorize that the universe began with a Big Bang 13.787 billion years ago, the people in Copernicus’ hometown of Frombork, Poland, would have viewed him as deranged. They bought into the concept that it took six days and that creation occurred several thousand years before the writing of the Old Testament.

Last March, I wrote NASA Discovered Six Massive Galaxies and mentioned that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) discovered six massive galaxies that date back 500-700 million years after the Big Bang. However, JWST recently discovered older galaxies dating back 320 million years after the Big Bang.

The vast number of galaxies is intriguing, even though it is difficult to comprehend the estimates of two trillion galaxies in the visible universe. JWST has provided us with pictures of early galaxies. This is what JWST sees when looking at a galaxy.

There isn’t anything wrong with this photo of a galaxy. The problem is that we can’t see the infrared light, which is galaxies’ heat radiation, just after the birth of the universe. We see this when infrared light is transferred to what we can see.

This is one massive galaxy.

Tarantula Nebula

Heart of the Phantom Galaxy

Sagittarius C is about 50 lightyears wide.

When supernovas explode, they create all the elements needed for life. Carl Sagan wrote, “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.”

Sagan is right. Each person who has lived in the past, who is alive today, and who will be born in the future are alike. However, many people in the past, present, and future will see themselves as superior to the rest. We call that racism. White supremacists believe they have special star stuff. They are inherently better than all the others.

Another form of racism is sexism. Sexists dance to the same tune that racists do. Men are superior to the weaker sex. This is Sagan’s lecture about our Pale Blue Dot.

This video is a timelapse of the universe. It reduces 13.787 billion years into ten minutes.

This is the Cosmic Calendar.