PAPER 41
PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF THE LOCAL UNIVERSE
41:0.1 THE characteristic space phenomenon which
sets off each local creation from all others is the presence of the Creative
Spirit. All Nebadon is certainly pervaded by the space presence of the Divine
Minister of Salvington, and such presence just as certainly terminates at the
outer borders of our local universe. That which is pervaded by our local
universe Mother Spirit is Nebadon; that which extends beyond her space
presence is outside Nebadon, being the extra-Nebadon space regions of the
superuniverse of Orvonton -- other local universes.
41:0.2 While the administrative organization of the
grand universe discloses a clear-cut division between the governments of the
central, super-, and local universes, and while these divisions are
astronomically paralleled in the space separation of Havona and the seven
superuniverses, no such clear lines of physical demarcation set off the local
creations. Even the major and minor sectors of Orvonton are (to us) clearly
distinguishable, but it is not so easy to identify the physical boundaries of
the local universes. This is because these local creations are
administratively organized in accordance with certain creative
principles governing the segmentation of the total energy charge of a
superuniverse, whereas their physical components, the spheres of space --
suns, dark islands, planets, etc. -- take origin primarily from nebulae, and
these make their astronomical appearance in accordance with certain
precreative (transcendental) plans of the Architects of the Master
Universe.
41:0.3 One or more -- even many -- such nebulae may
be encompassed within the domain of a single local universe even as Nebadon
was physically assembled out of the stellar and planetary progeny of
Andronover and other nebulae. The spheres of Nebadon are of diverse nebular
ancestry, but they all had a certain minimum commonness of space motion which
was so adjusted by the intelligent efforts of the power directors as to
produce our present aggregation of space bodies, which travel along together
as a contiguous unit over the orbits of the superuniverse.
41:0.4 Such is the constitution of the local star
cloud of Nebadon, which today swings in an increasingly settled orbit about
the Sagittarius center of that minor sector of Orvonton to which our local
creation belongs.
1. THE NEBADON POWER CENTERS
41:1.1 The spiral and other nebulae, the mother
wheels of the spheres of space, are initiated by Paradise force organizers;
and following nebular evolution of gravity response, they are superseded in
superuniverse function by the power centers and physical controllers, who
thereupon assume full responsibility for directing the physical evolution of
the ensuing generations of stellar and planetary offspring. This physical
supervision of the Nebadon preuniverse was, upon the arrival of our Creator
Son, immediately co-ordinated with his plan for universe organization. Within
the domain of this Paradise Son of God the Supreme Power Centers and the
Master Physical Controllers collaborated with the later appearing Morontia
Power Supervisors and others to produce that vast complex of communication
lines, energy circuits, and power lanes which firmly bind the manifold space
bodies of Nebadon into one integrated administrative unit.
41:1.2 One hundred Supreme Power Centers of the
fourth order are permanently assigned to our local universe. These beings
receive the incoming lines of power from the third-order centers of Uversa and
relay the down-stepped and modified circuits to the power centers of our
constellations and systems. These power centers, in association, function to
produce the living system of control and equalization which operates to
maintain the balance and distribution of otherwise fluctuating and variable
energies. Power centers are not, however, concerned with transient and local
energy upheavals, such as sun spots and system electric disturbances; light
and electricity are not the basic energies of space; they are secondary and
subsidiary manifestations.
41:1.3 The one hundred local universe centers are
stationed on Salvington, where they function at the exact energy center of
that sphere. Architectural spheres, such as Salvington, Edentia, and Jerusem,
are lighted, heated, and energized by methods which make them quite
independent of the suns of space. These spheres were constructed -- made to
order -- by the power centers and physical controllers and were designed to
exert a powerful influence over energy distribution. Basing their activities
on such focal points of energy control, the power centers, by their living
presences, directionize and channelize the physical energies of space. And
these energy circuits are basic to all physical-material and
morontia-spiritual phenomena.
41:1.4 Ten Supreme Power Centers of the fifth order
are assigned to each of Nebadon's primary subdivisions, the one hundred
constellations. In Norlatiadek, your constellation, they are not stationed on
the headquarters sphere but are situated at the center of the enormous stellar
system which constitutes the physical core of the constellation. On Edentia
there are ten associated mechanical controllers and ten frandalanks who are in
perfect and constant liaison with the near-by power centers.
41:1.5 One Supreme Power Center of the sixth order
is stationed at the exact gravity focus of each local system. In the system of
Satania the assigned power center occupies a dark island of space located at
the astronomic center of the system. Many of these dark islands are vast
dynamos which mobilize and directionize certain space-energies, and these
natural circumstances are effectively utilized by the Satania Power Center,
whose living mass functions as a liaison with the higher centers, directing
the streams of more materialized power to the Master Physical Controllers on
the evolutionary planets of space.
2. THE SATANIA PHYSICAL CONTROLLERS
41:2.1 While the Master Physical Controllers serve
with the power centers throughout the grand universe, their functions in a
local system, such as Satania, are more easy of comprehension. Satania is one
of one hundred local systems which make up the administrative organization of
the constellation of Norlatiadek, having as immediate neighbors the systems of
Sandmatia, Assuntia, Porogia, Sortoria, Rantulia, and Glantonia. The
Norlatiadek systems differ in many respects, but all are evolutionary and
progressive, very much like Satania.
41:2.2 Satania itself is composed of over seven
thousand astronomical groups, or physical systems, few of which had an origin
similar to that of your solar system. The astronomic center of Satania is an
enormous dark island of space which, with its attendant spheres, is situated
not far from the headquarters of the system government.
41:2.3 Except for the presence of the assigned power
center, the supervision of the entire physical-energy system of Satania is
centered on Jerusem. A Master Physical Controller, stationed on this
headquarters sphere, works in co-ordination with the system power center,
serving as liaison chief of the power inspectors headquartered on Jerusem and
functioning throughout the local system.
41:2.4 The circuitizing and channelizing of energy
is supervised by the five hundred thousand living and intelligent energy
manipulators scattered throughout Satania. Through the action of such physical
controllers the supervising power centers are in complete and perfect control
of a majority of the basic energies of space, including the emanations of
highly heated orbs and the dark energy-charged spheres. This group of living
entities can mobilize, transform, transmute, manipulate, and transmit nearly
all of the physical energies of organized space.
41:2.5 Life has inherent capacity for the
mobilization and transmutation of universal energy. You are familiar with the
action of vegetable life in transforming the material energy of light into the
varied manifestations of the vegetable kingdom. You also know something of the
method whereby this vegetative energy can be converted into the phenomena of
animal activities, but you know practically nothing of the technique of the
power directors and the physical controllers, who are endowed with ability to
mobilize, transform, directionize, and concentrate the manifold energies of
space.
41:2.6 These beings of the energy realms do not
directly concern themselves with energy as a component factor of living
creatures, not even with the domain of physiological chemistry. They are
sometimes concerned with the physical preliminaries of life, with the
elaboration of those energy systems which may serve as the physical vehicles
for the living energies of elementary material organisms. In a way the
physical controllers are related to the preliving manifestations of material
energy as the adjutant mind-spirits are concerned with the prespiritual
functions of material mind.
41:2.7 These intelligent creatures of power control
and energy direction must adjust their technique on each sphere in accordance
with the physical constitution and architecture of that planet. They
unfailingly utilize the calculations and deductions of their respective staffs
of physicists and other technical advisers regarding the local influence of
highly heated suns and other types of supercharged stars. Even the enormous
cold and dark giants of space and the swarming clouds of star dust must be
reckoned with; all of these material things are concerned in the practical
problems of energy manipulation.
41:2.8 The power-energy supervision of the
evolutionary inhabited worlds is the responsibility of the Master Physical
Controllers, but these beings are not responsible for all energy misbehavior
on Urantia. There are a number of reasons for such disturbances, some of which
are beyond the domain and control of the physical custodians. Urantia is in
the lines of tremendous energies, a small planet in the circuit of enormous
masses, and the local controllers sometimes employ enormous numbers of their
order in an effort to equalize these lines of energy. They do fairly well with
regard to the physical circuits of Satania but have trouble insulating against
the powerful Norlatiadek currents.
3. OUR STARRY ASSOCIATES
41:3.1 There are upward of two thousand brilliant
suns pouring forth light and energy in Satania, and your own sun is an average
blazing orb. Of the thirty suns nearest yours, only three are brighter. The
Universe Power Directors initiate the specialized currents of energy which
play between the individual stars and their respective systems. These solar
furnaces, together with the dark giants of space, serve the power centers and
physical controllers as way stations for the effective concentrating and
directionizing of the energy circuits of the material creations.
41:3.2 The suns of Nebadon are not unlike those of
other universes. The material composition of all suns, dark islands, planets,
and satellites, even meteors, is quite identical. These suns have an average
diameter of about one million miles, that of your own solar orb being slightly
less. The largest star in the universe, the stellar cloud Antares, is four
hundred and fifty times the diameter of your sun and is sixty million times
its volume. But there is abundant space to accommodate all of these enormous
suns. They have just as much comparative elbow room in space as one dozen
oranges would have if they were circulating about throughout the interior of
Urantia, and were the planet a hollow globe.
41:3.3 When suns that are too large are thrown off a
nebular mother wheel, they soon break up or form double stars. All suns are
originally truly gaseous, though they may later transiently exist in a
semiliquid state. When your sun attained this quasi-liquid state of supergas
pressure, it was not sufficiently large to split equatorially, this being one
type of double star formation.
41:3.4 When less than one tenth the size of your
sun, these fiery spheres rapidly contract, condense, and cool. When upwards of
thirty times its size -- rather thirty times the gross content of actual
material -- suns readily split into two separate bodies, either becoming the
centers of new systems or else remaining in each other's gravity grasp and
revolving about a common center as one type of double star.
41:3.5 The most recent of the major cosmic eruptions
in Orvonton was the extraordinary double star explosion, the light of which
reached Urantia in A.D. 1572. This conflagration was so intense that the
explosion was clearly visible in broad daylight.
41:3.6 Not all stars are solid, but many of the
older ones are. Some of the reddish, faintly glimmering stars have acquired a
density at the center of their enormous masses which would be expressed by
saying that one cubic inch of such a star, if on Urantia, would weigh six
thousand pounds. The enormous pressure, accompanied by loss of heat and
circulating energy, has resulted in bringing the orbits of the basic material
units closer and closer together until they now closely approach the status of
electronic condensation. This process of cooling and contraction may continue
to the limiting and critical explosion point of ultimatonic
condensation.
41:3.7 Most of the giant suns are relatively young;
most of the dwarf stars are old, but not all. The collisional dwarfs may be
very young and may glow with an intense white light, never having known an
initial red stage of youthful shining. Both very young and very old suns
usually shine with a reddish glow. The yellow tinge indicates moderate youth
or approaching old age, but the brilliant white light signifies robust and
extended adult life.
41:3.8 While all adolescent suns do not pass through
a pulsating stage, at least not visibly, when looking out into space you may
observe many of these younger stars whose gigantic respiratory heaves require
from two to seven days to complete a cycle. Your own sun still carries a
diminishing legacy of the mighty upswellings of its younger days, but the
period has lengthened from the former three and one-half day pulsations to the
present eleven and one-half year sunspot cycles.
41:3.9 Stellar variables have numerous origins. In
some double stars the tides caused by rapidly changing distances as the two
bodies swing around their orbits also occasion periodic fluctuations of light.
These gravity variations produce regular and recurrent flares, just as the
capture of meteors by the accretion of energy-material at the surface would
result in a comparatively sudden flash of light which would speedily recede to
normal brightness for that sun. Sometimes a sun will capture a stream of
meteors in a line of lessened gravity opposition, and occasionally collisions
cause stellar flare-ups, but the majority of such phenomena are wholly due to
internal fluctuations.
41:3.10 In one group of variable stars the period of
light fluctuation is directly dependent on luminosity, and knowledge of this
fact enables astronomers to utilize such suns as universe lighthouses or
accurate measuring points for the further exploration of distant star
clusters. By this technique it is possible to measure stellar distances most
precisely up to more than one million light-years. Better methods of space
measurement and improved telescopic technique will sometime more fully
disclose the ten grand divisions of the superuniverse of Orvonton; you will at
least recognize eight of these immense sectors as enormous and fairly
symmetrical star clusters.
4. SUN DENSITY
41:4.1 The mass of your sun is slightly greater than
the estimate of your physicists, who have reckoned it as about two octillion
(2 x 1027) tons. It now exists about halfway between the most dense
and the most diffuse stars, having about one and one-half times the density of
water. But your sun is neither a liquid nor a solid -- it is gaseous -- and
this is true notwithstanding the difficulty of explaining how gaseous matter
can attain this and even much greater densities.
41:4.2 Gaseous, liquid, and solid states are matters
of atomic-molecular relationships, but density is a relationship of space and
mass. Density varies directly with the quantity of mass in space and inversely
with the amount of space in mass, the space between the central cores of
matter and the particles which whirl around these centers as well as the space
within such material particles.
41:4.3 Cooling stars can be physically gaseous and
tremendously dense at the same time. You are not familiar with the solar
supergases, but these and other unusual forms of matter explain how
even nonsolid suns can attain a density equal to iron -- about the same as
Urantia -- and yet be in a highly heated gaseous state and continue to
function as suns. The atoms in these dense supergases are exceptionally small;
they contain few electrons. Such suns have also largely lost their free
ultimatonic stores of energy.
41:4.4 One of your near-by suns, which started life
with about the same mass as yours, has now contracted almost to the size of
Urantia, having become sixty thousand times as dense as your sun. The weight
of this hot-cold gaseous-solid is about one ton per cubic inch. And still this
sun shines with a faint reddish glow, the senile glimmer of a dying monarch of
light.
41:4.5 Most of the suns, however, are not so dense.
One of your nearer neighbors has a density exactly equal to that of your
atmosphere at sea level. If you were in the interior of this sun, you would be
unable to discern anything. And temperature permitting, you could penetrate
the majority of the suns which twinkle in the night sky and notice no more
matter than you perceive in the air of your earthly living rooms.
41:4.6 The massive sun of Veluntia, one of the
largest in Orvonton, has a density only one one-thousandth that of Urantia's
atmosphere. Were it in composition similar to your atmosphere and not
superheated, it would be such a vacuum that human beings would speedily
suffocate if they were in or on it.
41:4.7 Another of the Orvonton giants now has a
surface temperature a trifle under three thousand degrees. Its diameter is
over three hundred million miles -- ample room to accommodate your sun and the
present orbit of the earth. And yet, for all this enormous size, over forty
million times that of your sun, its mass is only about thirty times greater.
These enormous suns have an extending fringe that reaches almost from one to
the other.
5. SOLAR RADIATION
41:5.1 That the suns of space are not very dense is
proved by the steady streams of escaping light-energies. Too great a density
would retain light by opacity until the light-energy pressure reached the
explosion point. There is a tremendous light or gas pressure within a sun to
cause it to shoot forth such a stream of energy as to penetrate space for
millions upon millions of miles to energize, light, and heat the distant
planets. Fifteen feet of surface of the density of Urantia would effectually
prevent the escape of all X rays and light-energies from a sun until the
rising internal pressure of accumulating energies resulting from atomic
dismemberment overcame gravity with a tremendous outward explosion.
41:5.2 Light, in the presence of the propulsive
gases, is highly explosive when confined at high temperatures by opaque
retaining walls. Light is real. As you value energy and power on your world,
sunlight would be economical at a million dollars a pound.
41:5.3 The interior of your sun is a vast X-ray
generator. The suns are supported from within by the incessant bombardment of
these mighty emanations.
41:5.4 It requires more than one-half million years
for an X-ray-stimulated electron to work its way from the very center of an
average sun up to the solar surface, whence it starts out on its space
adventure, maybe to warm an inhabited planet, to be captured by a meteor, to
participate in the birth of an atom, to be attracted by a highly charged dark
island of space, or to find its space flight terminated by a final plunge into
the surface of a sun similar to the one of its origin.
41:5.5 The X rays of a sun's interior charge the
highly heated and agitated electrons with sufficient energy to carry them out
through space, past the hosts of detaining influences of intervening matter
and, in spite of divergent gravity attractions, on to the distant spheres of
the remote systems. The great energy of velocity required to escape the
gravity clutch of a sun is sufficient to insure that the sunbeam will travel
on with unabated velocity until it encounters considerable masses of matter;
whereupon it is quickly transformed into heat with the liberation of other
energies.
41:5.6 Energy, whether as light or in other forms,
in its flight through space moves straight forward. The actual particles of
material existence traverse space like a fusillade. They go in a straight and
unbroken line or procession except as they are acted on by superior forces,
and except as they ever obey the linear-gravity pull inherent in material mass
and the circular-gravity presence of the Isle of Paradise.
41:5.7 Solar energy may seem to be propelled in
waves, but that is due to the action of coexistent and diverse influences. A
given form of organized energy does not proceed in waves but in direct lines.
The presence of a second or a third form of force-energy may cause the stream
under observation to appear to travel in wavy formation, just as, in a
blinding rainstorm accompanied by a heavy wind, the water sometimes appears to
fall in sheets or to descend in waves. The raindrops are coming down in a
direct line of unbroken procession, but the action of the wind is such as to
give the visible appearance of sheets of water and waves of
raindrops.
41:5.8 The action of certain secondary and other
undiscovered energies present in the space regions of your local universe is
such that solar-light emanations appear to execute certain wavy phenomena as
well as to be chopped up into infinitesimal portions of definite length and
weight. And, practically considered, that is exactly what happens. You can
hardly hope to arrive at a better understanding of the behavior of light until
such a time as you acquire a clearer concept of the interaction and
interrelationship of the various space-forces and solar energies operating in
the space regions of Nebadon. Your present confusion is also due to your
incomplete grasp of this problem as it involves the interassociated activities
of the personal and nonpersonal control of the master universe -- the
presences, the performances, and the co-ordination of the Conjoint Actor and
the Unqualified Absolute.
6. CALCIUM -- THE WANDERER OF SPACE
41:6.1 In deciphering spectral phenomena, it should
be remembered that space is not empty; that light, in traversing space, is
sometimes slightly modified by the various forms of energy and matter which
circulate in all organized space. Some of the lines indicating unknown matter
which appear in the spectra of your sun are due to modifications of well-known
elements which are floating throughout space in shattered form, the atomic
casualties of the fierce encounters of the solar elemental battles. Space is
pervaded by these wandering derelicts, especially sodium and
calcium.
41:6.2 Calcium is, in fact, the chief element of the
matter-permeation of space throughout Orvonton. Our whole superuniverse is
sprinkled with minutely pulverized stone. Stone is literally the basic
building matter for the planets and spheres of space. The cosmic cloud, the
great space blanket, consists for the most part of the modified atoms of
calcium. The stone atom is one of the most prevalent and persistent of the
elements. It not only endures solar ionization -- splitting -- but persists in
an associative identity even after it has been battered by the destructive X
rays and shattered by the high solar temperatures. Calcium possesses an
individuality and a longevity excelling all of the more common forms of
matter.
41:6.3 As your physicists have suspected, these
mutilated remnants of solar calcium literally ride the light beams for varied
distances, and thus their widespread dissemination throughout space is
tremendously facilitated. The sodium atom, under certain modifications, is
also capable of light and energy locomotion. The calcium feat is all the more
remarkable since this element has almost twice the mass of sodium. Local
space-permeation by calcium is due to the fact that it escapes from the solar
photosphere, in modified form, by literally riding the outgoing sunbeams. Of
all the solar elements, calcium, notwithstanding its comparative bulk --
containing as it does twenty revolving electrons -- is the most successful in
escaping from the solar interior to the realms of space. This explains why
there is a calcium layer, a gaseous stone surface, on the sun six thousand
miles thick; and this despite the fact that nineteen lighter elements, and
numerous heavier ones, are underneath.
41:6.4 Calcium is an active and versatile element at
solar temperatures. The stone atom has two agile and loosely attached
electrons in the two outer electronic circuits, which are very close together.
Early in the atomic struggle it loses its outer electron; whereupon it engages
in a masterful act of juggling the nineteenth electron back and forth between
the nineteenth and twentieth circuits of electronic revolution. By tossing
this nineteenth electron back and forth between its own orbit and that of its
lost companion more than twenty-five thousand times a second, a mutilated
stone atom is able partially to defy gravity and thus successfully to ride the
emerging streams of light and energy, the sunbeams, to liberty and adventure.
This calcium atom moves outward by alternate jerks of forward propulsion,
grasping and letting go the sunbeam about twenty-five thousand times each
second. And this is why stone is the chief component of the worlds of space.
Calcium is the most expert solar-prison escaper.
41:6.5 The agility of this acrobatic calcium
electron is indicated by the fact that, when tossed by the temperature-X-ray
solar forces to the circle of the higher orbit, it only remains in that orbit
for about one one-millionth of a second; but before the electric-gravity power
of the atomic nucleus pulls it back into its old orbit, it is able to complete
one million revolutions about the atomic center.
41:6.6 Your sun has parted with an enormous quantity
of its calcium, having lost tremendous amounts during the times of its
convulsive eruptions in connection with the formation of the solar system.
Much of the solar calcium is now in the outer crust of the sun.
41:6.7 It should be remembered that spectral
analyses show only sun-surface compositions. For example: Solar spectra
exhibit many iron lines, but iron is not the chief element in the sun. This
phenomenon is almost wholly due to the present temperature of the sun's
surface, a little less than 6,000 degrees, this temperature being very
favorable to the registry of the iron spectrum.
7. SOURCES OF SOLAR ENERGY
41:7.1 The internal temperature of many of the suns,
even your own, is much higher than is commonly believed. In the interior of a
sun practically no whole atoms exist; they are all more or less shattered by
the intensive X-ray bombardment which is indigenous to such high temperatures.
Regardless of what material elements may appear in the outer layers of a sun,
those in the interior are rendered very similar by the dissociative action of
the disruptive X rays. X ray is the great leveler of atomic
existence.
41:7.2 The surface temperature of your sun is almost
6,000 degrees, but it rapidly increases as the interior is penetrated until it
attains the unbelievable height of about 35,000,000 degrees in the central
regions. (All of these temperatures refer to your Fahrenheit scale.)
41:7.3 All of these phenomena are indicative of
enormous energy expenditure, and the sources of solar energy, named in the
order of their importance, are:
1. Annihilation of atoms and, eventually, of
electrons.
2. Transmutation of elements, including the
radioactive group of energies thus liberated.
3. The accumulation and transmission of certain
universal space-energies.
4. Space matter and meteors which are incessantly
diving into the blazing suns.
5. Solar contraction; the cooling and consequent
contraction of a sun yields energy and heat sometimes greater than that
supplied by space matter.
6. Gravity action at high temperatures transforms
certain circuitized power into radiative energies.
7. Recaptive light and other matter which are
drawn back into the sun after having left it, together with other energies
having extrasolar origin.
41:7.4 There exists a regulating blanket of hot
gases (sometimes millions of degrees in temperature) which envelops the suns,
and which acts to stabilize heat loss and otherwise prevent hazardous
fluctuations of heat dissipation. During the active life of a sun the internal
temperature of 35,000,000 degrees remains about the same quite regardless of
the progressive fall of the external temperature.
41:7.5 You might try to visualize 35,000,000 degrees
of heat, in association with certain gravity pressures, as the electronic
boiling point. Under such pressure and at such temperature all atoms are
degraded and broken up into their electronic and other ancestral components;
even the electrons and other associations of ultimatons may be broken up, but
the suns are not able to degrade the ultimatons.
41:7.6 These solar temperatures operate to
enormously speed up the ultimatons and the electrons, at least such of the
latter as continue to maintain their existence under these conditions. You
will realize what high temperature means by way of the acceleration of
ultimatonic and electronic activities when you pause to consider that one drop
of ordinary water contains over one billion trillions of atoms. This is the
energy of more than one hundred horsepower exerted continuously for two years.
The total heat now given out by the solar system sun each second is sufficient
to boil all the water in all the oceans on Urantia in just one second of time.
41:7.7 Only those suns which function in the direct
channels of the main streams of universe energy can shine on forever. Such
solar furnaces blaze on indefinitely, being able to replenish their material
losses by the intake of space-force and analogous circulating energy. But
stars far removed from these chief channels of recharging are destined to
undergo energy depletion -- gradually cool off and eventually burn
out.
41:7.8 Such dead or dying suns can be rejuvenated by
collisional impact or can be recharged by certain nonluminous energy islands
of space or through gravity-robbery of near-by smaller suns or systems. The
majority of dead suns will experience revivification by these or other
evolutionary techniques. Those which are not thus eventually recharged are
destined to undergo disruption by mass explosion when the gravity condensation
attains the critical level of ultimatonic condensation of energy pressure.
Such disappearing suns thus become energy of the rarest form, admirably
adapted to energize other more favorably situated suns.
8. SOLAR-ENERGY REACTIONS
41:8.1 In those suns which are encircuited in the
space-energy channels, solar energy is liberated by various complex
nuclear-reaction chains, the most common of which is the
hydrogen-carbon-helium reaction. In this metamorphosis, carbon acts as an
energy catalyst since it is in no way actually changed by this process of
converting hydrogen into helium. Under certain conditions of high temperature
the hydrogen penetrates the carbon nuclei. Since the carbon cannot hold more
than four such protons, when this saturation state is attained, it begins to
emit protons as fast as new ones arrive. In this reaction the ingoing hydrogen
particles come forth as a helium atom.
41:8.2 Reduction of hydrogen content increases the
luminosity of a sun. In the suns destined to burn out, the height of
luminosity is attained at the point of hydrogen exhaustion. Subsequent to this
point, brilliance is maintained by the resultant process of gravity
contraction. Eventually, such a star will become a so-called white dwarf, a
highly condensed sphere.
41:8.3 In large suns -- small circular nebulae --
when hydrogen is exhausted and gravity contraction ensues, if such a body is
not sufficiently opaque to retain the internal pressure of support for the
outer gas regions, then a sudden collapse occurs. The gravity-electric changes
give origin to vast quantities of tiny particles devoid of electric potential,
and such particles readily escape from the solar interior, thus bringing about
the collapse of a gigantic sun within a few days. It was such an emigration of
these "runaway particles" that occasioned the collapse of the giant nova of
the Andromeda nebula about fifty years ago. This vast stellar body collapsed
in forty minutes of Urantia time.
41:8.4 As a rule, the vast extrusion of matter
continues to exist about the residual cooling sun as extensive clouds of
nebular gases. And all this explains the origin of many types of irregular
nebulae, such as the Crab nebula, which had its origin about nine hundred
years ago, and which still exhibits the mother sphere as a lone star near the
center of this irregular nebular mass.
9. SUN STABILITY
41:9.1 The larger suns maintain such a gravity
control over their electrons that light escapes only with the aid of the
powerful X rays. These helper rays penetrate all space and are concerned in
the maintenance of the basic ultimatonic associations of energy. The great
energy losses in the early days of a sun, subsequent to its attainment of
maximum temperature -- upwards of 35,000,000 degrees -- are not so much due to
light escape as to ultimatonic leakage. These ultimaton energies escape out
into space, to engage in the adventure of electronic association and energy
materialization, as a veritable energy blast during adolescent solar times.
41:9.2 Atoms and electrons are subject to gravity.
The ultimatons are not subject to local gravity, the interplay of material
attraction, but they are fully obedient to absolute or Paradise gravity, to
the trend, the swing, of the universal and eternal circle of the universe of
universes. Ultimatonic energy does not obey the linear or direct gravity
attraction of near-by or remote material masses, but it does ever swing true
to the circuit of the great ellipse of the far-flung creation.
41:9.3 Your own solar center radiates almost one
hundred billion tons of actual matter annually, while the giant suns lose
matter at a prodigious rate during their earlier growth, the first billion
years. A sun's life becomes stable after the maximum of internal temperature
is reached, and the subatomic energies begin to be released. And it is just at
this critical point that the larger suns are given to convulsive
pulsations.
41:9.4 Sun stability is wholly dependent on the
equilibrium between gravity-heat contention -- tremendous pressures
counterbalanced by unimagined temperatures. The interior gas elasticity of the
suns upholds the overlying layers of varied materials, and when gravity and
heat are in equilibrium, the weight of the outer materials exactly equals the
temperature pressure of the underlying and interior gases. In many of the
younger stars continued gravity condensation produces ever-heightening
internal temperatures, and as internal heat increases, the interior X-ray
pressure of supergas winds becomes so great that, in connection with the
centrifugal motion, a sun begins to throw its exterior layers off into space,
thus redressing the imbalance between gravity and heat.
41:9.5 Your own sun has long since attained relative
equilibrium between its expansion and contraction cycles, those disturbances
which produce the gigantic pulsations of many of the younger stars. Your sun
is now passing out of its six billionth year. At the present time it is
functioning through the period of greatest economy. It will shine on as of
present efficiency for more than twenty-five billion years. It will probably
experience a partially efficient period of decline as long as the combined
periods of its youth and stabilized function.
10. ORIGIN OF INHABITED WORLDS
41:10.1 Some of the variable stars, in or near the
state of maximum pulsation, are in process of giving origin to subsidiary
systems, many of which will eventually be much like your own sun and its
revolving planets. Your sun was in just such a state of mighty pulsation when
the massive Angona system swung into near approach, and the outer surface of
the sun began to erupt veritable streams -- continuous sheets -- of matter.
This kept up with ever-increasing violence until nearest apposition, when the
limits of solar cohesion were reached and a vast pinnacle of matter, the
ancestor of the solar system, was disgorged. In similar circumstances the
closest approach of the attracting body sometimes draws off whole planets,
even a quarter or third of a sun. These major extrusions form certain peculiar
cloud-bound types of worlds, spheres much like Jupiter and Saturn.
41:10.2 The majority of solar systems, however, had
an origin entirely different from yours, and this is true even of those which
were produced by gravity-tidal technique. But no matter what technique of
world building obtains, gravity always produces the solar system type of
creation; that is, a central sun or dark island with planets, satellites,
subsatellites, and meteors.
41:10.3 The physical aspects of the individual
worlds are largely determined by mode of origin, astronomical situation, and
physical environment. Age, size, rate of revolution, and velocity through
space are also determining factors. Both the gas-contraction and the
solid-accretion worlds are characterized by mountains and, during their
earlier life, when not too small, by water and air. The molten-split and
collisional worlds are sometimes without extensive mountain ranges.
41:10.4 During the earlier ages of all these new
worlds, earthquakes are frequent, and they are all characterized by great
physical disturbances; especially is this true of the gas-contraction spheres,
the worlds born of the immense nebular rings which are left behind in the wake
of the early condensation and contraction of certain individual suns. Planets
having a dual origin like Urantia pass through a less violent and stormy
youthful career. Even so, your world experienced an early phase of mighty
upheavals, characterized by volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, and terrific
storms.
41:10.5 Urantia is comparatively isolated on the
outskirts of Satania, your solar system, with one exception, being the
farthest removed from Jerusem, while Satania itself is next to the outermost
system of Norlatiadek, and this constellation is now traversing the outer
fringe of Nebadon. You were truly among the least of all creation until
Michael's bestowal elevated your planet to a position of honor and great
universe interest. Sometimes the last is first, while truly the least becomes
greatest.
41:10.6 Presented
by an Archangel in collaboration with the Chief of Nebadon Power
Centers.
