There was a time when humans thought our Milky Way galaxy was the entire universe. Some of those weird, diffuse smudges we saw with rudimentary telescopes were actually other galaxies.
As the telescopes improved, we began to collect images of amazing galaxies, of all shapes and sizes. There are even images of galaxies that are, or have, collided with each other.
When a Hubble astronomer decided to take long look (photo exposure over time) at a very small, but ‘empty’ part of the night sky, the result changed everything. Before this Hubble Deep Field Image, we estimated there were about 200 million galaxies in the known universe. When we let Hubble view this tiny, ‘empty’ spot, thousands and thousands of galaxies were revealed. After the Deep Field revelations, we now estimate there may be 2 trillion galaxies.
Recently, the James Webb telescope reaches even further into the universe. They are finding galaxies that ‘shouldn’t exist’ that do not go along with what is/was the current theory. Before Webb, they estimated the age of the universe at 14-15 billion years old. Since Webb is peering ever deeper, our estimates of size and age of the known universe will change. I love putting the adjective ‘known’ before universe. We use the gifts God gave us to explore and theorize. We now know that what Hubble gave us as the known universe is not everything. Webb will peer further and further. What is beyond the limit that Webb can detect? We shall see. Webb is an Infrared telescope. Cosmic shhhtuff that might not be visible to our eyes is found with Webb.
Quite a bit of what ‘science’ has brought us makes sense in explaining some of what is around us. Properties of gravity, light, the physical universe around us, and how it operates.
There is also quite a bit of science that is hypothesis, educated guessing, etc.
Some famous person once said “the beginning of wisdom is the ability to say “I don’t know.”
There is much that we are certain about. There is much, much more that we do not know. Part of the joy of real science is using God’s gifts to explore.
Yes, I use a NASA image for a gospel tract.
Even as a little kid I remember wondering about how high the sky was and what was after that - a wall? how thick was the wall? what was after the wall?... I realized even then that there are some things our finite minds simply aren’t able to comprehend. That is where faith comes in - without which we cannot please God, He tells us in His word. One day, we will “know even as we are known”.