What would happen if our universe was any larger or any smaller? Would life still be possible here on earth, or, in fact, anywhere in the universe?
Here’s the full transcript (I think). You can take any video transcript to an AI platform and most will provide a formatted version.
ANNOUNCER: Today, scientists say there are about 200 billion trillion stars in the observable universe and 2 trillion planets. When the Pew Research Center asked Americans, “Do you believe that we are alone in the universe?” about two-thirds, or 65%, said no. They believed that intelligent life exists on other planets. Amazingly, 76% of adults under age 30 agreed with them.
Polls also showed that 41% of Americans believed UFOs (popularly known as Unidentified Flying Objects) are evidence that alien life from other planets has come to Earth. Moreover, 16% of people claimed firsthand sightings of UFOs. Even Congress and high-profile Pentagon officials are interested in UFOs. In 2022, they officially broadened the name of UFOs to UAPs, or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, to document unidentified craft maneuvering between air, space, or through the sea.
As followers of Christ, how do we make sense of millions of reports of UFO phenomena from around the world? Does the potential presence of extraterrestrial life, and reports of alien abductions, challenge the foundations of biblical teaching? Or might UFO phenomena serve as one of the most compelling present-day proofs that a biblical understanding of reality is indeed accurate?
This series is about UFOs and alien abductions. My guest is astronomer and astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross, who obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the University of British Columbia, his PhD in astronomy from the University of Toronto, and for five years did postdoctoral research at Caltech on quasars and galaxies. Join us for this special series you will see only on The John Ankerberg Show.
DR. JOHN ANKERBERG: Welcome to our program. I’m John Ankerberg, and my guest today is astronomer and astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross. I’m so glad that you’re here, Hugh. And right behind you, you see a galaxy full of stars. I want to ask you a question: how many stars are there in the universe?
DR. HUGH ROSS: Oh, about 10 trillion, trillion.
ANKERBERG: Some atheists would say, “If God is the Creator and He created everything, He wasted a lot of time on all of these stars.” Do we need all of these stars?
ROSS: Well, we need the universe to be precisely the mass that it is to get the elements that are essential for life. If you make the universe the tiniest bit less massive, then the only elements stars will be able to produce are helium from primordial hydrogen—only helium, hydrogen, and a tiny amount of lithium. Make the universe slightly more massive than what it is, and the stars will have so much helium in them that they’ll quickly fuse all the material in the universe to elements heavier than manganese or heavier. In both cases, you have a universe with no carbon, no oxygen, no nitrogen, and no possibility for life. The mass of the universe has to be exquisitely fine-tuned.
ANKERBERG: How many galaxies are there in the universe?
ROSS: The James Webb Space Telescope is telling us we’re dealing with about two trillion medium, large, and giant galaxies.
ANKERBERG: And do we need all of those?
ROSS: We need every bit of the universe. And keep in mind, all that stuff we see is only a quarter percent of the total stuff of the universe.
ANKERBERG: What’s the age of the universe?
ROSS: 13.79 billion years.
ANKERBERG: How long do stars burn?
ROSS: The really big stars burn up in a few hundred thousand years. Stars tinier than the Sun can take as long as a trillion years to burn up.
ANKERBERG: What’s the age of the Earth?
ROSS: 4.5662 billion years.
ANKERBERG: I love how precise your decimal points are. Let’s take you to the Sun. We take the Sun for granted all the time, but it’s so important. Just give me an idea, what’s the diameter of the Sun?
ROSS: It’s about 865,000 miles in diameter.
ANKERBERG: How many Earths would it take to fill up the Sun?
ROSS: About 1.3 million Earths.
ANKERBERG: That gives you an idea of how big the Sun is.
ROSS: And the Sun is not the biggest star. There are stars way bigger than the Sun.
ANKERBERG: It’s interesting that the Sun is just right for us. If it were any closer, we’d burn up; any further, and we’d freeze. And it took a while for God to get it to the spot where He could bring humans on the scene. Tell us how He did that.
ROSS: God created bacteria 3.8 billion years ago—a vast quantity of diverse microbes. They began to chemically transform both the atmosphere and the chemistry of the Earth’s surface. After three billion years of microbial activity, the planet was ready for animals. But it took a certain quantity of oxygen in the atmosphere for human beings to be able to exist. God also recognized that the Sun we orbit is the most stable of all stars, but it doesn’t reach maximum stability until it burns up half of its nuclear fuel. That takes four and a half billion years. So, humans are existing in the narrow time window in the history of the Sun and Earth in which we can thrive and have global civilization.
ANKERBERG: Interesting. I’ve got another question for you, because 50% or more of Americans, and especially more than Europeans and South Americans, believe that UFOs and extraterrestrials have come to Earth. But first, how fast is the speed of light?
ROSS: 186,000 miles per second.
ANKERBERG: So God’s put a speed limit on the universe. You can’t go any faster than that. To illustrate how fast that is, if I say “Hello,” by the time I finish, light would have gone around the Earth seven and a half times. That’s pretty fast! Now, our spacecraft can’t go like Captain Kirk, right? We’re limited to about 1% of the speed of light. Why?
ROSS: E=MC². The faster you travel, the more damage your ship will take from particles, dust, and cosmic rays in interstellar space. If you double your speed, the damage increases fourfold. The bigger the ship, the more impacts it takes, so spacecraft can’t be larger than 10 centimeters across.
ANKERBERG: Which is 3.9 inches long. And how long would it take for even a tiny spacecraft to get to the nearest planetary system?
ROSS: At 1% of the speed of light, it would take 42 years to reach the nearest star system.
ANKERBERG: Right. Now, astronomers have ruled out planets within 250 light years of Earth as suitable for advanced life, correct?
ROSS: Yes, and if you’re talking about 25,000 years for one trip, it becomes unrealistic for life forms to travel those distances.
ANKERBERG: Let’s switch gears a bit and talk about the Sun. If it were any closer or farther, we couldn’t survive. Tell us about the process that brought the Sun into its stable position for life to thrive.
ROSS: The Sun had to burn through half of its nuclear fuel over 4.5 billion years to reach its stable state. Now that it’s stable, we live in a narrow time window where humans can thrive, but this stability won’t last forever.
ANKERBERG: You’ve spent 1,500 hours a year looking through telescopes. Tell me, what have you been looking for?
ROSS: When I was doing professional astronomy at Caltech and the University of Toronto, I was mainly studying quasars and galaxies during that period.
ANKERBERG: You never saw a UFO or extraterrestrial, correct?
ROSS: No, I’ve never had a UFO encounter in my entire life.
ANKERBERG: But other astronomers who got only a few hours on telescopes claimed to have seen UFOs. Why is that?
ROSS: Those astronomers were deeply involved in the occult. It’s another example of how, as the Bible suggests, those with occult involvement seem more likely to experience such phenomena.
ANKERBERG: We’ve seen numerous examples of people claiming demonic encounters. Could you share a story about a young couple in your church who moved into a house where strange things started happening?
ROSS: Yes. A couple in our church bought a house and found one room colder than the others, with objects floating in the air. After some searching, we found an astrological forecaster in the garage rafters. When we destroyed it, the disturbances stopped immediately.
ANKERBERG: Many people around the world who have demonic experiences claim that their homes become peaceful after listening to the Bible on audio. Have you encountered anything like that?
ROSS: Yes, I’ve seen situations where people playing the Bible on audio drive demons away. Demons despise the Word of God, and after hearing it continuously, they leave.
ANKERBERG: What would you say to those who struggle with recurring nightmares or demonic experiences?
ROSS: If you’re experiencing recurring terrifying nightmares, it might be due to occult involvement. Find the occult connection, whether it’s in your life or through your relatives, and confess those sins to God. Repenting breaks the link.
