We live in a world where there is a constant exchange between day and night, while we count our time in seconds, minutes, and hours.

The dark knight

Every day that passes, draws us near to our death point. Death is the most certain thing that would happen to every human.

Death is so certain, that the only question we can ask is "when will it happen". Death sometimes comes like a thief in the night snatching our loved ones away from us.

Most people hope to grow old and die peacefully, perhaps old enough to see their grandkids or great-grandkids. Whatever it is we all want, the reality is crueler than our imagination. Not everyone dies peacefully as they all wish. Some die in severe pain or accident that is so unbearable to think of.

After death?

Eh no! I am not here to scare anyone. I'm just stating the fact. Well since we all know that death is so certain, then big question is what happens after death?

Some religions believe that humans after death will reincarnate to take up a different. But the two major religions in the world (Christianity and Islam) don’t preach that.

These two popular religions believe in an afterlife, where we get judged for all the actions we take here on earth. Those who fit into the merit list would be able to enter a place called paradise, and those who are deemed to be bad or cruel are sent to a place for purgation or punishment.

The ancient Egyptian religion also believes in the afterlife and redemption and that is why the pharaohs are buried with so many rites.

Does the afterlife truly exist? According to science, there is no proof of its existence. Science also has not been able to prove that a soul or spirit (what some religions believe leaves a human body after death) truly exists.

Well, some would say science dwells much on the physical world and it can’t explain or see the spiritual world. (This would make a topic for another day).

The Cosmos

Do you remember in the past how the sky used to be regarded as where "heaven" (a place where God or gods live)? But since earlier days of advanced astronomy, we were able to see that sky is just the earth’s atmosphere and beyond is a great void called “space”.

Space is a vast and endless void filled with millions of stars bigger than our sun and planets of different sizes.

The magnificence of Space is something that we humans can never fully comprehend.

Are we alone?

With such a discovery like this, the question now lies are there other beings existing out there in these galaxies. We have heard a lot of rumors and some unexplainable phenomena that many have considered alien sightings or aliens' space-crafts popularly called UFOs (unidentified flying objects).

But the truth is that we haven’t seen any credible source to show that there are aliens on earth or other galaxies, and while we wonder if they do exist or not the truth is that we might never know.

Why?

The distance between our solar system from other planetary systems or stars in our galaxies or other galaxies is so vast that it might take millions or billions of years to visit them even when moving at the speed of light.

You see it takes 8 minutes for the light from the sun to reach the earth. Some of the stars we see in the sky actually take millions of years for their light to reach us. Light has the fastest speed, and it is impossible to build a device that travels at its speed.

To understand how vast space is, I would be giving examples of the distance between Earth and its closest neighbors and how long it would take us to reach them.

Earth’s only natural satellite; the moon is about 386,400 kilometres away and it would take about 3 days for our current rockets to reach the moon. Imagine just the moon that's considered our satellite taking 3 days. Now mars one of the nearest planets to earth, is 480 million kilometres away, and it would take about seven months to travel in a rocket from earth to mars.

You might be wondering are these rockets that slow?

No, they aren’t, the distance is so vast instead. Rockets move faster than 16,200 km/h. A rocket can travel around the earth in under two hours. These space rockets are so fast that they are 20 times the speed of sound.

My conclusion

I believe in the creation and just like the Psalmist (King David) wrote in Psalm chapter 19 verse 1:

“The heavens (universe) declare the glory of God”.

The universe is unfathomable and no matter our development in science and technology, we can’t unlock its secret.

Thanks for reading