NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has recently detected a strange “wall” of hydrogen near the edge of the solar system. This wall essentially encircles the orbit of every planet and other space object around the Sun.
New Horizons’ UV spectrometer, nicknamed Alice, was the first to discover the unusual ultraviolet glow emanating from the mass of hydrogen molecules.
In a Science News interview, Southwest Research Institute Author Leslie Young commented, “We’re seeing the threshold between being in the solar neighborhood and being in the galaxy.”
Following the revelation, some experts have hypothesized the hydrogen “donut” is liken to Earth’s aurora borealis. Our Sun constantly produces solar winds composed of charged (hydrogen and other) particles that extend not only into our own atmosphere, but far into the reaches of deep space. These winds may eventually come to a point at the edge of the solar system where they slow down and stop, thus forming a near-perfect sphere in our little corner of the galaxy.
Others believe the biblical firmament has finally been found. Director Amalia Hansen of Canada’s Newfoundland Religious Studies Organization claims NASA’s discovery supports a particular verse found in the Old Testament:
“Data from the New Horizons spacecraft indicates our original interpretation that the firmament from the Bible envelops only planet Earth is wrong.”
The exact passage Hansen is referring to is Genesis 1:6-8 (King James Bible):
6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7: And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Hansen continued:
“As you can see, it is quite easy to interpret the initial word ‘waters’ to mean Earth’s oceans. The firmament God created, which exists in the midst of the divided waters, is called Heaven.”
“What if instead of the waters representing our seas, they were actually space itself. Perhaps the firmament is located between the space found inside and outside of our very own solar system.”
“This is fascinating because the ‘hydrogen wall’ that’s currently baffling so many scientists might really be Heaven itself!”
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