| 'Loose
Thread Quilters - 'Ancient Ireland' 4. The Heavens Declare - Margaret Woodside This quilt was inspired by a visit to the Astro Park behind Armagh Planetarium where you can walk up ‘The Hill of Infinity’ - a scaled model of the solar system from the sun to the edge of the known universe. Light travels through space at a constant speed (299,792,458 metres per second). A light year is 10 million million kilometres. The nearest star is 4 light years away. When we use light and time as measuring tools for distance, we
begin to glimpse the true vastness of our universe. The light reaching
us from the Pole Star left the sun in the 13th century just after
the Normans landed. Light from Orion left the sun in the early Christian
era approximately at the time of St Patrick. These are huge distances
of time and space that we can barely grasp - yet within such intangible
things there is structure and order, the planets are in their orbits,
the stars are in their places, the sun rises and sets in its perfect
reliable pattern. So even when we do not understand about black
holes and dark matter, we can see in this wonderful sky, the almighty
hand of the one who created and sustains it all.
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