The Urantia Book
PAPER 41
PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF THE LOCAL
UNIVERSE
Presented by an Archangel in collaboration with the Chief of
Nebadon Power Centers.
41:0.1 THE characteristic space phenomenon
which sets off each local creation from all others is the
presence of the Creative Spirit. All Nebadon is certainly
pervaded by the space presence of the Divine Minister of
Salvington, and such presence just as certainly terminates at
the outer borders of our local universe. That which is pervaded
by our local universe Mother Spirit is Nebadon; that which
extends beyond her space presence is outside Nebadon, being the
extra-Nebadon space regions of the superuniverse of Orvonton --
other local universes.
41:0.2 While the administrative organization
of the grand universe discloses a clear-cut division between the
governments of the central, super-, and local universes, and
while these divisions are astronomically paralleled in the space
separation of Havona and the seven superuniverses, no such clear
lines of physical demarcation set off the local creations. Even
the major and minor sectors of Orvonton are (to us) clearly
distinguishable, but it is not so easy to identify the physical
boundaries of the local universes. This is because these local
creations are administratively organized in accordance with
certain creative principles governing the segmentation of
the total energy charge of a superuniverse, whereas their
physical components, the spheres of space -- suns, dark islands,
planets, etc. -- take origin primarily from nebulae, and these
make their astronomical appearance in accordance with certain
precreative (transcendental) plans of the Architects of the
Master Universe.
41:0.3 One or more -- even many -- such
nebulae may be encompassed within the domain of a single local
universe even as Nebadon was physically assembled out of the
stellar and planetary progeny of Andronover and other nebulae.
The spheres of Nebadon are of diverse nebular ancestry, but they
all had a certain minimum commonness of space motion which was
so adjusted by the intelligent efforts of the power directors as
to produce our present aggregation of space bodies, which travel
along together as a contiguous unit over the orbits of the
superuniverse.
41:0.4 Such is the constitution of the local
star cloud of Nebadon, which today swings in an increasingly
settled orbit about the Sagittarius center of that minor sector
of Orvonton to which our local creation belongs.
1. THE NEBADON POWER CENTERS
41:1.1 The spiral and other nebulae, the
mother wheels of the spheres of space, are initiated by Paradise
force organizers; and following nebular evolution of gravity
response, they are superseded in superuniverse function by the
power centers and physical controllers, who thereupon assume
full responsibility for directing the physical evolution of the
ensuing generations of stellar and planetary offspring. This
physical supervision of the Nebadon preuniverse was, upon the
arrival of our Creator Son, immediately co-ordinated with his
plan for universe organization. Within the domain of this
Paradise Son of God the Supreme Power Centers and the Master
Physical Controllers collaborated with the later appearing
Morontia Power Supervisors and others to produce that vast
complex of communication lines, energy circuits, and power lanes
which firmly bind the manifold space bodies of Nebadon into one
integrated administrative unit.
41:1.2 One hundred Supreme Power Centers of
the fourth order are permanently assigned to our local universe.
These beings receive the incoming lines of power from the
third-order centers of Uversa and relay the down-stepped and
modified circuits to the power centers of our constellations and
systems. These power centers, in association, function to
produce the living system of control and equalization which
operates to maintain the balance and distribution of otherwise
fluctuating and variable energies. Power centers are not,
however, concerned with transient and local energy upheavals,
such as sun spots and system electric disturbances; light and
electricity are not the basic energies of space; they are
secondary and subsidiary manifestations.
41:1.3 The one hundred local universe centers
are stationed on Salvington, where they function at the exact
energy center of that sphere. Architectural spheres, such as
Salvington, Edentia, and Jerusem, are lighted, heated, and
energized by methods which make them quite independent of the
suns of space. These spheres were constructed -- made to order
-- by the power centers and physical controllers and were
designed to exert a powerful influence over energy distribution.
Basing their activities on such focal points of energy control,
the power centers, by their living presences, directionize and
channelize the physical energies of space. And these energy
circuits are basic to all physical-material and
morontia-spiritual phenomena.
41:1.4 Ten Supreme Power Centers of the fifth
order are assigned to each of Nebadon's primary subdivisions,
the one hundred constellations. In Norlatiadek, your
constellation, they are not stationed on the headquarters sphere
but are situated at the center of the enormous stellar system
which constitutes the physical core of the constellation. On
Edentia there are ten associated mechanical controllers and ten
frandalanks who are in perfect and constant liaison with the
near-by power centers.
41:1.5 One Supreme Power Center of the sixth
order is stationed at the exact gravity focus of each local
system. In the system of Satania the assigned power center
occupies a dark island of space located at the astronomic center
of the system. Many of these dark islands are vast dynamos which
mobilize and directionize certain space-energies, and these
natural circumstances are effectively utilized by the Satania
Power Center, whose living mass functions as a liaison with the
higher centers, directing the streams of more materialized power
to the Master Physical Controllers on the evolutionary planets
of space.
2. THE SATANIA PHYSICAL CONTROLLERS
41:2.1 While the Master Physical Controllers
serve with the power centers throughout the grand universe,
their functions in a local system, such as Satania, are more
easy of comprehension. Satania is one of one hundred local
systems which make up the administrative organization of the
constellation of Norlatiadek, having as immediate neighbors the
systems of Sandmatia, Assuntia, Porogia, Sortoria, Rantulia, and
Glantonia. The Norlatiadek systems differ in many respects, but
all are evolutionary and progressive, very much like Satania.
41:2.2 Satania itself is composed of over
seven thousand astronomical groups, or physical systems, few of
which had an origin similar to that of your solar system. The
astronomic center of Satania is an enormous dark island of space
which, with its attendant spheres, is situated not far from the
headquarters of the system government.
41:2.3 Except for the presence of the assigned
power center, the supervision of the entire physical-energy
system of Satania is centered on Jerusem. A Master Physical
Controller, stationed on this headquarters sphere, works in
co-ordination with the system power center, serving as liaison
chief of the power inspectors headquartered on Jerusem and
functioning throughout the local system.
41:2.4 The circuitizing and channelizing of
energy is supervised by the five hundred thousand living and
intelligent energy manipulators scattered throughout Satania.
Through the action of such physical controllers the supervising
power centers are in complete and perfect control of a majority
of the basic energies of space, including the emanations of
highly heated orbs and the dark energy-charged spheres. This
group of living entities can mobilize, transform, transmute,
manipulate, and transmit nearly all of the physical energies of
organized space.
41:2.5 Life has inherent capacity for the
mobilization and transmutation of universal energy. You are
familiar with the action of vegetable life in transforming the
material energy of light into the varied manifestations of the
vegetable kingdom. You also know something of the method whereby
this vegetative energy can be converted into the phenomena of
animal activities, but you know practically nothing of the
technique of the power directors and the physical controllers,
who are endowed with ability to mobilize, transform,
directionize, and concentrate the manifold energies of space.
41:2.6 These beings of the energy realms do
not directly concern themselves with energy as a component
factor of living creatures, not even with the domain of
physiological chemistry. They are sometimes concerned with the
physical preliminaries of life, with the elaboration of those
energy systems which may serve as the physical vehicles for the
living energies of elementary material organisms. In a way the
physical controllers are related to the preliving manifestations
of material energy as the adjutant mind-spirits are concerned
with the prespiritual functions of material mind.
41:2.7 These intelligent creatures of power
control and energy direction must adjust their technique on each
sphere in accordance with the physical constitution and
architecture of that planet. They unfailingly utilize the
calculations and deductions of their respective staffs of
physicists and other technical advisers regarding the local
influence of highly heated suns and other types of supercharged
stars. Even the enormous cold and dark giants of space and the
swarming clouds of star dust must be reckoned with; all of these
material things are concerned in the practical problems of
energy manipulation.
41:2.8 The power-energy supervision of the
evolutionary inhabited worlds is the responsibility of the
Master Physical Controllers, but these beings are not
responsible for all energy misbehavior on Urantia. There are a
number of reasons for such disturbances, some of which are
beyond the domain and control of the physical custodians.
Urantia is in the lines of tremendous energies, a small planet
in the circuit of enormous masses, and the local controllers
sometimes employ enormous numbers of their order in an effort to
equalize these lines of energy. They do fairly well with regard
to the physical circuits of Satania but have trouble insulating
against the powerful Norlatiadek currents.
3. OUR STARRY ASSOCIATES
41:3.1 There are upward of two thousand
brilliant suns pouring forth light and energy in Satania, and
your own sun is an average blazing orb. Of the thirty suns
nearest yours, only three are brighter. The Universe Power
Directors initiate the specialized currents of energy which play
between the individual stars and their respective systems. These
solar furnaces, together with the dark giants of space, serve
the power centers and physical controllers as way stations for
the effective concentrating and directionizing of the energy
circuits of the material creations.
41:3.2 The suns of Nebadon are not unlike
those of other universes. The material composition of all suns,
dark islands, planets, and satellites, even meteors, is quite
identical. These suns have an average diameter of about one
million miles, that of your own solar orb being slightly less.
The largest star in the universe, the stellar cloud Antares, is
four hundred and fifty times the diameter of your sun and is
sixty million times its volume. But there is abundant space to
accommodate all of these enormous suns. They have just as much
comparative elbow room in space as one dozen oranges would have
if they were circulating about throughout the interior of
Urantia, and were the planet a hollow globe.
41:3.3 When suns that are too large are thrown
off a nebular mother wheel, they soon break up or form double
stars. All suns are originally truly gaseous, though they may
later transiently exist in a semiliquid state. When your sun
attained this quasi-liquid state of supergas pressure, it was
not sufficiently large to split equatorially, this being one
type of double star formation.
41:3.4 When less than one tenth the size of
your sun, these fiery spheres rapidly contract, condense, and
cool. When upwards of thirty times its size -- rather thirty
times the gross content of actual material -- suns readily split
into two separate bodies, either becoming the centers of new
systems or else remaining in each other's gravity grasp and
revolving about a common center as one type of double star.
41:3.5 The most recent of the major cosmic
eruptions in Orvonton was the extraordinary double star
explosion, the light of which reached Urantia in A.D. 1572. This
conflagration was so intense that the explosion was clearly
visible in broad daylight.
41:3.6 Not all stars are solid, but many of
the older ones are. Some of the reddish, faintly glimmering
stars have acquired a density at the center of their enormous
masses which would be expressed by saying that one cubic inch of
such a star, if on Urantia, would weigh six thousand pounds. The
enormous pressure, accompanied by loss of heat and circulating
energy, has resulted in bringing the orbits of the basic
material units closer and closer together until they now closely
approach the status of electronic condensation. This process of
cooling and contraction may continue to the limiting and
critical explosion point of ultimatonic condensation.
41:3.7 Most of the giant suns are relatively
young; most of the dwarf stars are old, but not all. The
collisional dwarfs may be very young and may glow with an
intense white light, never having known an initial red stage of
youthful shining. Both very young and very old suns usually
shine with a reddish glow. The yellow tinge indicates moderate
youth or approaching old age, but the brilliant white light
signifies robust and extended adult life.
41:3.8 While all adolescent suns do not pass
through a pulsating stage, at least not visibly, when looking
out into space you may observe many of these younger stars whose
gigantic respiratory heaves require from two to seven days to
complete a cycle. Your own sun still carries a diminishing
legacy of the mighty upswellings of its younger days, but the
period has lengthened from the former three and one-half day
pulsations to the present eleven and one-half year sunspot
cycles.
41:3.9 Stellar variables have numerous
origins. In some double stars the tides caused by rapidly
changing distances as the two bodies swing around their orbits
also occasion periodic fluctuations of light. These gravity
variations produce regular and recurrent flares, just as the
capture of meteors by the accretion of energy-material at the
surface would result in a comparatively sudden flash of light
which would speedily recede to normal brightness for that sun.
Sometimes a sun will capture a stream of meteors in a line of
lessened gravity opposition, and occasionally collisions cause
stellar flare-ups, but the majority of such phenomena are wholly
due to internal fluctuations.
41:3.10 In one group of variable stars the
period of light fluctuation is directly dependent on luminosity,
and knowledge of this fact enables astronomers to utilize such
suns as universe lighthouses or accurate measuring points for
the further exploration of distant star clusters. By this
technique it is possible to measure stellar distances most
precisely up to more than one million light-years. Better
methods of space measurement and improved telescopic technique
will sometime more fully disclose the ten grand divisions of the
superuniverse of Orvonton; you will at least recognize eight of
these immense sectors as enormous and fairly symmetrical star
clusters.
4. SUN DENSITY
41:4.1 The mass of your sun is slightly
greater than the estimate of your physicists, who have reckoned
it as about two octillion (2 x 1027) tons. It now
exists about halfway between the most dense and the most diffuse
stars, having about one and one-half times the density of water.
But your sun is neither a liquid nor a solid -- it is gaseous --
and this is true notwithstanding the difficulty of explaining
how gaseous matter can attain this and even much greater
densities.
41:4.2 Gaseous, liquid, and solid states are
matters of atomic-molecular relationships, but density is a
relationship of space and mass. Density varies directly with the
quantity of mass in space and inversely with the amount of space
in mass, the space between the central cores of matter and the
particles which whirl around these centers as well as the space
within such material particles.
41:4.3 Cooling stars can be physically gaseous
and tremendously dense at the same time. You are not familiar
with the solar supergases, but these and other unusual
forms of matter explain how even nonsolid suns can attain a
density equal to iron -- about the same as Urantia -- and yet be
in a highly heated gaseous state and continue to function as
suns. The atoms in these dense supergases are exceptionally
small; they contain few electrons. Such suns have also largely
lost their free ultimatonic stores of energy.
41:4.4 One of your near-by suns, which started
life with about the same mass as yours, has now contracted
almost to the size of Urantia, having become sixty thousand
times as dense as your sun. The weight of this hot-cold
gaseous-solid is about one ton per cubic inch. And still this
sun shines with a faint reddish glow, the senile glimmer of a
dying monarch of light.
41:4.5 Most of the suns, however, are not so
dense. One of your nearer neighbors has a density exactly equal
to that of your atmosphere at sea level. If you were in the
interior of this sun, you would be unable to discern anything.
And temperature permitting, you could penetrate the majority of
the suns which twinkle in the night sky and notice no more
matter than you perceive in the air of your earthly living
rooms.
41:4.6 The massive sun of Veluntia, one of the
largest in Orvonton, has a density only one one-thousandth that
of Urantia's atmosphere. Were it in composition similar to your
atmosphere and not superheated, it would be such a vacuum that
human beings would speedily suffocate if they were in or on it.
41:4.7 Another of the Orvonton giants now has
a surface temperature a trifle under three thousand degrees. Its
diameter is over three hundred million miles -- ample room to
accommodate your sun and the present orbit of the earth. And
yet, for all this enormous size, over forty million times that
of your sun, its mass is only about thirty times greater. These
enormous suns have an extending fringe that reaches almost from
one to the other.
5. SOLAR RADIATION
41:5.1 That the suns of space are not very
dense is proved by the steady streams of escaping
light-energies. Too great a density would retain light by
opacity until the light-energy pressure reached the explosion
point. There is a tremendous light or gas pressure within a sun
to cause it to shoot forth such a stream of energy as to
penetrate space for millions upon millions of miles to energize,
light, and heat the distant planets. Fifteen feet of surface of
the density of Urantia would effectually prevent the escape of
all X rays and light-energies from a sun until the rising
internal pressure of accumulating energies resulting from atomic
dismemberment overcame gravity with a tremendous outward
explosion.
41:5.2 Light, in the presence of the
propulsive gases, is highly explosive when confined at high
temperatures by opaque retaining walls. Light is real. As you
value energy and power on your world, sunlight would be
economical at a million dollars a pound.
41:5.3 The interior of your sun is a vast
X-ray generator. The suns are supported from within by the
incessant bombardment of these mighty emanations.
41:5.4 It requires more than one-half million
years for an X-ray-stimulated electron to work its way from the
very center of an average sun up to the solar surface, whence it
starts out on its space adventure, maybe to warm an inhabited
planet, to be captured by a meteor, to participate in the birth
of an atom, to be attracted by a highly charged dark island of
space, or to find its space flight terminated by a final plunge
into the surface of a sun similar to the one of its origin.
41:5.5 The X rays of a sun's interior charge
the highly heated and agitated electrons with sufficient energy
to carry them out through space, past the hosts of detaining
influences of intervening matter and, in spite of divergent
gravity attractions, on to the distant spheres of the remote
systems. The great energy of velocity required to escape the
gravity clutch of a sun is sufficient to insure that the sunbeam
will travel on with unabated velocity until it encounters
considerable masses of matter; whereupon it is quickly
transformed into heat with the liberation of other energies.
41:5.6 Energy, whether as light or in other
forms, in its flight through space moves straight forward. The
actual particles of material existence traverse space like a
fusillade. They go in a straight and unbroken line or procession
except as they are acted on by superior forces, and except as
they ever obey the linear-gravity pull inherent in material mass
and the circular-gravity presence of the Isle of Paradise.
41:5.7 Solar energy may seem to be propelled
in waves, but that is due to the action of coexistent and
diverse influences. A given form of organized energy does not
proceed in waves but in direct lines. The presence of a second
or a third form of force-energy may cause the stream under
observation to appear to travel in wavy formation, just
as, in a blinding rainstorm accompanied by a heavy wind, the
water sometimes appears to fall in sheets or to descend in
waves. The raindrops are coming down in a direct line of
unbroken procession, but the action of the wind is such as to
give the visible appearance of sheets of water and waves of
raindrops.
41:5.8 The action of certain secondary and
other undiscovered energies present in the space regions of your
local universe is such that solar-light emanations appear to
execute certain wavy phenomena as well as to be chopped up into
infinitesimal portions of definite length and weight. And,
practically considered, that is exactly what happens. You can
hardly hope to arrive at a better understanding of the behavior
of light until such a time as you acquire a clearer concept of
the interaction and interrelationship of the various
space-forces and solar energies operating in the space regions
of Nebadon. Your present confusion is also due to your
incomplete grasp of this problem as it involves the
interassociated activities of the personal and nonpersonal
control of the master universe -- the presences, the
performances, and the co-ordination of the Conjoint Actor and
the Unqualified Absolute.
6. CALCIUM -- THE WANDERER OF SPACE
41:6.1 In deciphering spectral phenomena, it
should be remembered that space is not empty; that light, in
traversing space, is sometimes slightly modified by the various
forms of energy and matter which circulate in all organized
space. Some of the lines indicating unknown matter which appear
in the spectra of your sun are due to modifications of
well-known elements which are floating throughout space in
shattered form, the atomic casualties of the fierce encounters
of the solar elemental battles. Space is pervaded by these
wandering derelicts, especially sodium and calcium.
41:6.2 Calcium is, in fact, the chief element
of the matter-permeation of space throughout Orvonton. Our whole
superuniverse is sprinkled with minutely pulverized stone. Stone
is literally the basic building matter for the planets and
spheres of space. The cosmic cloud, the great space blanket,
consists for the most part of the modified atoms of calcium. The
stone atom is one of the most prevalent and persistent of the
elements. It not only endures solar ionization -- splitting --
but persists in an associative identity even after it has been
battered by the destructive X rays and shattered by the high
solar temperatures. Calcium possesses an individuality and a
longevity excelling all of the more common forms of matter.
41:6.3 As your physicists have suspected,
these mutilated remnants of solar calcium literally ride the
light beams for varied distances, and thus their widespread
dissemination throughout space is tremendously facilitated. The
sodium atom, under certain modifications, is also capable of
light and energy locomotion. The calcium feat is all the more
remarkable since this element has almost twice the mass of
sodium. Local space-permeation by calcium is due to the fact
that it escapes from the solar photosphere, in modified form, by
literally riding the outgoing sunbeams. Of all the solar
elements, calcium, notwithstanding its comparative bulk --
containing as it does twenty revolving electrons -- is the most
successful in escaping from the solar interior to the realms of
space. This explains why there is a calcium layer, a gaseous
stone surface, on the sun six thousand miles thick; and this
despite the fact that nineteen lighter elements, and numerous
heavier ones, are underneath.
41:6.4 Calcium is an active and versatile
element at solar temperatures. The stone atom has two agile and
loosely attached electrons in the two outer electronic circuits,
which are very close together. Early in the atomic struggle it
loses its outer electron; whereupon it engages in a masterful
act of juggling the nineteenth electron back and forth between
the nineteenth and twentieth circuits of electronic revolution.
By tossing this nineteenth electron back and forth between its
own orbit and that of its lost companion more than twenty-five
thousand times a second, a mutilated stone atom is able
partially to defy gravity and thus successfully to ride the
emerging streams of light and energy, the sunbeams, to liberty
and adventure. This calcium atom moves outward by alternate
jerks of forward propulsion, grasping and letting go the sunbeam
about twenty-five thousand times each second. And this is why
stone is the chief component of the worlds of space. Calcium is
the most expert solar-prison escaper.
41:6.5 The agility of this acrobatic calcium
electron is indicated by the fact that, when tossed by the
temperature-X-ray solar forces to the circle of the higher
orbit, it only remains in that orbit for about one one-millionth
of a second; but before the electric-gravity power of the atomic
nucleus pulls it back into its old orbit, it is able to complete
one million revolutions about the atomic center.
41:6.6 Your sun has parted with an enormous
quantity of its calcium, having lost tremendous amounts during
the times of its convulsive eruptions in connection with the
formation of the solar system. Much of the solar calcium is now
in the outer crust of the sun.
41:6.7 It should be remembered that spectral
analyses show only sun-surface compositions. For example: Solar
spectra exhibit many iron lines, but iron is not the chief
element in the sun. This phenomenon is almost wholly due to the
present temperature of the sun's surface, a little less than
6,000 degrees, this temperature being very favorable to the
registry of the iron spectrum.
7. SOURCES OF SOLAR ENERGY
41:7.1 The internal temperature of many of the
suns, even your own, is much higher than is commonly believed.
In the interior of a sun practically no whole atoms exist; they
are all more or less shattered by the intensive X-ray
bombardment which is indigenous to such high temperatures.
Regardless of what material elements may appear in the outer
layers of a sun, those in the interior are rendered very similar
by the dissociative action of the disruptive X rays. X ray is
the great leveler of atomic existence.
41:7.2 The surface temperature of your sun is
almost 6,000 degrees, but it rapidly increases as the interior
is penetrated until it attains the unbelievable height of about
35,000,000 degrees in the central regions. (All of these
temperatures refer to your Fahrenheit scale.)
41:7.3 All of these phenomena are indicative
of enormous energy expenditure, and the sources of solar energy,
named in the order of their importance, are:
1. Annihilation of atoms and,
eventually, of electrons.
2. Transmutation of elements,
including the radioactive group of energies thus liberated.
3. The accumulation and transmission
of certain universal space-energies.
4. Space matter and meteors which
are incessantly diving into the blazing suns.
5. Solar contraction; the cooling
and consequent contraction of a sun yields energy and heat
sometimes greater than that supplied by space matter.
6. Gravity action at high
temperatures transforms certain circuitized power into radiative
energies.
7. Recaptive light and other matter
which are drawn back into the sun after having left it, together
with other energies having extrasolar origin.
41:7.4
There exists a regulating blanket of hot gases (sometimes
millions of degrees in temperature) which envelops the suns, and
which acts to stabilize heat loss and otherwise prevent
hazardous fluctuations of heat dissipation. During the active
life of a sun the internal temperature of 35,000,000 degrees
remains about the same quite regardless of the progressive fall
of the external temperature.
41:7.5 You might try to visualize 35,000,000
degrees of heat, in association with certain gravity pressures,
as the electronic boiling point. Under such pressure and at such
temperature all atoms are degraded and broken up into their
electronic and other ancestral components; even the electrons
and other associations of ultimatons may be broken up, but the
suns are not able to degrade the ultimatons.
41:7.6 These solar temperatures operate to
enormously speed up the ultimatons and the electrons, at least
such of the latter as continue to maintain their existence under
these conditions. You will realize what high temperature means
by way of the acceleration of ultimatonic and electronic
activities when you pause to consider that one drop of ordinary
water contains over one billion trillions of atoms. This is the
energy of more than one hundred horsepower exerted continuously
for two years. The total heat now given out by the solar system
sun each second is sufficient to boil all the water in all the
oceans on Urantia in just one second of time.
41:7.7 Only those suns which function in the
direct channels of the main streams of universe energy can shine
on forever. Such solar furnaces blaze on indefinitely, being
able to replenish their material losses by the intake of
space-force and analogous circulating energy. But stars far
removed from these chief channels of recharging are destined to
undergo energy depletion -- gradually cool off and eventually
burn out.
41:7.8 Such dead or dying suns can be
rejuvenated by collisional impact or can be recharged by certain
nonluminous energy islands of space or through gravity-robbery
of near-by smaller suns or systems. The majority of dead suns
will experience revivification by these or other evolutionary
techniques. Those which are not thus eventually recharged are
destined to undergo disruption by mass explosion when the
gravity condensation attains the critical level of ultimatonic
condensation of energy pressure. Such disappearing suns thus
become energy of the rarest form, admirably adapted to energize
other more favorably situated suns.
8. SOLAR-ENERGY REACTIONS
41:8.1 In those suns which are encircuited in
the space-energy channels, solar energy is liberated by various
complex nuclear-reaction chains, the most common of which is the
hydrogen-carbon-helium reaction. In this metamorphosis, carbon
acts as an energy catalyst since it is in no way actually
changed by this process of converting hydrogen into helium.
Under certain conditions of high temperature the hydrogen
penetrates the carbon nuclei. Since the carbon cannot hold more
than four such protons, when this saturation state is attained,
it begins to emit protons as fast as new ones arrive. In this
reaction the ingoing hydrogen particles come forth as a helium
atom.
41:8.2 Reduction of hydrogen content increases
the luminosity of a sun. In the suns destined to burn out, the
height of luminosity is attained at the point of hydrogen
exhaustion. Subsequent to this point, brilliance is maintained
by the resultant process of gravity contraction. Eventually,
such a star will become a so-called white dwarf, a highly
condensed sphere.
41:8.3 In large suns -- small circular nebulae
-- when hydrogen is exhausted and gravity contraction ensues, if
such a body is not sufficiently opaque to retain the internal
pressure of support for the outer gas regions, then a sudden
collapse occurs. The gravity-electric changes give origin to
vast quantities of tiny particles devoid of electric potential,
and such particles readily escape from the solar interior, thus
bringing about the collapse of a gigantic sun within a few days.
It was such an emigration of these "runaway particles" that
occasioned the collapse of the giant nova of the Andromeda
nebula about fifty years ago. This vast stellar body collapsed
in forty minutes of Urantia time.
41:8.4 As a rule, the vast extrusion of matter
continues to exist about the residual cooling sun as extensive
clouds of nebular gases. And all this explains the origin of
many types of irregular nebulae, such as the Crab nebula, which
had its origin about nine hundred years ago, and which still
exhibits the mother sphere as a lone star near the center of
this irregular nebular mass.
9. SUN STABILITY
41:9.1 The larger suns maintain such a gravity
control over their electrons that light escapes only with the
aid of the powerful X rays. These helper rays penetrate all
space and are concerned in the maintenance of the basic
ultimatonic associations of energy. The great energy losses in
the early days of a sun, subsequent to its attainment of maximum
temperature -- upwards of 35,000,000 degrees -- are not so much
due to light escape as to ultimatonic leakage. These ultimaton
energies escape out into space, to engage in the adventure of
electronic association and energy materialization, as a
veritable energy blast during adolescent solar times.
41:9.2 Atoms and electrons are subject to
gravity. The ultimatons are not subject to local gravity, the
interplay of material attraction, but they are fully obedient to
absolute or Paradise gravity, to the trend, the swing, of the
universal and eternal circle of the universe of universes.
Ultimatonic energy does not obey the linear or direct gravity
attraction of near-by or remote material masses, but it does
ever swing true to the circuit of the great ellipse of the
far-flung creation.
41:9.3 Your own solar center radiates almost
one hundred billion tons of actual matter annually, while the
giant suns lose matter at a prodigious rate during their earlier
growth, the first billion years. A sun's life becomes stable
after the maximum of internal temperature is reached, and the
subatomic energies begin to be released. And it is just at this
critical point that the larger suns are given to convulsive
pulsations.
41:9.4 Sun stability is wholly dependent on
the equilibrium between gravity-heat contention -- tremendous
pressures counterbalanced by unimagined temperatures. The
interior gas elasticity of the suns upholds the overlying layers
of varied materials, and when gravity and heat are in
equilibrium, the weight of the outer materials exactly equals
the temperature pressure of the underlying and interior gases.
In many of the younger stars continued gravity condensation
produces ever-heightening internal temperatures, and as internal
heat increases, the interior X-ray pressure of supergas winds
becomes so great that, in connection with the centrifugal
motion, a sun begins to throw its exterior layers off into
space, thus redressing the imbalance between gravity and heat.
41:9.5 Your own sun has long since attained
relative equilibrium between its expansion and contraction
cycles, those disturbances which produce the gigantic pulsations
of many of the younger stars. Your sun is now passing out of its
six billionth year. At the present time it is functioning
through the period of greatest economy. It will shine on as of
present efficiency for more than twenty-five billion years. It
will probably experience a partially efficient period of decline
as long as the combined periods of its youth and stabilized
function.
10. ORIGIN OF INHABITED WORLDS
41:10.1 Some of the variable stars, in or near
the state of maximum pulsation, are in process of giving origin
to subsidiary systems, many of which will eventually be much
like your own sun and its revolving planets. Your sun was in
just such a state of mighty pulsation when the massive Angona
system swung into near approach, and the outer surface of the
sun began to erupt veritable streams -- continuous sheets -- of
matter. This kept up with ever-increasing violence until nearest
apposition, when the limits of solar cohesion were reached and a
vast pinnacle of matter, the ancestor of the solar system, was
disgorged. In similar circumstances the closest approach of the
attracting body sometimes draws off whole planets, even a
quarter or third of a sun. These major extrusions form certain
peculiar cloud-bound types of worlds, spheres much like Jupiter
and Saturn.
41:10.2 The majority of solar systems,
however, had an origin entirely different from yours, and this
is true even of those which were produced by gravity-tidal
technique. But no matter what technique of world building
obtains, gravity always produces the solar system type of
creation; that is, a central sun or dark island with planets,
satellites, subsatellites, and meteors.
41:10.3 The physical aspects of the individual
worlds are largely determined by mode of origin, astronomical
situation, and physical environment. Age, size, rate of
revolution, and velocity through space are also determining
factors. Both the gas-contraction and the solid-accretion worlds
are characterized by mountains and, during their earlier life,
when not too small, by water and air. The molten-split and
collisional worlds are sometimes without extensive mountain
ranges.
41:10.4 During the earlier ages of all these
new worlds, earthquakes are frequent, and they are all
characterized by great physical disturbances; especially is this
true of the gas-contraction spheres, the worlds born of the
immense nebular rings which are left behind in the wake of the
early condensation and contraction of certain individual suns.
Planets having a dual origin like Urantia pass through a less
violent and stormy youthful career. Even so, your world
experienced an early phase of mighty upheavals, characterized by
volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, and terrific storms.
41:10.5 Urantia is comparatively isolated on
the outskirts of Satania, your solar system, with one exception,
being the farthest removed from Jerusem, while Satania itself is
next to the outermost system of Norlatiadek, and this
constellation is now traversing the outer fringe of Nebadon. You
were truly among the least of all creation until Michael's
bestowal elevated your planet to a position of honor and great
universe interest. Sometimes the last is first, while truly the
least becomes greatest.
41:10.6
Presented by an Archangel in collaboration with the Chief of
Nebadon Power Centers.