Wednesday night, my team and I attended a stargazing tour in the Atacama Desert. This desert, due to its high altitude, nearly nonexistent cloud cover, dry air, and lack of light pollution, is one of the best places in the world to conduct astronomical observations. As our tour guide began interpreting the diamonds in the sky, God appeared.
In the Southern Hemisphere the Northern Star is not visible due to the latitude we are on the earth. Also, unlike the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere has no pole star to highlight the celestial pole. Thus, if you journey below the equator you must rely on Crux, The Southern Cross.
The ENTIRE Southern Hemisphere finds their way through a cross! Not only does this again scientifically prove God’s existence, it reflects our lives here on earth. As a child of God, we find our direction in life through Jesus dying on the Cross.
The Southern Cross is composed of five stars, Alpha Crucis (Acrux), Beta Crucis (Gracrux), Mimosa, Delta Cruis and the “Jewel Box” Cluster, forming the smallest constellation in the sky. This asterism is used to find the location of the Southern Celestial Pole and has been used by navigators for centuries. The longer bar of the cross-shaped star pattern points almost exactly to the South Pole. Many refer to this point as the “south solar pit” due to the lack of bright stars making it. Tracing a line from Gacrux to Acrux and counting that distance 4 ½ times out from Acrux will place you directly below the Southern Celestial Pole. From there you can determine all other cardinal directions.
Throughout history the Southern Cross has come to represent the lands that lie below. By no coincidence, a number of cultures in the southern latitudes have the Crux represented on their flags (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Brazil). The Crux was also an important symbol to the Egyptians and the Aborigines among other cultures. Egyptians saw it as a representative of where a sun goddess was crucified and the Aborigines as an ancestral connection. This again reveals God’s power and presence in the creation of every nation and tongue.
Lastly, God’s presence is proven through the historical observances of “who saw it first.” It is believed Amerigo Vespucci was the first European explorer to see the “Four Stars,” as he called them. Yet, Crux was visible in the United States everywhere some 5,000 years ago as well as in ancient Greece and Babylonia. The most astonishing fact is found in the writings of Richard Hinckley Allen, an expert in stellar nomenclature. He states, the Southern Cross was last seen in the Northern Hemisphere on the horizon of Jerusalem around the time that Christ was crucified and then was shifted out of view for the ensuing centuries due to the oscillation of the Earth’s axis.
The amazing thing is, this is only one of the millions of ways God proves his existence through the simplicity and vastness of his creation. If you know another way God reveals himself through creation (in a scientific manner) please share. I hope this blows your mind as much as it blew mine.
