What does the sun orbit?
The following is an email I received from brother Adam; may Allah Almighty always be pleased with him.
From: UFPPDatum@aol.com
To: truthspeaks@answering-christianity.com
Subject: What Does the Sun Orbit?
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 08:23:51 EST
Asalamualaikum, brother Osama,
I have a rebuttal to the verse below:
And He (i.e., Allah) it is Who created the night and the day, the sun and the moon. They float, each in a orbit (The Noble Quran, Ya'seen 21:33)
Some people who dare try to disprove Allah's religion quote this as proof of the Noble Qur'an's inaccuracy. "What does the sun orbit around?", they ask. This is a simple question, and can only be answered by someone with an upper-moderate knowledge of astronomy. The moon orbits the Earth. The Earth orbits the Sun. Shockingly, today's astronomers know that our Sun (on the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy) is orbiting the center of the Galaxy. Our galaxy is spiral (it kind of has dozens of "arms" spiraling outward), and our solar systems is on the edge of one of those arms.
Why we don't notice the Sun moving is because once every hundred million (much longer, actually) years, it makes a complete revolution throughout the entire galaxy ( ! ). Perhaps on the Day of Judgement, we will be in a different part of the galaxy, where scientists believe the laws of physics may not apply. Most of the universe is dark matter (we can't even see this), as we are a freckle on the face of an otherwise very smooth universe. Even that freckle is mostly anti-matter, so we are a freckle within a freckle. Our solar system has only one star, it is speculated most other systems have binary star system (two stars orbiting each other).
We are virtually one of a kind, except consider how gargantuan our freckle is. Regardless, even if a million other worlds like Earth with life exist in the universe, that's still a very rare gift (considering Allah made the whole universe, not just our freckle).
In closing the Sun does orbit something: the Galaxy. Who knows, maybe our Galaxy orbits a huge galaxy with the other galaxies. And that huge galaxy just thinks of our galaxy as another on of its satellites. And who knows how many huge galaxies there are, with their cluster of satellites, orbiting a super-galaxy. And super-galaxies orbiting ultra-galaxies. This is getting confusing.... only Allah knows. This playground is too big for us. Brother, I hope Allah will be pleased with me for assisting you. I believe He is already greatly pleased with you.
Your brother in Islam,
Brother Adam
Science in the Noble Quran and Islam.