Amidst the dark clouds of gloom engulfing our state wherein issues regarding food adulteration and rampant destruction of Goa due to unscientific mining, haphazard growth of tourism, destruction of forests, pollution of rivers, dumping of garbage,sewage and industrial wastes across the length and breadth of Goa, we have been in search of a silver lining and contemplating a Goa Revolution.
To add salt to our wounds, we read in print, the church fighting accusations of sexual criminal charges against priests including the misuse of the ritual of confession! The purpose of this essay is to bring to focus before the Goans that the church has over its 2000 years history faced several challenges and come out stronger. The church always reflects on the historic past and works towards a promising future for the humanity.
For Goa in particular, our very own Catholic priest Fr. Anthony D’Souza from Mapusa has climbed up the chart of scientific findings in astronomy by technically proving that our twin galaxy M32p sister to our Milky Way galaxy was cannibalized about 2000 million years ago by our nearest galaxy Andromeda. Though the event was known the proof was still not established conclusively till now.
I had in several earlier articles stressed that the Catholic priests in particular have contributed significantly in the fields of genetic, biochemistry, botany and astronomy. Thus brushing aside the aged old beliefs, that the church is dogmatic and anti-scientific in its approach and responsible for snubbing and creativity and rational progress is totally false and unfounded.
If Fr. Anthony D’Souza has made Goans proud, it must be acknowledged that the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, with 125 years old voluminous data under its command, has helped many Catholic priests in particular, to meet the pinnacle of their success. How can we ever forget or sideline sensational work of the Belgian priest, working at the Vatican Astronomical observatory, whose work first scientifically demonstrated that our Universe was expanding. It was Fr. Georges Demaitre, who in 1929, held the great Albert Einstein, spell bound, when he proved that the Universe was created by the “Big Bang” from the single point of Energy about 13.4 billion years ago.
Fortunately, we have a Jesuit with science in his blood our Pope Francis; who actively promotes scientific research.
The people of Goa, need to know that Fr. Anthony D’Souza’s work at the Michigan University has taken forward the painstaking work initially carried out at the Vatican Observatory. Here the priests over generations have recorded meticulously that stars in our night sky were not stationery but moving steadily and going further and further away from us. It is the church which showed the world that besides the expanding Universe our Sun too is expanding and our earth too is drifting away from the Sun and finally like all stars, it will die.
Fr. Anthony D’Souza has brought out the essence of how the 100 billion galaxies grow, move around in space and dominate in the Cosmos. We know about the planets moving round the Sun. However very few amongst us know about the fascinating celestial events, wherein the Binary stars move and revolve around one another.
We today commonly understand and accept Einstein equation E=mC2, which clearly define that the Cosmos is made up of energy and matter, be it in the form of dark energy, visible or Cosmic rays. The matter is space and it could be matter, as the dark matter or in the form of elemental dust and gases, which are the precursors to stars, planets or even black holes or nebulae; and finally transformations of matter and energy are seen in the dying stars as spectacular supernovae.
We on Earth must realize that our life here is uncertain and fluid over the galactic time scale and we earthlings, although on cosmic scale are less than a grain of sand son all the beaches of the world, we have set ourselves to understand our very origin and the final end, but carelessly we are ignoring the present and treating life on earth with contempt and scant respect.
Newspapers in Goa have rightly highlighted Dr. Anthony D’Souza’s discovery of cannibalism of our twin galaxy by Andromeda galaxy, but we must also know that Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light years from our own Milky way galaxy and being 2,20,000 light years across would devour our Milky way galaxy which is only 1,00,000 light years across and thus it is pulled towards Andromeda. Our Milky Way is moving towards Andromeda at the rate of 4,02,000 miles per hour. In astronomical time scale use would collide with Andromeda in the next 4 billion years, thus irrelevant as of now to us.
We as human should set our goals as common men on our generational time scale. We must measure our survival and the development of our society on yearly basis. Do we realize that each one amongst us are unique and special; we entirely originate from the marvels of the cosmic dust, energy and the cosmic gases which constitute the “Human Universe” we live in.
Let us not ignore the presence of the other Universes in the Cosmos but focus on our Solar system and understand our planets. Paradoxically, we care to know more about the Mars or the Moon and forget to understand our next door neighbours though it is he who is important to our existence in the immediate future.
