Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 41
PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF THE LOCAL UNIVERSE
1. The characteristic space phenomenon which sets off each local creation from all others is the presence of the Creative Spirit ... no... clear lines of physical demarcation set off the local creations.
2. Nebadon was physically assembled out of the stellar and planetary progeny of Andronover and other nebulae... 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.
3. One hundred Supreme Power Centers of the fourth order are permanently assigned to our local universe... 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.
4. Satania... is composed of over seven thousand astronomical groups ... The circuit zing and channelizing of energy is supervised by the five hundred thousand living and intelligent energy manipulators scattered throughout Satania... 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.
5. 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... Urantia is in the lines of tremendous energies ... They do fairly well with regard to the physical circuits of Satania but have trouble insulating against the powerful Norlatiadek currents.
6. There are upward of two thousand brilliant suns pouring forth light and energy in Satania and your own sun is an average blazing orb... 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.
7, All suns are originally truly gaseous, though they may later transiently exist in a semiliquid state... 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 ... suns readily split into two separate bodies ... 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.
8. 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.
9. 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 sun‑spot cycles.
10. The mass of your sun is slightly greater than the estimate of your physicists, who have reckoned it as about two octillion (2x1027 ) tons. It now exists about halfway between the most dense and the most diffuse stars, having about one and one‑half times the destiny of water ..Cooling stars can be physically gaseous and tremendously dense at the same time.
11. As you value energy and power on your world, sunlight would be economical at a million dollars a pound ... 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.
12. 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.
13. Calcium is ...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 ... Calcium possesses an individuality and a longevity excelling all of the more common forms of matter.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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 ... 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.
17. 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.
18. The larger suns maintain such a gravity control over their electrons that light escapes only with the aid of the powerful X rays ... The great energy losses in the early days of the sun are not so much due to light escape as to ultimatonic leakage ... Atoms and electrons are subject to gravity ... Ultimatonic energy does not obey the linear or direct gravity attraction of near‑by or remote material masses.
19. Your own solar center radiates almost one hundred billion tons of actual matter annually.. Your own sun has long since attained relative equilibrium between its expansion and contraction cycles... 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.
20. But no matter what technique of world building obtains, gravity always produces the solar system type of creation ... The physical aspects of the individual worlds are largely determined by mode of origin, astronomical situation and physical environment ... 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.
21. 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.
Discussion Questions
1. What are the implications of the fact that the physical space of our local universe is determined by the space presence of our universe Mother Spirit?
2. Is there evidence that the source of our planet energy is a Power Center directed by Master Physical Controllers?
3. Does our weather suggest that physical controllers "are in complete and perfect control of a majority of the basic energies of space?"
4. Why do you think we were given all of this factual‑scientific information about the physical aspects of our universe?
5. How does this astronomical information agree with our present scientific knowledge?
6. Do you think the adventures of the calcium atom is by intelligent design or random material reaction?
7. Do you think the future development of science will continue to revolutionize the way we live on our world
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship