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Venus, the length of a day <1 rotation, but it is 116 earth days! Uranus takes 17.24 hours to spin around its axis. However, its axis is tilted to almost 90-degrees. So, the revolution around the sun is what has the most impact. So, it takes 84 earth years for the sun to come back to the same location! May God help us appreciate our perfect timing system & that our days are 24 hours long (not 84 years!)
[17:12] We rendered the night and the day two signs. We made the night dark, and the day lighted, that you may seek provisions from your Lord therein. This also establishes for you a timing system, and the means of calculation. We thus explain everything in detail.
So far, we’ve talked about the earth’s rotation on its axis and revolving around the sun impacting day & night. Did you know the moon had an impact on day and night? I didn’t! But God talks about the sun and the moon frequently in verses about night and day. So, how would no moon impact our day/night? Nights would be much, much darker. A full moon is 2,000 times brighter than Venus, the next brightest object in the night sky. Also, our days would be 6-12 hours instead of 24 hours. There could be more than a thousand days in one year! That’s because the Earth’s rotation slows down over time thanks to the gravitational force of the moon. Without a moon the tilt of our earth’s axis would vary over time. This could create some very turbulent weather. Right now, thanks to our moon, our axis stays tilted at twenty-three point five degrees. But without the moon the earth would wobble and might vary from 0° to 90° tilt leading to no seasons or even extreme seasons. To give us a glimpse of how extreme: a change of axis tilt of less than 1 degree changed what was once a well-watered savannah covering vast areas of the present Sahara Desert into smaller areas fed by rivers and near-surface groundwaters.
[31:29] Do you not realize that GOD merges the night into the day and merges the day into the night, and that He has committed the sun and the moon in your service, each running in its orbit for a specific life span, and that GOD is fully Cognizant of everything you do?
Praise God, because of the atmosphere, our sky is blue & we have a beautiful gradual merging of day into night & night into day. From the moon, the sky always looks black, even during the lunar day when the sun is shining in the moon’s sky. The moon doesn’t have an atmosphere, so there are no twilight colors. Sunrise and sunset on the moon come suddenly, like turning on and off a light bulb. May God help us to be appreciative of this incredible beauty.
[25:62] He is the One who designed the night and the day to alternate: a sufficient proof for those who wish to take heed, or to be appreciative.
That there are so many things that impact the day and night on earth: the sun, the rotation of the earth on its axis, the tilt of the axis, the orbit around the sun, the atmosphere and the moon. May God help us be appreciative of His precise control over all things.
Let’s stop to reflect on the rotation of the earth. What would happen if the earth stopped rotating?
There are three main consequences that scientists estimate: a) rough winds, b) long days and nights, and c) loss in magnetic fields.
a) As per NASA, any change in rotation would result in tempestuous winds with speeds of thousands of miles per hour all over the earth and earthquakes of magnitude 7 or much higher. To put this in perspective, the highest speed of a tornado ever recorded has been around 300 mph.
b) Also, if our day was a year (365 days), everywhere would receive 6 continuous months of daylight where temperatures would gradually heat up to well over 100° C; all our water would boil away.
c) Moreover, if the earth stopped rotating, it’s magnetic field would stop being regenerated. The magnetic field protects the Earth, by God’s leave, from cosmic rays and high-energy particles.
If Earth’s magnetic field was like Mars (which is negligible), we would experience 1,000 times the exposure to radiation that we do today which could damage our DNA. However, the worst impact would be losing the air we breathe: the sun’s natural wind can easily rip out the gases of our planet’s atmosphere in absence of God’s protective magnetic field. In summary this would be catastrophic and life would cease to exist on earth.
[14:33] He has committed the sun and the moon in your service, continuously. He has committed the night and the day to serve you.
May God help us be appreciative of God’s controlling everything.
[35:41] GOD is the One who holds the heavens and the earth, lest they vanish. If anyone else is to hold them, they will most certainly vanish. He is Clement, Forgiving.
Selected References:
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THE ESSENCE OF LIFE IN MAN
[15:28] Your Lord said to the angels, “I am creating a human being from aged mud, like the potter’s clay.
[15:29] “Once I perfect him, and blow into him from My spirit, you shall fall prostrate before him.”
Here God is telling His servants, the angels, to fall prostrate before another one of His servants, the human being;
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