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material creations (galaxies) have yet to appear in the second OSL. To further confuse matters however, on page 134 the author says, "It appears that the second outer universe of galaxies, like the seven superuniverses, revolves counterclockwise about Paradise." If indeed there are galaxies visible in the second OSL, then we need to know its size in order to determine the size of the visible universe. Unfortunately, the authors do not give us this information, but there are some clues we can investigate to determine a figure. In one of his books [2], Bill Sadler Jr. came up with a thickness for the second OSL of 5000 million (5 billion) light years. He did this by noting that the ratio of the first OSL to the superuniverse level is 100 and he assumed that that ratio held between the four OSL's. Is there anything in The Urantia Book that supports the idea that the levels increase in size?
The Increasing Size of the Space Levels
On page 351 of The Urantia Book, we are informed of the number of Master Architects of the master universe that are assigned to the various segments of the master universe. Of interest to us is that 7 are assigned to the seven superuniverses, 70 to the first OSL, and 490 to the second OSL. It seems logical that more Architects are assigned to the second OSL than the first because the second OSL is larger. In fact, later on page 351 we are informed, "This, the final and largest corps, consists of 24,010 Master Architects, and if our former conjectures are valid, it must be related to the fourth and last of the ever-increasing-sized universes of outer space." The author seems to be referring to the space levels as universes. So, we can reasonably conclude that the second OSL is larger than the first one, and it may be as much as 100 times thicker, or 5 billion light years thick. Will the first OSL accommodate all the galaxies in the master universe, or is the volume of the second OSL required to contain this many galaxies?
The Volume of the First Outer Space Level
On page 125B, the author informs us: "In the not-distant future, new telescopes will reveal to the wondering gaze of Urantian astronomers no less than 375 million new galaxies in the remote stretches of outer space." Of course that was 1935, and this is 1998, the era of the Hubbell telescope. A recent Hubbell deep space survey of the most distant galaxies revealed 1500 to 2000 in a very tiny patch of sky. On the basis of this measurement, some astronomers now estimate that there are over 50 billion galaxies in the universe [3], and there may be more that we have yet to see. Is the first OSL large enough to accommodate 50 billion galaxies? To find out, we need to compute the volume of the first OSL. It seems to be in the shape of a torus (or doughnut), and the volume of a torus is:
V = 2p2 x R x r2, where r and R are the distances shown in Fig. 2.
r = 25 million l.y., and R = about 26.5 million l.y., assuming a 1.5 million l.y. radius from Paradise to the inner edge of the first OSL.
Using this formula, the volume of the first OSL is 316 quadrillion cubic l.y. (316 x 1021 l.y.). How much space exists between galaxies? According to The Urantia Book, our galactic system is about 500 light years in diameter. Astronomers calculate the size of the Milky Way galaxy at 100 light years diameter, but the whole system is several times larger if the companion galaxies are included. The closest galactic system to our Milky Way system is M31 at 2.2 million l.y. The next closest galactic systems are about 10 million l.y. distant. A cube of 5 million l.y. on a side seems to be a reasonable minimum volume of space for a typical galaxy. This is a volume of 125 million cubic l.y. This figure likely errs on the small side, since galaxies tend to occur in groups with significant space between the groups. In order to contain 50 billion galaxies with a volume of 125 million cubic l.y., a total volume of 6.25 quadrillion cubic l.y. (6.25 times 10 to the 15th power) is required. Therefore, the first OSL is about 50 million times larger than needed to contain 50 billion galaxies. Even if the average spacing between galaxies were 100 l.y., there would be more than adequate space for 50 billion galaxies. Thus we do not need to consider the second OSL; the first OSL will accommodate all the visible galaxies.
The Size of the Astronomer's Universe
Using red shift data, astronomers calculate that the most distant galaxies are between 10 and 15 billion light years from us. [4] Our astronomers' universe is thus two to three times larger than the second OSL. This difference is large, but nothing like the difference between 50 million light years for the first OSL and 10 to 15 billion light years for the universe. This is a ratio of 2500. The authors of The Urantia Book explain that this discrepancy is due to the fact that much of the red shift we see is not due to the Doppler red shift where the color of the light is shifted due to effect but rather to the effect of space on light passing through it. There are a few contemporary astronomers, people such as Halton Arp, who have reached the same conclusion. If these few rebels turn out to be right, the result will be a revolutionary change in our picture of the universe, and a partial vindication of the cosmology in The Urantia Book.
Conclusions and Ruminations
The foregoing analyses are a rather speculative attempt to correlate what astronomers see through their telescopes with the cosmology of The Urantia Book. The scientific and astronomical information the authors give us is generally vague and even seemingly contradictory at times. It would be easy to write off the science and cosmology in the book
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