Light of the Stars

This is an extract from the writings of Imam Jafar-as-Sadiq A.S. Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (a.s.) has said that among the clusters of stars, which we see at night, some are so bright that our sun, in comparison, is quite insignificant. Because of man’s limited knowledge about stars, many people during his time and centuries after him, considered this theory to be illogical, irrational and unacceptable. They could not believe that these small specks of light, which are called stars, can have more light than the light of our big bright sun. About twelve and a half centuries after the death of this great man, it was proved that what he had said was quite correct. It has been discovered that there are stars in the universe, which are billions of times brighter than the sun. They are called quasars. The light of quasars is about quadrillion times (ten thousand billion times) the light of our sun. Some of them are at a distance of about nine thousand million light years away from the earth. The first quasar was discovered in the year 1927. About 200 quasars have been discovered so far. Astronomers need very powerful telescopes to study these wonderful stars. The world’s largest telescopes are not considered powerful enough for studying quasars. Astronomers of the 19th and 20th centuries were not surprised when they discovered giant stars, but when they observed quasars with their telescopes, they held their heads with their hands lest they might lose their senses and go crazy. The discovery of quasars disproved the theory of Einstein that the diameter of the universe is about three billion light years. The distance of nine billion light years is a very great distance and makes one stagger to imagine the vastness of the universe. Light covers a distance of 9,800 billion kilometers per year. We have to multiply this figure with nine billion to find out the distance between the earth and quasars. What has confused and puzzled scientists is the light of quasars. They fail to understand the cause of the power or energy within them which produces such an intense and bright light. Professor Alfven is of the opinion that there is no other source in the universe, which can generate so much energy in quasars, except explosion of matter and anti-matter. If the Russian scientists conduct an experiment and explode helium with anti-helium, mankind would not only have an inexhaustible source of energy, it would most probably solve the mystery of how so much light is produced in quasars.