(I originally wrote and circulated this piece on social media in August 2023. It has been refreshed in light of recent NASA mission updates.)
By Chudi Okoye
I have been scratching my head lately with emerging reports that the American space agency, NASA, is shutting down more instruments on its celebrated Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, to conserve power and extend communication as long as possible. The two hardy probes have pushed deeper into space than any other man-made object. They have been traveling in space now for nearly 48 years (since their launch in August and September 1977), and have gone well past Neptune (the farthest of the major planets in the Solar System). They are now positioned respectively at the interstellar distance of 15.6 billion miles and 13 billion miles from Earth.
The two spacecraft have lasted far longer in their mission than the original five years projected by NASA. But it is now thought that they may lose power by 2026 or possibly 2030, after which time Earth-based stations will likely lose all contact with them. The spacecraft will thereafter simply continue drifting deeper into space, without beaming any signals that could reach Earth.
As indicated in the media reports, NASA estimates that in about 300 years, Voyager 1 will enter the vast, icy Oort Cloud beyond Neptune, taking an astonishing 30,000 years to pass through it before continuing on its cosmic journey.
NASA also estimates that it will take Voyager 2 some 296,000 years to pass by Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky located about 8.6 light-years (~50.6 trillion miles) from Earth.
Think about this: even after 296,000 years, the spacecraft would still be floating within our galaxy. How vast our Milky Way! How vaster still the Universe!
With these imponderable distances, I began to wonder exactly how far away heaven might be; how distant the much-revered realm of the gods.
There are some passages in the Bible which give the impression that heaven is simply the sky above us. In Genesis 1:6-8, for instance, we are told that on Day 2 God created the heavens (“firmament”, “vault”, “canopy”, “air”, “expanse”, “space” or “dome”, depending on translation) to separate the waters above and below it. But then, parts of the Bible also specifically say that heaven is the dwelling place of God (see, as just two instances, Deuteronomy 26:15 and 2 Chronicles 6:21). These varying descriptions raise an intriguing question: if heaven exists as a physical realm beyond Earth, could it lie somewhere in the observable universe? They also inspire the question: if God created heaven on Day 2, where then was God dwelling before that, since He is said to have always existed? Did He move from some other realm to take His abode in heaven after He created it? In fact, in some passages, the Bible gives the impression that God is not even in heaven but is somewhere “on high” overseeing the affairs in heaven and on Earth (see, for instance, 1 Kings 8:27 and 2 Chronicles 6:18).
I don’t want to dwell today on the theological question of God’s habitation, though Mark 16:19 and 1 Peter 3:22 (as well as other passages) are unequivocal that Jesus is in heaven where he is sitting at the right hand of God. My concern for now is more about the physics (or, more specifically, the astronomy) of heaven. If it is somewhere in space, as the Bible sometimes suggests, have either of the Voyager probes passed it? Will they reach it sometime in their cosmic journey, perhaps long after they have stopped beaming signals back to Earth?
Yet another question. There are several persons said in the Bible to have been taken up bodily to heaven; people who were assumed up to heaven without actually dying. There is, for instance, an assumption by some believers, based on Genesis 5:24 and Hebrews 11:5, that the antediluvian figure Enoch, father of Methuselah, was taken up to heaven. The Bible isn’t exactly clear on the ultimate fate of Enoch. It simply says that Enoch “walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” This has been interpreted in some Jewish and Christian traditions as Enoch entering heaven alive. But, while there may be some ambiguity about Enoch, there is much greater clarity in the case of Elijah, who is said at 2 Kings 2:11 to have been taken up to heaven by a chariot and horses of fire. Jesus too is said at Luke 24:51 (and elsewhere) to have bodily ascended to heaven, but I will focus on the example of Elijah for my present discourse.
Elijah, born around 900 BC, lived through the reigns of Kings Ahab and Ahaziah. He is thought to have ‘departed’ (carried up to heaven) around 849 BC, that is, about 2,874 years ago.
My question is: if NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft—traveling at approximately 35,000 miles per hour – will require 296,000 years merely to reach a star, Sirius, within our galaxy, does it mean that Elijah’s chariot has not even got anywhere close to heaven—that is, if heaven is somewhere beyond the Milky Way? And if his journey required something faster than light speed to be plausible, how does that reconcile with modern physics, which holds that massive objects cannot travel at such speeds? Was his chariot exempt from known laws of physics, or does his journey suggest a different model of space and time altogether?
Let’s stretch this a bit, shall we? The diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light-years, and the distance from Earth to the edge of the observable universe is 46.5 billion light-years. Now, we know that the speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles (~300,000 km) per second, which translates to 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion km) per year. If we put these two figures together—the distance from Earth to the edge of the observable universe and the distance light travels in a year—we get (I hope my math is correct) a little over 270 billion trillion miles (270 sextillion or 270^21 miles). The actual figure, to render its full expression, is 270,480,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles.
What this means is that even if, perchance, Elijah’s chariot—an object with mass—has been theoretically traveling at the speed of light, and if heaven is located, say, at the edge of the observable universe, it would take the great prophet at least 46.5 billion years to reach it. And the guy only took off less than three thousand years ago! If Elijah and his chariot were like a photon without mass, they might have arrived instantaneously in heaven, wherever it is located, traveling at the speed of light. But Elijah is said to have been assumed up “bodily” to heaven. This means that Elijah had mass, and that he—along with all others said to have been taken up bodily to heaven—must still be cruising to their destination, since they cannot have been traveling at the speed of light!! God only knows when they will arrive, especially if they are traveling no faster than the Voyager spacecraft. If heaven is a physical place located far away in the cosmos, then these biblical figures may still be en route to it—or impossibly delayed by relativistic constraints, due to extreme time dilation at high speeds, such that they may never arrive!
If, on the other hand, heaven is not that far but is located much closer to us (as some have argued), why have we not detected it? Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, claimed in the 19th century that God revealed to him that heaven was near a celestial body called Kolob, possibly within our galaxy. Similarly, Dr. Mortimer, a 19th-century physician, theorized that heaven might exist as a hidden sphere within Earth’s atmospheric layers. If such claims had any merit, why have the Voyager probes, scanning the cosmos for nearly half a century, not relayed any signals indicating the presence of the divine realm?
When the two Voyager probes were launched, NASA placed a phonograph record in each (a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk) containing a selection of images and sounds from around the world. These were intended to communicate to any extraterrestrials who might encounter the capsules the story of our planet and the diversity of life on it. The great cosmologist Carl Sagan chaired the committee that selected the contents, which include 115 encoded images, natural sounds like thunder and birdsong, musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings in 55 languages. Instructions for playing the record were also included.
So far, however, almost five decades on, NASA has not reported any extraterrestrial response.
If heaven is a physical place within the cosmos, could the Voyagers’ golden record, carrying the sounds and images of Earth, have reached its inhabitants—or even God Himself?
I have also sometimes wondered: If, instead of the ebullient greetings, the golden record had carried the anguished cries of humanity—the desperate prayers of ‘the wretched of the Earth’ (apologies to Frantz Fanon)—perhaps, just perhaps, the probes might have relayed some divine acknowledgment by now. That is, if the Voyager spacecraft have hovered close to heaven or encountered the heavenly hosts.
