How hard do you think it would be to avoid all numbers for an entire day? That would mean no math, no clocks, no phones, and no driving a car, among many other things. Numbers are a big part of everyday life, and they can give us a small glimpse into the greatness of God and His amazing creation. The following list is just a few big numbers found in our universe.
The Human Body
As we are made in God's image, it is hard not to be amazed at the complexity of the human body. Scientists estimate that an average-size male has over 30 trillion cells and around 7 octillion (7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) atoms.
Humans are also said to have at least 60,000 miles of blood vessels. That is long enough to go around the earth about two and one-quarter times!
Have you ever ridden on a plane? When it takes off from the ground, it is going at a speed of about 180 miles per hour. Our bodies have some nerve impulses that travel over 200 miles per hour!
Water and More Water
The earth is 71 percent water. How much water is that exactly? You could fill about 326 quintillion (326,000,000,000,000,000,000) gallon milk jugs with all the water found in and on our planet.
Most of the water on earth is found in oceans. The deepest known part of the ocean is the Mariana Trench which is 36,070 feet below sea level. That is deeper than the tallest mountain in the world.
Within all this ocean water, some estimate there are over 2 million species living in the deep blue sea. Keep in mind that is just species, not a count of every living creature. Scientists suspect there are millions more species yet to be discovered in uncharted waters.
Space
The Milky Way is about 590 trillion miles across. And that is just one galaxy out of billions (maybe even trillions) more. How many stars do you think are in every galaxy in the universe? Well, we have to do some estimating because there are far too many to count. Let's use a very low estimate of 100 billion galaxies in our universe, and say each galaxy contains an average of 100 billion stars. If you counted one star every second, it would take you 317 trillion years to count all the stars! But what if you asked 7 billion people in the world to help you count? With each person counting their part of stars, it would still take one person about 45,300 years to count their portion.
Big numbers in creation show us a small glimpse of how amazing God really is. He created the trillions of cells in your body, millions of species in the sea, and billions or even trillions of galaxies in the universe by speaking words. All we can do is give estimates to these huge numbers, but God knows each star by name.
"He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name."
Psalm 147:4 NKJV
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