Speaker: Darlene Sala | Series: Encouraging Words | Do you want to give someone a unique gift? Starting at $25 you can name a star in your friend’s honor. If you enter “name a star” in your Internet browser, you’ll find a number of sites that offer to do just that. For $54 you can have a beautiful full color parchment certificate personalized with the star name, date and coordinates along with a chart that contains the location circled in red where the star is in the sky.

Now, before you get too excited, let me say that only the International Astronomical Union has the right to officially name celestial objects, and when it comes to naming stars, they decided a numbering system would be more useful. Even one of the star-naming websites admits, “Naming a star is a symbolic gesture.”

But don’t worry that we’ll run out of stars for you to name. A recent study by Australian astronomers says that there are 70 sextillion stars—that’s 7 followed by 22 zeros, or 70,000 million million million. Mind-boggling, isn’t it?

Using two of the most powerful telescopes in the world, these scientists surveyed one strip of sky. Within the strip of sky some 10,000 galaxies were pinpointed and detailed measurements of their brightness taken to calculate how many stars they contained. That number was then multiplied by the number of similar sized strips needed to cover the entire sky and then multiplied again out to the edge of the visible universe.

Only God knows exactly how many stars there are. The Bible says “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name” (Psalm 147:4).

Say, if God can keep track of the names of 70 sextillion stars, don’t you think He can keep track of the details of your life as well? Thank Him today that He is bigger than any problem you face. Then go about your work trusting Him to guide you just as He guides the 70 sextillion stars in the sky.

[1] “Name a Star? The Truth about Buying Your Place in Heaven,” Robert Roy Britt, Senior Science Writer, posted: 05:59 am ET 15 September 2003http://www.space.com/spacewatch/mystery_monday_030915.html

[2] “Star survey reaches 70 sextillion,” Wednesday, July 23, 2003 Posted: 12:29 AM EDT (0429 GMT), Sydney, Australia (CNN), www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/07/22/stars.survey/