On Wednesday night my beautiful bride and I were stargazing. August 12 and the nights after that, have the most falling stars of the year as Earth experiences the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. As it was new moon on Wednesday and before midnight there were only a few clouds, we had a fantastic evening.

There is something fascinating and even magical when we are looking into the night sky. One does not even have to know much about planets, stars and galaxies to be deeply impressed. Some of those dots we call stars are thousands of light-years away, others, like the planets of our solar system, are closer, but still hard to reach.

Mind you, the international space station and most satellites (they look like fast moving stars) are only 250 to 400 miles away, while the moon is already 225,000 to 252,000 miles above.

On Wednesday the Moon was between Earth and the Sun (new moon) and some parts of the world were able to experience a total eclipse of the Sun.

In Old Testament times, people were similar fascinated with the heavens. King David says in Psalm 8:1-6 (NIV)

“LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

When it comes to the universe we actually seem very small and rather insignificant. Even Earth has dimensions that we often cannot fathom. The diameter is about 7,926 miles (12,756 kilometres). Even Mount Everest does not add a lot to that and commercial aeroplanes are only 30,000 to 36.000 feet above, a thousandth of the diameter. If you have a normal 12 inch globe at home, it means the plane would fly less than 1/64" high above the surface (or the width of 2 or 3 human hairs!) and you could hardly feel even Mount Everest when touching the globe.

At the equator the circumference of Earth is 40,075 kilometres (24,901 miles), through the poles it is a little bit less, 40,008 kilometres (24,860 miles).

The metric system was based on the distance between the North Pole and Equator. After the French Revolution (they did away with king’s feet) scientists had calculated that distance by measuring the distance between Dunkirk in northern France and Barcelona.

Using the change of latitude and that distance they figured out the distance between pole and equator, which they divided into 10 million units to get the metre.

Thus it is 10 million meters, or 10,000km from pole to equator (They were off by 2km, but for those days it was very accurate).

We measure circles and arcs in degrees, and I often use a clock face to get a better idea of angles. Every minute on the clock face equals 6 degrees of a circle (360 degrees / 60 minutes), 5 minutes then equal 30 degrees, and 15 minutes 90 degrees and so on.

Every degree latitude equals then 110km (68.35 miles). For navigation we need in addition to degrees then minutes (about 1.14 miles) and seconds (about 33 yards), and a decimal point to find a location.

I only mention that to give us an idea how big Earth is, and now imagine the whole universe. The Sun’s diameter is 109 times as big as Earth, and the Sun is 93 million miles away.

The closest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, located about 4.24 to 4.25 light-years away (roughly 40.2 trillion kilometres or 25 trillion miles). There are 100 million to 400 million stars in our galaxy Milky way and there are 2 trillion similar galaxies in the universe.

Still, the God of the universe has an interest in our tiny planet and even in us, not just as a whole but in each and every one of us. That is fascinating and makes you wonder: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

When we think about that, lots of things we assume to be so important become insignificant. Astronauts who had been on ISS or on other space missions often speak about the overview-effect of space, that once you look down on Earth as a planet, there are no visible borders, and that race and different nationalities become insignificant.

We just have this one planet. There is no planet B we could ever reach to make it a new home for mankind. We have to take care of Earth to preserve it for our children, grandchildren and then their children and grandchildren. Instead of working against each other, we are called to work together for the good of all.

When God created us he gave a blessing and a task: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.” (Gen 1:28, The Message)

Or, as David puts it in the remaining verses of Psalm 8: “You have made them [humans] a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour.

“You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

So yes, let us be responsible and take care of what is around us. Let us be fully human again, and care about each other and about the whole. Let us be God’s coworkers on this planet we call home. Once we experience the love of God in our lives, that he wants a relationship with us, we can pass this love on to our neighbour.

Maybe take a moment one evening, when the stars are out, and sit back and look at the stars. You might say: “LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. … When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”