Paper 41 Overview: Physical Aspects of the Local Universe

Paper 41 describes the physical constitution and energy mechanics of the local universe of Nebadon, which is pervaded by the space presence of the Divine Minister of Salvington. While administrative divisions in the grand universe are clearly demarcated, the physical boundaries between local universes are less distinct, as these creations are organized through the segmentation of superuniverse energy charges and the subsequent manifestation of physical components from nebulae following transcendental plans of the Master Universe Architects.

The paper examines the complex hierarchical energy management systems operating throughout Nebadon, detailing the functions of power centers and physical controllers at universal, constellation, and system levels. It explores stellar physics, including sun formation, composition, density, radiation mechanisms, energy production, and stability factors, with particular attention to the remarkable properties of calcium in space transmission. The formation of planetary systems is addressed, contrasting our solar system's unusual tidal origin with more typical formative processes, while positioning Urantia in the cosmic geography as a relatively isolated sphere on the outskirts of Satania, yet one that has gained significance through Michael's bestowal.

The characteristic space phenomenon that sets off each local creation from all others is the presence of the Creative Spirit. All Nebadon is certainly pervaded by the space presence of the Divine Minister of Salvington, and such presence just as certainly terminates at the outer borders of our local universe. That which is pervaded by the presence of our local universe Mother Spirit constitutes Nebadon; beyond her space presence lies the extra-Nebadon regions of Orvonton—domains belonging to other local universes.

While the administrative organization of the grand universe discloses a clear-cut division between the governments of the central, super-, and local universes, and while these divisions are astronomically paralleled in the space separation of Havona and the seven superuniverses, no such clear lines of physical demarcation set off the local creations. These local creations are administratively organized in accordance with certain creative principles governing the segmentation of the total energy charge of a superuniverse. In contrast, their physical components, the spheres of space (suns, dark islands, planets, etc.), take origin primarily from nebulae, and these make their astronomical appearance in accordance with certain precreative (transcendental) plans of the Architects of the Master Universe.

The spiral and other nebulae, the mother wheels of the spheres of space, are initiated by Paradise force organizers who are subsequently superseded in superuniverse function by power centers and physical controllers. These beings assume full responsibility for directing the physical evolution of the ensuing generations of stellar and planetary offspring. When our Creator Son arrived in Nebadon, this physical supervision was immediately coordinated with his universe organization plan, resulting in a complex of communication lines, energy circuits, and power lanes that bind the manifold space bodies of Nebadon into an integrated administrative unit.

One hundred Supreme Power Centers of the fourth order are permanently assigned to our local universe, receiving incoming power from third-order centers on Uversa and relaying modified circuits to constellation and system power centers. These power centers function collaboratively to maintain the balance and distribution of otherwise fluctuating energies, though they are not concerned with transient local disturbances such as sunspots or system electrical upheavals. The one hundred universal centers are stationed on Salvington at the exact energy center of that sphere, while architectural worlds like Salvington, Edentia, and Jerusem operate through specialized power mechanisms that render them independent of space suns. Power centers, through their living presences, directionize and channelize physical energies, with ten fifth-order centers assigned to each constellation and one sixth-order center stationed at the exact gravity focus of each local system.

The Master Physical Controllers serve with power centers throughout the grand universe, though their functions are most comprehensible when observed in a local system context like Satania. This system is one of one hundred that compose the administrative organization of the constellation Norlatiadek, neighboring systems such as Sandmatia, Assuntia, and Porogia. While these systems differ in many respects, all follow evolutionary and progressive patterns similar to Satania.

Satania itself comprises over seven thousand astronomical groups or physical systems, few of which originated similarly to our solar system. The astronomic center of Satania is an enormous dark island of space with attendant spheres, situated near the system government headquarters. A Master Physical Controller stationed on Jerusem works in coordination with the system power center, serving as liaison chief for the power inspectors functioning throughout the local system. The circuitizing and channelizing of energy is supervised by five hundred thousand living energy manipulators distributed throughout Satania who can mobilize, transform, transmute, and transmit nearly all physical energies of organized space. Life possesses an inherent capacity for mobilizing and transmuting universal energy, as evidenced in the vegetable kingdom's transformation of light into various manifestations, though the power directors and physical controllers operate in a realm beyond physiological chemistry, concerning themselves with the preliving manifestations of material energy.

There are upward of two thousand brilliant suns pouring forth light and energy in Satania, with our own sun representing an average blazing orb. Among the thirty suns nearest to ours, only three exhibit greater brightness. The Universe Power Directors initiate the specialized energy currents that flow between individual stars and their respective systems, with these solar furnaces and dark giants of space serving as way stations for the effective concentration and direction of energy circuits within material creations.

The suns of Nebadon are compositionally identical to those throughout other universes, with an average diameter of approximately one million miles, our solar orb being slightly smaller. The most massive star in the universe, the stellar cloud Antares, exceeds our sun's diameter by 450 times and its volume by 60 million times. Despite such enormous celestial bodies, space provides ample accommodation: these suns have proportional spacing comparable to a dozen oranges circulating throughout Urantia's interior were it a hollow globe. When oversized suns are ejected from nebular formations, they often bifurcate into double stars, while our sun, having reached a quasi-liquid state of supergas pressure, lacked sufficient size for equatorial splitting. Both very young and very old suns typically display a reddish glow, while yellow coloration indicates moderate youth or approaching old age, and brilliant white light signifies robust maturity and extended adult life.

The mass of our sun marginally exceeds scientific estimates, approximating two octillion (2 x 10²⁷) tons. It occupies a median position between the most dense and most diffuse stellar bodies, with a density approximately one and one-half times that of water. Despite this comparative density, our sun maintains a gaseous state rather than liquid or solid—a paradoxical condition that challenges conventional understanding of matter states yet represents cosmic reality.

Density represents a relationship between space and mass, varying directly with the quantity of mass in space and inversely with the amount of space in mass, both between central cores and orbiting particles and within the material particles themselves. Cooling stars can simultaneously exhibit gaseous physical properties while maintaining tremendous density. These solar supergases contain exceptionally small atoms with reduced electron counts and diminished ultimatonic energy stores.

A nearby sun that originated with comparable mass to ours has now contracted to approximately Urantia's size while becoming forty thousand times denser than our sun, with each cubic inch weighing about one ton. This hot-cold gaseous-solid body continues to shine with the faint reddish luminescence characteristic of a dying monarch of light. By contrast, another neighboring star possesses density precisely equivalent to earth's sea-level atmosphere, and temperature permitting, one could penetrate most twinkling stars without encountering more substance than the air in terrestrial living spaces.

The relatively moderate density of space suns is evidenced by their continuous emission of light-energies, as excessive density would result in light retention through opacity until the accumulated energy pressure triggered explosive release. A tremendous light and gas pressure exists within suns, propelling energy streams millions of miles through space to energize, illuminate, and heat distant planets. Merely fifteen feet of material with Urantia's density would effectively prevent all X-ray and light energy escape from a sun until internal pressure from atomic dismemberment overcame gravity in a tremendous outward explosion.

Light, when confined at high temperatures by opaque retaining walls and in the presence of propulsive gases, becomes highly explosive. The interior of our sun functions as a vast X-ray generator, with these powerful emanations supporting the sun's internal structure through constant bombardment. An X-ray-stimulated electron requires more than half a million years to navigate from an average sun's center to its surface before embarking on its space adventure, potentially warming an inhabited planet, becoming incorporated into atom formation, or terminating its journey by plunging into another sun's surface. The tremendous velocity required to escape a sun's gravitational influence ensures undiminished travel until encountering substantial matter, whereupon the energy transforms into heat with the release of other energies. While energy may appear to propagate in waves, this phenomenon results from the interaction of coexistent forces, as energy actually proceeds in direct lines except when acted upon by superior forces or gravitational influences.

In spectral analysis, one must remember that space is not empty and that light traversing space undergoes subtle modification by various energy and matter forms circulating throughout organized space. Some unidentified spectral lines in solar analysis derive from modifications of known elements floating through space in fragmented form—atomic casualties of fierce solar elemental conflicts. Space is particularly permeated by these wandering derelicts, especially sodium and calcium.

Calcium represents the predominant element in space permeation throughout Orvonton, with our superuniverse being liberally sprinkled with minutely pulverized stone. The cosmic cloud, the great space blanket, consists predominantly of modified calcium atoms. The stone atom demonstrates remarkable persistence and longevity, surviving solar ionization, withstanding destructive X-ray bombardment, and enduring high solar temperatures.

The calcium atom possesses extraordinary capabilities for space travel, effectively riding light beams across vast distances through a remarkable atomic mechanism. By alternately transferring its nineteenth electron between orbital paths more than twenty-five thousand times per second, a mutilated stone atom partially defies gravity and successfully rides emergent light streams to liberty. This acrobatic calcium electron demonstrates astonishing agility, completing one million revolutions around its atomic center during the one-millionth of a second it spends in its higher orbit before being recaptured by nuclear forces, explaining why stone constitutes the principal component of space worlds.

The internal temperature of many suns, including our own, substantially exceeds common estimates. Within a sun's interior, virtually no complete atoms exist due to the intensive X-ray bombardment indigenous to such extreme temperatures. Regardless of which elements manifest in a sun's outer layers, those in the interior become remarkably homogenized through the dissociative action of disruptive X-rays, which function as great equalizers of atomic existence.

Our sun's surface temperature approaches 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit but increases dramatically toward the interior, reaching approximately 35,000,000 degrees in the central regions. Solar energy derives from multiple sources, arranged by importance: atomic annihilation; elemental transmutation with associated radioactive energy release; accumulation and transmission of certain universal space-energies; space matter and meteoric influx; solar contraction generating heat sometimes exceeding that supplied by space matter; gravity action at high temperatures transforming circuitized power into radiative energies; and recaptured light and matter previously emitted.

A regulatory blanket of hot gases (often millions of degrees in temperature) envelops suns, stabilizing heat dissipation and preventing hazardous thermal fluctuations. During a sun's active life, the internal temperature of 35,000,000 degrees remains relatively constant despite progressive external temperature decline, representing an electronic boiling point under extreme gravity pressure where atoms degrade into their electronic components. Yet even under these conditions, ultimatons themselves remain intact, though the energy involved is phenomenal: a single water drop contains energy equivalent to over one hundred horsepower operating continuously for two years.

In suns connected to space-energy channels, solar energy releases through various complex nuclear-reaction chains, with the hydrogen-carbon-helium reaction predominating. In this metamorphosis, carbon functions as an energy catalyst, facilitating hydrogen conversion to helium without itself undergoing transformation. Under high temperature conditions, hydrogen protons penetrate carbon nuclei, and upon reaching saturation with four protons, the carbon begins ejecting protons at the same rate that new ones arrive, effectively transforming incoming hydrogen particles into helium atoms.

Decreasing hydrogen content corresponds to increasing solar luminosity, with brightness peaking at hydrogen depletion in stars destined for extinction. Subsequently, gravity contraction maintains luminosity until the star eventually condenses into a white dwarf. In massive suns, small circular nebulae, when hydrogen exhaustion triggers gravity contraction, insufficient opacity to maintain internal supportive pressure can precipitate sudden collapse. The gravity-electric changes generate vast quantities of minute particles without electric potential that readily escape the solar interior, causing gigantic stellar bodies to collapse within days or even minutes, as observed in the Andromeda nebula nova approximately fifty years ago, which collapsed in merely forty minutes of Urantia time. Following such collapses, the expelled matter typically surrounds the residual cooling sun as extensive nebular gas clouds, explaining the origin of irregular nebulae like the Crab nebula, which formed approximately nine hundred years ago and still exhibits its progenitor as a solitary star near the center of the irregular nebular mass.

The larger suns maintain such powerful gravitational control over their electrons that light escapes only with assistance from powerful X-rays. These helper rays permeate all space and maintain fundamental ultimatonic energy associations. Major energy losses during a sun's early development, after reaching peak temperatures exceeding 35,000,000 degrees, result less from light escape than from ultimatonic leakage—energy particles escaping into space to engage in electronic association and energy materialization as a veritable adolescent solar energy blast.

Atoms and electrons remain subject to gravitational forces, whereas ultimatons function independently of local material attraction while fully obeying absolute Paradise gravity, following the universal and eternal circle of the universe of universes. Our solar center annually radiates approximately one hundred billion tons of matter, though giant suns shed material at vastly greater rates during their early development. A sun's life stabilizes after reaching maximum internal temperature when subatomic energies begin releasing.

Solar stability fundamentally depends on the equilibrium between gravity-heat contention—tremendous pressures balanced by unimaginable temperatures. The internal gaseous elasticity supports overlying material layers, and when gravity and heat achieve perfect balance, the weight of exterior materials precisely counterbalances the temperature pressure of underlying interior gases. Our sun, having long ago achieved relative equilibrium between expansion and contraction cycles, currently operates in its peak efficiency period of its six billionth year, promising continued current-level performance for more than twenty-five billion years before entering a similarly lengthy decline phase.

Certain variable stars at maximum pulsation are generating subsidiary systems, many destined to resemble our sun with its planetary retinue. Our sun experienced such powerful pulsations when the massive Angona system made its close approach, causing the solar surface to erupt continuous matter streams with increasing violence. This process culminated at closest approach when solar cohesion limits were breached, disgorging a vast pinnacle of matter, the progenitor of our solar system. Under similar circumstances, the attracting body sometimes extracts whole planets or significant solar portions, forming cloud-bound worlds resembling Jupiter and Saturn.

Most solar systems originated through processes entirely different from ours. However, gravity invariably produces the standard solar system configuration: a central sun or dark island with orbiting planets, satellites, subsatellites, and meteors. Individual worlds' physical characteristics largely depend on their formation mode, astronomical position, and physical environment. Planets born through gas-contraction or solid-accretion typically feature mountains and, when sufficiently large, develop water and atmosphere during their early existence.

Planets with dual origins like Urantia experience less tumultuous youthful development than their counterparts, though they still undergo significant upheavals, including volcanoes, earthquakes, and violent storms. Urantia occupies a comparatively isolated position on Satania's periphery, with only one system world more distant from Jerusem. Satania itself borders the outermost region of Norlatiadek, which currently traverses Nebadon's outer fringe. Though once among creation's least significant worlds, Michael's bestowal elevated Urantia to a position of honor and great universe interest, exemplifying how the least often becomes greatest.