Dr. Becky (an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford) is amazing in how clearly she explains stars, galaxies, black holes and the universe out there. But in this video, she is stumped and can’t explain how they are (were) formed! Dr. Becky has respect for those who are religious while she, herself is not (see below). However, while we might not have a PhD in Astrophysics, we could suggest the answer is… God did it! (see transcript of her comments below the video):

This is her video about Spiral Galaxies and how they are so absolutely beautiful:

Here is how she starts this intriguing video:

Wherever we look in the universe we see spiral galaxies. 70% of all the galaxies that we see today have this spiral shape that shows up in their stars and their gas that’s used to make more stars. And in my opinion they are the most beautiful objects in the entire universe. You can just get completely lost following the spirals around. But can we explain how those spiral shapes form in galaxies? Nope! There is still no consensus among us astrophysicists for how these spiral shapes form in galaxies. And that’s thanks in part due to the huge variation in spiral structures that you see across the Universe.

From two spirals, to three spirals, to four spirals or ones that are so fluffy you can’t even count the number of spirals. There’s ones with bars running through the middle. Some where the spirals come off the ends of the bars and some with bars where the spirals don’t attach to the bars. There’s loose spirals, tight spirals, big stretched out tidal spirals… there’s blue spirals and red spirals… spirals in pairs and spirals by themselves and even galaxies that look like they should have spirals but don’t.

Explaining all of that variation is no small feat. And so while we do have a couple of different ideas for how spirals are triggered and form in a galaxy and why some have them and some don’t, we still don’t yet fully understand them.

MY THOUGHTS: It’s almost like there was some massive intelligence behind this! God loves beauty. God loves variation. God loves differences. God loves uniqueness. God is a generous God who created all this beauty, variation, difference and uniqueness just for us because God loves us so much!

Faith and Science easily coexist

Dr. Becky is not religious, but does respect those of us who are (thank you Dr. Becky). Here is one time she talked about this (queued to the right spot) followed by a transcript of what she is saying:

Here is what Dr. Becky has to say in this video about FAITH and SCIENCE (how they can coexist easily):

I hate how this film seems to be like pitting science against religion, like such a massively overused trope. Like, yes, some scientists are atheists but there are some that are very religious and have faith as well. Like the two things aren’t mutually exclusive, right? And if there’s anyone out there who wants to be a scientist, but thinks they can’t because they’re religious, that’s ridiculous! Please continue becoming a scientist. And don’t think that faith would ever be belittled by the scientific community either. Like, you know, I’m an atheist myself, but I have so much respect for those who have faith and for their religious beliefs. It brings people so much hope and happiness. Why would you want to take that away from people? I just don’t need it for myself, that’s all.

FOR THE RECORD… Who is Dr. Becky?

Rebecca Smethurst, also known as Dr. Becky, is a British astrophysicist, author, and YouTuber who is a Royal Astronomical Society Research Fellow[6] at the University of Oxford. She was the recipient of the 2020 Caroline Herschel Prize Lectureship, awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society, as well as the 2020 Mary Somerville Medal and Prize, awarded by the Institute of Physics. In 2022, she won the Royal Astronomical Society’s Winton Award “for research by a post-doctoral fellow in Astronomy whose career has shown the most promising development”. (from Wikipedia)