Articles
Your satellite dish and the Arctic Rose
Posted in: Creation
Got a satellite dish which track satellites in space? Seems impressive huh? Well, I’ve got news for you: this little plant beat your gadget’s designers to it.
In the Arctic, heat is at a premium. And so, the Arctic Rose uses the freebie of heat to attract the insects which pollinate it!
The flower of the little Arctic Rose is shaped like a radio telescope monitoring outer space: but for a far more useful purpose.
The shape of its petals gathers and reflects heat from the sun’s rays, and focuses warmth on the stamens and the stigma.
Insects come to these flowers not only for the food (nectar and pollen) but also for warmth. They come to these private sun traps, which are about 10 degrees than warmer anywhere else. The insects themselves become warmer and better able to fly in a very short time, and move on to the next solar heated flower, carrying the precious pollen to it.
Now these insects have to work hard, because the Greenland summer is only about 7 weeks long, although there are nearly 24 hours of daylight. Therefore the plant has to keep warm all day.
So how does it do it? Well, its stem rotates because of its extraordinary design, and it tracks the sun 24 hours per day, being never more than 2 degrees off course!
Isn’t that amazing? If no insects came, the flower would not be pollinated. If the flower wasn’t pollinated, the plant would die out, because there would be no seeds, and no new plants to carry on when the parent died.
So, in one of the many, many flashes of genius we see in the natural world, the Almighty God of heaven and earth, made provision for His little plant, and gave it this ingenious device to help it survive in the cold, cold north.
He cares about the plants. And He cares no less for us. His Son said so, in some of the most comforting words ever spoken anywhere (read the Bible verses to the right).
Like the little Arctic Rose, we too must track the Sun of Righteousness – that lovely name for the Lord Jesus is in the book of Malachi. Because from Him we gather and reflect the warmth of God’s love, which warms ourselves, and the others who come to Him.
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