Why the numinous?

"Why numinous?" you may ask. In order to explain that, I have to talk about one of my favorite books. Contact by Carl Sagan. I read this book several times during high school and my early twenties, but it wasn't until a year or two ago that it suddenly hit me. Even though it is fiction and written as such, that doesn't mean it doesn't offer truth. And the case of this particular story it offers more truth than I realized at first. It changed the way I think about life, science, religion, god, and the universe.
Without going too far into my struggles with faith and organized religion, this book made me realize that god, whichever one you choose to believe in, isn't limited to one tiny planet in one insignificant corner of a inconsequential galaxy of the universe. It is just another version of the geocentric theory (the one that said the earth was the center of the solar system, and the center of everything else, too), to think that humans are the most important creature, out even the only intelligent creature, out there.
Anyway, at one point the main character of Contact is taking with her lover and they are talking about the difference between science and religion. I can't remember the exact quote, but to some effect she days that if worship is standing in awe of something, then she doss it every day at her telescope looking at far distant stars and listening to radio waves from other galaxies. And that those things are numinous.
One of the definitions of numinous is as follows: surpassing comprehension or understanding; mysterious. That is what I am looking for. Those things that come upon you, and are amazing and brilliant, and utterly beyond what can be imagined or described.