Category: The Earth

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CLEVER Planets

CLEVER Planets Include Earth
We have often mentioned many of the conditions that must exist to make a planet habitable. The number is large and growing as science learns more about Earth’s special life-supporting features. Now NASA has awarded $7,700,000 to Rice University to conduct a five-year study to see what it takes to create a “recipe for a habitable planet.” The project has been named CLEVER Planets, an acronym for Cycles of Life-Essential Volatile Elements in Rocky Planets.

The award comes from NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NexSS). The research team will include experts in astrophysics, atmosphere and climate science, geology, geochemistry, geophysics, and organic chemistry. The investigators are from Rice University, NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the University of California-Davis, UCLA, and the University of Colorado-Boulder. This will be the most in-depth study of what it takes to create a habitable planet.

The lead investigator of CLEVER Planets, Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice, wrote: “A recipe for life as we know it requires essential elements like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur.” Of course, that is not all that is required to create a recipe for a life-supporting planet. There are also many other conditions including liquid water, the right temperature with stable conditions, a proper atmosphere, and shielding from dangerous radiation. Having an atmosphere requires a planet of the right size to have the right amount of gravity to sustain an atmosphere. To have liquid water and the right temperature requires that the planet must be the right distance from the right kind and size of star. The planet needs a magnetic field to shield from dangerous particles coming from the star. To have a magnetic field, there must be magnetic elements inside the planet. The list goes on and on.

We look forward to seeing the results of the CLEVER Planets study five years from now. The bottom line is that it is very, very difficult to get all of the right ingredients required to create the recipe for a habitable planet. Earth is an exceptional place in the universe.

It seems doubtful that we will find any other planet similar to Earth. But as we have said before, if there is any form of life anywhere else in the universe, that has nothing to do with the existence of God. We believe in a God who can do anything He chooses to do in keeping with His nature.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Hydrogen Wall and Creation

Hydrogen Wall and New Horizons
One of the interesting hints in the Genesis account is the suggestion that two creations were involved. A new scientific discovery of a hydrogen wall may also suggest that.

Genesis 1:1 uses the Hebrew word erets (earth) in describing the creation of the cosmos. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That would suggest the simple idea that God created everything including all of the galaxies and whatever else exists in interstellar space.

In verses 9 and 10 the same word (erets) is used in a more restricted way: “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land earth…” This second creation is what the creation week describes with humans and their domesticated animals as the focus of that week.

As the New Horizons spacecraft was leaving the solar system, it encountered what appears to be a hydrogen wall at the edge of our solar neighborhood. As our Sun moves through the galaxy it produces a stream of charged particles called a solar wind. This “wind” collides with uncharged hydrogen atoms producing a wall of hydrogen. This bubble or wall is about 100 times further from the Sun than the Earth is. The wall indicates that our planet and its solar system are isolated as a unit from the rest of the cosmos.

This new data on a possible hydrogen wall reinforces the biblical picture of God’s action during the creation week as a very special action on a very special planet. God created the cosmos, but then He set Earth apart as a place for those creatures created in His image. That is the primary message of Genesis.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Reference: Science News, September 15, 2018, page 10, or click HERE.

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Troposphere and Breathing Comfort

Troposphere and Breathing Comfort
Earth’s atmosphere is incredible! There are three primary layers of the atmosphere, and we live in the bottom layer called the troposphere. It extends as high as about 33,000-43,000 feet (10-13 kilometers). This layer is where we have breathable air. Above the troposphere is the stratosphere and above that is the mesosphere.

The troposphere is not only where we have air we can breathe, but it is also where we have weather and clouds. In the stratosphere, the air is not dense enough to supply us with sufficient oxygen, but it is relatively peaceful with little turbulence. In the early days of commercial airplane flight, because of turbulence in the troposphere, many people became airsick. However, planes could not fly above the troposphere because, among other problems, the low air pressure in the stratosphere would create a lack of oxygen for breathing.

That changed in the 1930’s when the Boeing company designed the first successful airplane with a pressurized cabin. They called it the “Stratoliner.” It could fly above the turbulence and still provide breathing comfort. Today commercial passenger planes fly in the lower stratosphere for cruising comfort, with pressurized cabins for breathing comfort.

When the weather on Earth becomes turbulent, we sometimes complain, but we can be thankful that the Designer of the Earth gave us a pressurized zone. With each breath we take, we should be thankful.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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International Dateline Where Days Divide

International Dateline Where Days Divide
Because the Earth is always turning on its axis, we have periods of day and night. To establish consistent times for daylight and darkness, humans have divided the Earth into 24 time zones. At one point we call the International Dateline, the days divide.

As you travel around the world east to west, the time becomes earlier. As you go west to east, it becomes later. In the United States, the time on the west coast is three hours earlier than the time on the east coast. At some point on the Earth, the time has to change by 24 hours. We call that the International Dateline (IDL) and it runs from pole to pole through the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A new day, or a new year, always arrives first on the west side of that line. Then it progresses around the Earth, hour by hour until it returns to the east side of the IDL.

The Earth always has day and night at the same time because it’s a rotating sphere. People in antiquity didn’t understand that. Also in ancient times when people did not have electric lights, they worked only during the day and slept at night. However, 2000 years ago Jesus talked about an event that will take place in an instant, but he said that it will be daytime and it will be nighttime. He also said that some people will be working (daytime activity) and others will be sleeping (nighttime activity) when the event takes place.

You can read the words of Jesus in Luke 17:30-35. How did He know that day and night take place at the same time? I think it was because he was more than a man. In fact, I believe He created day and night. (See John 1:1, 2, 14.)
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Canyonlands Field Trip Purpose

Canyonlands Field Trip

Today is the final day of the 2018 DOES GOD EXIST? Canyonlands Tour. The pictures are of Bryce Canyon and Alan Doty who has served as a guide along with John Clayton. They have been making these educational tours for several years. The purpose of the Canyonlands field trip is not just entertainment. We want to help people understand the history of how God has crafted the Earth He created to make it a suitable home for people. We also want to show that science and faith are friends, not enemies. This video is from an earlier journey to the Canyonlands. We share it here so that John can tell you why he believes these trips are important.

You can watch the video series John mentions by using THIS LINK.
We also invite you to see our two previous posts about the Canyonlands Field Trip HERE and HERE.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Grand Canyon Formation

Grand Canyon Formation
As we told you before, this is the week of the 2018 Canyonlands Tour. We mentioned the plaque at the Grand Canyon watchtower with the verse from Psalms. Today, we would like to share with you a video segment from a previous field trip to the Grand Canyon. In the video, geologist and teacher John Clayton uses the diagram shown above as he describes the layers of the Canyon and the various processes that formed them. The Grand Canyon formation processes are complex and involve God’s work through natural forces over a vast span of time.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Evidence from Cosmology

Evidence from Cosmology
One of the most compelling arguments for the existence of God is the basic question of creation itself. In our materials, we make an elementary and easy to understand presentation that there was a beginning, that the beginning was caused, and that the cause was a personal intelligence. We show that the cosmos was created with purpose and intelligence that can be seen by a careful study of the evidence of design that is all around us. This is evidence from cosmology.

Since our presentation is at an elementary level, many times we receive questions which express a desire for more in-depth explanations. One of the best articles that we have seen on the evidence from cosmology was published in the September 2018 issue of Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith which is the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation (Volume 70 #3 pages 147-160). The title of the article is “The Fine-Tuning of the Universe: Evidence for the Existence of God?” It was written by Walter L. Bradley Ph.D. from Texas A & M and Baylor Universities.

The article is a technical analysis of the evidence from cosmology and concludes with: “The nature of nature, especially fine-tuning, provides clear and compelling evidence for our all-powerful, loving Creator God, who can be seen through ‘the things that have been made, so those who do not believe are without excuse’” (Romans 1:20).

The article is available on the ASA website www.asa3.org at THIS LINK. You can also reach them at American Scientific Affiliation, 218 Boston Street Suite 208, Topsfield, MA 01983, phone 978-887-8833.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

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Evolution Does Not Explain Creation

Evidence from Cosmology
The notion of God as the creator has escaped our world today. We have not understood that there was a beginning, that God caused the beginning, and that His imprint is on all we see around us. We have been told that evolution explains all these things, but in reality, evolution doesn’t address the question. Evolution does not explain creation.

Evolution assumes that time has been created. Evolution assumes that space has been created and that matter/energy has been created within space/time. Evolution assumes that forces we are just beginning to understand shaped the matter/energy in space/ time so that stable physical matter came into existence. It assumes that the properties of matter/energy caused it to become organized into galaxies, and stars, and solar systems.

Evolution further assumes that within one of those solar systems a planet was created within the Goldilocks zone where water could exist as a liquid. On that planet, carbon and oxygen and heavy metals were produced to allow tangible matter to exist for long periods of time. Then evolution assumes that within a limited time these materials came into existence in an environment and with a catalyst that could produce life.

Once all those assumptions have been made, evolution attempts to explain how that first life changed to eventually become us. In other words, evolution tries to explain how once the creation happened, things got to be as they are today. Evolution does not explain creation.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

This post was adapted from “First-Century Athens and the 21st-Century World” by John N. Clayton. We encourage you to read the complete article which appears in the third quarter 2018 DOES GOD EXIST? Journal. If you subscribe to the printed version, you should have received it in the mail. Otherwise, you can read it online at THIS LINK.

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God’s Elevator — The Vortex

God's Elevator — The Vortex
One of my favorite demonstrations as a physics teacher was to put a student on a frictionless stool and spin them around with their legs extended out in front of them. I would then tell them to pull in their legs. When they did that, their angular velocity increased dramatically—they spun faster. We see this when a spinning figure skater pulls in their arms and legs causing a dramatic increase in their rotational speed. This is an excellent demonstration of the conservation of energy and angular momentum. It is also a design feature that enables a wide variety of living things to fly without prohibitive losses of metabolic energy. We call it God’s elevator.

Instead of solids, what happens if the material that is spinning is a fluid – water or air for example. When water goes down the drain in your sink, it picks up speed as it gets near the center. In the very center, there won’t be any motion at all. In a hurricane, warm air is rising in the center, and as air rushes in to replace the rising air, it increases in speed. The center with no air rushing in is the eye of the hurricane, and the maximum velocity is in the wall near the eye.

A less dramatic example of the vortex is the convection cell on a hot summer day. The Sun heats the ground which then heats the air near the ground. The heated air rises, and as it does, the edges of the air are cooled by contact with the colder air around it. This creates a doughnut-shaped thermal vortex that rises to make an invisible, energy-saving elevator for any organism that can get into the doughnut. What this means is that an animal like a hawk does not have to beat its wings and spend enormous energy to soar to a high elevation. This is a huge saving in metabolic energy. An amazing number of living organisms use God’s elevator to get high into the sky and travel very long distances.

Charles Darwin, while sailing on the Beagle, noticed a mass of spiderlings 60 miles off the South American coast. These organisms are terrestrial creatures, but they were able to travel enormous distances by using vortices. Moths use vortices to make journeys from where they are to new areas.

Recent studies of birds have shown that the wings of a bird create a vortex system which is like a ladder. There is almost no lift produced by the bird’s wings on their upstroke, but the downstroke creates a vortex. That vortex combines with vortices on the wing tips making a ring. The combination of these ring vortices makes a zigzagging ladder-like system which lifts the bird. This allows the bird to use a smaller amount of energy than if it merely powered itself through the air. That is why the birds in your backyard fly in a zigzag pattern rather than a smooth path.

Blackfly larvae that live on the bottom of a stream position themselves so that water flowing over the bottom of the tube-shaped larva goes faster creating a low pressure rising along their bodies. The resulting vortex brings up food particles along the floor of the stream to the filters that extend out the top of the larva. The number of examples of living things that use vortices to feed or to conserve energy as they travel seems to be endless.

How do these animals know to use the vortex effect? The way they position themselves and how they use the vortices in their environment works to their advantage. God’s elevator is a great testimony to His wisdom of design in the creation. We can know there is a God through the things He has made and how they use things like vortices to survive (Romans 1:20).
–John N. Clayton © 2018

Data from Discover, August 1993 page 81-87.

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Why So Much Stuff in Space?

Why So Much Stuff in Space?
One of the questions people ask about God’s creation is why so much stuff in space? If humans are the focus of God’s creation, why did He create so many planets, galaxies, and stars? If God’s purpose was to have the human race as the battlefield for the struggle between good and evil, surely He didn’t need to create 100 billion other stars in our galaxy and billions of other galaxies.

There are so many assumptions involved in this question that it would take many more pages to explore them all. First, this question assumes that God’s creation of life only happened here. It assumes that there are no other planets anywhere in the creation that have sentient beings living on them. You can argue that forever, but the Bible doesn’t give an answer. The Bible only describes Earth because it presents a message for our planet and its people.

The question also assumes that God only intended for us to live on the surface of this planet. I get letters regularly from people who suggest that we have no business going into outer space because God intends for us to live here and nowhere else. That is a massive assumption, and one that I suggest is misguided. One recent discovery has given another possible answer to why so much stuff in space. Humans are rapidly exploiting the mineral wealth of planet Earth. We know that the Earth contains a finite amount of iron, nickel, cobalt. If we should survive on Earth for much longer than the 21st century, we are going to run out of resources.

Japan’s robotic spacecraft Hayabusa 2 visited asteroid 162173 Ryugu (pictured) in June of 2018. Data from the spacecraft indicates that this asteroid is composed almost entirely of nickel and iron. The spacecraft was returning a sample to Earth for analysis. This asteroid is one kilometer wide, and at the current market value, the iron and nickel in the asteroid are worth over 80 billion dollars. God’s plan for us may be far greater and longer than we realize. Space contains a wealth of mineral resources. God has provided for us in many ways, and we always seem to have just enough of a resource to get us to the next source. We had just enough wood to get us to hydrocarbons, and just enough hydrocarbons to bring us to nuclear and solar power.

Our problem is not resources. Our problem is being able to get along with each other well enough to avoid destroying ourselves. Jesus Christ has the answer to that major issue, but the size of the cosmos merely reflects God’s power and wisdom. As we wonder why so much stuff in space, we have to think of the words of the psalmist, “What is man, that you are mindful of him? And the son of man, that you visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you put all things under his feet” (Psalms 8:4-6).
–John N. Clayton © 2018
For more on asteroid Ryugu click HERE.