The Solar System Archives

November 21, 2025November 20, 2025

Evidence for the Existence of a Creator in the Big Bang

Cosmology offers compelling evidence for the existence of a creator God. Many people in both religious and skeptical communities see the Big Bang theory as a threat to the credibility of the Genesis account and the existence of God. However, this is unfortunate because the Big Bang theory actually aligns with the Genesis account and presents a cause of creation that skeptics cannot explain.

Technology has confirmed the Big Bang. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) provides the oldest record of the universe’s temperature and density from the very beginning. The latest CMB data show that the universe began with a hot Big Bang. Data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe verify that time started at the Big Bang.

The words of Genesis 1:1 fully correspond to this data. The first word in the Bible is “reshith,” meaning an absolute starting point. The next word refers to God, followed by “bara,” a term used exclusively for acts only God can perform. Then, we see the word is “shamayim,” meaning “heaved-up things.” The rapid expansion of the universe aligns perfectly with this wording.

Further study of the biblical record reveals the ongoing battle between good and evil and God’s creation of humans through whom that battle occurs. (See Job 1 and 2.) Skeptics cannot explain why humans exist. The greatest failure of atheism is that it offers no reason for the existence of the cosmos or human life. When science and religion conflict, it often indicates either poor science, poor religion, or both. Historically, this has been the case with the Big Bang theory, but as science progresses and people deepen their understanding of what the Bible truly teaches, we see that both science and Scripture provide strong evidence for the existence of a Creator.

Reference: American Scientist, November/December 2025, pages 353 -359.

October 31, 2025October 28, 2025

Earth Needs Jupiter

Jupiter is by far the largest planet in the solar system. Its mass is 2.5 times greater than the combined mass of all other planets in the solar system. It divides the planets of the inner solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) from the outer planets (Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). We have previously mentioned that the gravity created by Jupiter’s mass acts as a shield to protect our planet from comets coming from outside the solar system. Additionally, Jupiter influences Earth’s climate cycle. More than that, Earth needs Jupiter for its very existence.

As the solar system was formed, Jupiter’s massive gravity prevented gas and dust in the inner solar system from being pulled into the Sun. These materials coalesced into the inner planets, including Earth. As the planets formed, Jupiter’s gravity helped stabilize the orbits. A recent study co-led by Andre Izidoro of Rice University in Houston demonstrated that Jupiter shaped the structure of the solar system. Earth needs Jupiter today, just as it needed it at the beginning.

According to Izidoro, “Jupiter didn’t just become the biggest planet—it set the architecture for the whole inner solar system. Without it, we might not have Earth as we know it.” As gas and dust swirled around the newly formed Sun, Jupiter’s massive gravity created ripples that formed rings of material which clumped together by gravity to form the inner planets. Earth needs Jupiter because, without it, the material that formed the planet would have spiraled into the Sun.

Genesis 1:1 tells us, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth,” but it doesn’t specify the process God used or how long it took. If the Bible included every detail, it would be an enormous book. But the Bible is not a science book, and scientists are still exploring the processes God used in creation. It is fascinating to consider how complex the creation process must have been, yet the first verse of the Bible contains the essential facts. There was a beginning. God did it. The creation of a functioning universe, a solar system, and a planet for human habitation is summarized in five Hebrew words—“reshith elohim bara shamayim erets.”

References: space.com and science.org

October 22, 2025October 22, 2025

Solar Reflectors in Space

Joshua chapter 10 records an incident in which the Sun stood still to provide light for “about a full day” so that Joshua could lead the Israelites to defeat the Amorites in battle. I don’t pretend to know the details of how that happened, but I have heard a suggestion that God provided a miraculous way to reflect the Sun’s light into the Valley of Aijalon until the victory was complete. From the perspective of someone in that location, it would appear that the Sun stood still. Now, a California-based company called Reflect Orbital wants to do something like that with a constellation of solar reflectors in space.

Reflect Orbital hopes to launch a 60-by-60-foot (18-by-18-meter) mirror into orbit in April of 2026 to test the idea. If the plan succeeds, they want to place 4,000 solar reflectors in space to orbit in a sun-synchronous orbit between the poles. They would follow the boundary between day and night, providing reflected light to areas in the twilight zone. Reflect Orbital says it could enable solar power generation during peak morning and evening hours, improve crop growth, allow people to work into the night, and provide emergency lighting for disaster zones. Reflect Orbital has applied to the FCC for a license, claiming they have the funding and have already received 250,000 requests for service.

Astronomers and those interested in wildlife are very concerned. For example, Robert Massey, Deputy Director of the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK, said, “The central goal of this project is to light up the sky and extend daylight, and obviously, from an astronomical perspective, that’s pretty catastrophic.” With 4,000 solar reflectors in space, each reflection could cover a 5-kilometer area where some agency has requested and paid for service. However, atmospheric scattering would reach an undefined surrounding area. For up to 100 kilometers, the mirrors would appear like very bright stars.

Light pollution is already a problem, increasing by 10 percent per year since the introduction of LED lights, causing fewer stars to be visible in the night sky. Light pollution is also linked to the decline of beneficial insect populations, as well as increased sleep disorders and depression in humans. In addition to affecting astronomical observations, the solar reflectors in space could disrupt migratory birds that depend on the stars for guidance.

Instead of dreaming about what humans can do, maybe we should carefully consider what we should or should not do. Anyone who has experienced the night sky in one of the rare dark sky areas remaining can appreciate the words of the psalmist David: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? (Psalms 8:3,4 ESV)

Reference: space.com

August 6, 2025August 5, 2025

Shortest Day on Record?

If you’re thinking that you didn’t accomplish much yesterday, August 5, 2025, it might be because the day was shorter than usual. I don’t mean that the daylight hours were shorter. Earth’s solar day was shorter than the typical 24 hours, which equals 86,400 seconds. You probably didn’t notice because the day was only 1.25 milliseconds shorter. Blaming the shortest day won’t help—you’ll need to find some other reason for not achieving more.

Earth’s rotation speed had been gradually slowing down, but for some reason it started speeding up in recent years, making the days shorter. Official and precise records of solar day lengths since 1973 show that they were getting longer. Earth’s gravity creates friction against the Moon, causing it to drift farther away and slowing Earth’s rotation. A slower rotation results in longer days.

The Moon’s position relative to Earth’s equator creates tidal forces that very subtly influence Earth’s rotation rate. Scientists speculate that the slower rotation of Earth’s liquid core might cause the outer layers of the planet to spin faster, but that remains only speculation.

We can’t really say that yesterday was the shortest day because July 5, 2024, was 1.66 milliseconds shorter than the usual 24 hours. Don’t worry about any noticeable change in the length of days. God has given us an incredibly stable planet on which to live. Many finely tuned factors make life on Earth and our existence possible, and it could not have been accidental. This remarkable planet is further evidence that God exists.

Reference: space.com

June 2, 2025June 1, 2025

Why We Care About Entropy

As a high school physics teacher, I frequently found myself challenged to keep my students interested. Some subjects were easy, but others were challenging, and the kids became bored very quickly. An example of the latter was a unit on the laws of thermodynamics. The second law, also known as the entropy law, states that a closed system tends to become increasingly disordered over time. Entropy is a statistical measure of disorder. During that unit of study, I once had a student who said, “Who cares?” There are good reasons why we care about entropy.

My response is that entropy is a design feature of the cosmos that produces black holes, but it also allows us to breathe and have engines in our cars. As a public-school teacher, I could not bring my religious views into the classroom, but it also disproves one of the atheist arguments against the existence of God.

When we say that God has always existed and He created the cosmos, atheists ask, “Then who created God?” They suggest it is easier to believe that matter has always existed. Why we care about entropy is that it shows that matter and the cosmos have not always existed.

Every reaction in the physical world reduces the amount of energy available to do work. The total energy in the cosmos available to do work is constantly decreasing, eventually becoming zero, and entropy will be maximum. That means the cosmos could not be eternal, and it must have had a beginning. There must be a cause for that beginning, and that cause is God.

April 24, 2025April 22, 2025

Martian Surface Is Inhospitable for Life

As we have reported on this website, the Martian surface is inhospitable for life. New discoveries show that no life exists there now, and the chemistry of material reached by drilling into Mars’ surface does not show that life has ever existed on that planet.

The media suggest that life on Earth is not exceptional while the scientific data shows that our planet is the only place in the solar system where life can exist. Skeptics would like to find life beyond Earth because they feel it would show that God did not create and design Earth for the existence of humans. Unfortunately, the media often cherry-picks previous data while ignoring more recent findings.

In a USA Today article, Erik Lagatta reported that the Curiosity rover detected some strange spheres in the past. At that time the media claimed that biological processes could have produced these spheres. Further tests showed they were mineral deposits that had nothing to do with life. They were probably formed by groundwater circulating through rock pores.

NASA is interested in the rocks on Mars because they can tell us much about the planet’s geological history. Taking a fresh look at a previously collected sample, NASA scientists found fragments of fatty acids, the largest organic molecules so far discovered on Mars. However, fatty acids do not necessarily indicate life because they can be generated by chemical reactions related to geological processes.

The Martian surface is inhospitable for life, but as we have pointed out before, whether life exists elsewhere in the cosmos is not an issue for the biblical account of life on Earth. If there is life elsewhere, God created it. However, we will probably never know because the distances to other galaxies are so vast that we can never travel there to find out.

First Peter 3:15 tells us to be ready to “give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope that we have.” There is vast evidence for the existence of God, and it is essential to know why we believe what we believe so we can answer our children’s questions.

Reference: Eric Lagatta in USA Today, April 1, 2025

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March 14, 2025March 14, 2025

Learn From a Lunar Eclipse

Yesterday, we told you that the total lunar eclipse visible in the Western Hemisphere last night was connected to the eclipse of 1504, which Christopher Columbus used to get the supplies he needed from the people of Jamaica. It’s an interesting story that you can read HERE. What can we learn from a lunar eclipse, and what is the connection between the eclipse of March 13-14, 2025, and the eclipse of March 1, 1504?

Eclipses come in groups or families called saros. One saros is approximately 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours, slightly varying depending on the number of leap years. The end of each saros has an eclipse similar to the one at the beginning. Astronomers use saros to predict when an eclipse will occur.

A hypersaros consists of multiple saros cycles and lasts for 521 years. Eclipses separated by one hypersaros will appear very close to the same location in the sky and occur at nearly the same time of year. How far apart are 1504 and 2025? They are separated by 521 years, and both eclipses occurred in March about two weeks apart.

This means the eclipse of 1504 would have appeared in the same location in the sky. If you saw last night’s eclipse, you would have seen the same stars surrounding the blood moon as the natives of Jamaica saw 521 years ago. You had a chance to learn from a lunar eclipse by reliving the historical event of 1504.

Chances are you didn’t watch last night’s eclipse for the full length of totality—about an hour. However, I am sure the Jamaicans continued to watch it as they agonized in fear. Meanwhile, Columbus sat smugly in his quarters, watching his hourglass to know when the eclipse would end. Then, he could emerge to tell the natives that God accepted their apology and would restore the Moon.

You can certainly question Columbus’s tactics and his deception of the Jamaicans, but we can learn from a lunar eclipse. The pagan islanders were fooled because they were ignorant of science. Knowledge of science gave Columbus the edge. Knowing that God has designed an orderly and predictable solar system and universe frees us from the ignorance of worshiping His creation. It also frees us from believing that so-called “blood moons” are some special sign. They are part of the system God designed, making them predictable.

We can see God’s eternal power and divine nature by the things and systems He has made (Romans 1:20). The laws that govern the universe show fine-tuned design. The cosmos is not chaotic. It is the work of a God who has a plan and purpose for each of the human creatures He created in His image.

P.S. As I watched the total eclipse at about 3:15 a.m. my time, a meteorite appeared just below it. I suspect that did not happen to the Jamaicans, but it could have. For more about “blood moons” and “shooting stars,” read THIS POST. R.E.

References: iopscience.iop.org and Wikipedia

March 13, 2025March 13, 2025

Christopher Columbus’s Blood Moon

On the night of Thursday March 13 to Friday March 14, 2025, the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, will experience a total lunar eclipse. This eclipse has a connection to Christopher Columbus’s blood moon of 1504. Let me tell the story.

Of course, we know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. That’s when he “discovered” the new world. However, Columbus made three more journeys across the Atlantic, with the last one from 1502 to 1504. On that visit to Jamaica, he ran into difficulty. He was stranded as his ships were crawling with marine worms. He sent a small party in canoes to get help from the Spanish-occupied island of Hispaniola, a hundred miles away.

While waiting for rescue, the crew’s food supply ran out, and the indigenous Arawak people grew tired of supplying provisions for the small trinkets the Spaniards offered in exchange. As his crew members were starving, Columbus had to devise a plan.

Fortunately, Columbus had astronomical tables indicating that a full lunar eclipse would occur on March 1, 1504. He called the local chiefs together and told them that the all-powerful Christian God was displeased with their refusal to help him. He told them that as a sign of God’s wrath, on that night, the Moon would turn dark and become the color of blood.

At first, the natives laughed at Christopher Columbus’s blood moon threats. The laughter stopped when the eclipse began. Columbus told them he would ask God to restore the Moon if they would meet his demands. Then he withdrew and watched his hourglass to time the eclipse. As the eclipse ended, he returned to the Jamaicans, who were pleading for his forgiveness. Columbus and his crew had everything they needed until the rescue ships arrived six months later.

So, what does Christopher Columbus’s blood moon have to do with the one you can see a few hours from now? I invite you to observe the one that will occur tonight. In the Eastern time zone, the eclipse will begin shortly before midnight. The Moon will become gradually darker until it becomes blood red during totality from 2:26 a.m. to 3:31 a.m. Just subtract one hour from those times for each time zone going westward. I’m sure you want to know the connection of this eclipse to Christopher Columbus’s blood moon. That will be the subject tomorrow.

January 24, 2025January 20, 2025

Possible Astronomical Catastrophes

The media often fills a void in natural disasters on Earth by headlining possible astronomical catastrophes. A recent example was a headline in USA Today stating that a “Rare but extreme solar event could disrupt life on earth.”

The article tells us that a solar superflare would fry communications satellites and produce electric currents strong enough to paralyze the power grid. The article tells us that in 1859, a violent solar storm knocked out the telegraph network in large parts of northern Europe and North America. It said if a solar superflare happened today, it would knock out phone services, GPS, credit card authorization, and weather and climate monitoring. The USA Today report is taken from the peer-reviewed journal Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

So, what is the danger of a solar superflare to you and me? The answer to that question is “virtually none.” The point is that solar superflares occur in stars like our Sun roughly once every 10,000 years. The flare in 1859 was not a solar superflare but merely a flare for which the nascent electric industry was unprepared. Today, such a flare would not significantly affect today’s telegraph or phone service.

The lack of possible astronomical catastrophes shows the intelligence and design built into our planet and solar system. A G-2-type star, like our Sun, has infrequent occurrences of solar superflare. Other spectral classes of stars can have solar superflares every 1000 years. That means the occurrence of life on a planet around another star is highly unlikely, if not impossible.

In his 1956 CBS television program “Our Mister Sun,” the late Dr. Frank Baxter said, “The more we know of the creation, the closer we get to the Creator.” The lack of solar superflares is another example of the truth of his statement.

— John N. Clayton © 2025
Reference: “Rare but extreme solar event could disrupt life on earth” on USA Today December 6, 2024

January 16, 2025January 12, 2025

Life on Mars in Fiction and Fact

Our fascination with Mars goes back to American sci-fi, with War of the Worlds, written by H. G. Wells and published in 1898. It was recreated as a radio drama by Orson Welles on Halloween in 1938, causing panic in America. In 1950, Ray Bradbury released a novel called The Martian Chronicles, which ended with the Earth destroyed by nuclear war. In 2005, Steven Spielberg directed a movie based on the Wells novel starring Tom Cruise. In 2015, The Martian was a science fiction movie starring Matt Damon. We have now scientifically investigated the red planet, resolving the question of life on Mars.

Measurements made by NASA’s Curiosity Rover from four Gale crater sites show that there is no life on Mars and that there has never been life on Mars’ surface. The ratios of carbon and oxygen isotopes indicate that no biosphere existed on the planet. Rock samples show extreme rates of evaporation and carbon flowing into the atmosphere like bubbles from a pressurized can of soda.

Previous measurements on Mars have been made in ice, which forms and melts there with some degree of regularity. For the first time, science has isotopic readings from rock samples. One can argue that there has been life on Mars in the distant past preserved many feet below ground, but drill cores have not backed up that theory.

The more we learn from scientific data gathered in space, the more we realize how extraordinary life is on Earth. Mars is NOT our twin planet, and no planet in our solar system is. Travel to another star and another solar system would not be within human capacity at any time during the lives of those living today. Humans may destroy Earth by nuclear war, but Bradbury’s story of The Martian Chronicles is not a predictor of how that might happen.

The Bible says God created time, space, matter-energy, and life. It doesn’t tell us when or how many steps were involved in creating the planet on which we live. The Bible does tell us how to live and avoid the things that can destroy this planet. Albert Einstein is purported to have said that if nuclear war is used in World War III, World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Moving to Mars is not an option. We can avoid wars by following the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 5-7.