Tag: astronomy

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Exoplanet Data Goes Wild

Alien Planet Fantasy
Alien Planet Fantasy

An exoplanet is a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. At the time that I am writing there are 3,565 known exoplanets, but by the time you read this, there could be over 4,000. In spite of what the media says, there have been no “Earth-twin,” “habitable,” or “Earth-like” planets found. These are cliches the media throws around which have very little scientific validity. When a scientist identifies a planet as being in a habitable zone, it simply means that water could exist on the planet in a liquid form. Scientists consider water, carbon, and oxygen essential for life. But there are many other variables that must be carefully chosen before an “Earth-like” planet could actually have life on it.

The exoplanets that have been discovered so far are an incredibly varied group. Most are too big, too hot, too gassy (like our gas giant Jupiter), or they have orbits that are too eccentric (ovals, not circles) to support life. Some planets are so hot that they rain glass. Others are so cold that no biological organism could exist on them. The stars around which these planets orbit are also an incredibly varied group with enormous ranges in size, activity, temperature, and radiation levels. In most cases, those stars are orbiting other stars making life nearly impossible.

Every day new discoveries are reported. We now understand more about how planets form, and that tells us how special our planet is. We need to take care of it, because moving to another planet is not feasible now, and may never be possible. Data from Discover magazine, April 2017, pages 40 -45.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Travel in Space

Travel in Space
Popular movies portray travel in space as just being a matter of solving simple propulsion problems. The truth is that cosmic radiation is now better understood as a huge risk to space travel. In Scientific American (February 2017, page 54) Charles Limolihas wrote an excellent scientific discussion of the dangers of cosmic radiation.

Galactic cosmic rays are charged atomic nuclei flying at nearly the speed of light, probably coming from the supernova remnants of dead stars. Our Sun generates a great amount of radiation, but the cosmic rays are much more of a hazard. When these atomic nuclei hit molecules in our body, they ionize atoms, knocking electrons off the atoms and causing the atoms to become charged. These charged atoms hit other atoms, and there is a domino effect that is greatly magnified because of the extra energy involved. In human bodies, there are clusters of damage from such radiation, and just trying to duplicate the process in the laboratory has turned out to be incredibly difficult. Limolihas and his fellow researchers have shown that there is a much greater effect on brain tissue than anyone imagined.

The Earth is designed to handle this huge radiation by having two levels of shielding. The Earth’s magnetic field sweeps galactic cosmic rays away from the areas of the planet where most people live, and the atmosphere stops much of the rest. The amount of cosmic radiation we receive on the surface on Earth’s surface is relatively harmless. When you travel in space beyond Earth’s magnetic field, you, have virtually no protection, and that is going to be a huge challenge for space engineers to solve.

The lesson we would bring from this is that God’s design of Earth becomes more and more amazing as we learn of the complexities that have to be taken care of for you and me just to get up in the morning.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Music of the Spheres

NASA Spitzer Space Telescope Photo of Galaxy NGC 1291
NASA Spitzer Space Telescope Photo of Galaxy NGC 1291

Around 500 B.C. there lived a famous Greek philosopher by the name of Pythagoras. He gained a sect of followers in a place called Crotone in southern Italy. The Pythagoreans taught that the planets (including an Anti-Earth on the other side of the Sun), the Moon, and the Sun were fastened to great spheres of crystal, rotating around a central fire. They believed that the motion of these spheres created an exquisite harmony which ordinary people cannot hear. Pythagoras and his followers believed they could tune instruments by mathematical calculations so the instruments would resonate with the spheres. Dancing to the music of the spheres was an activity that occupied much of the time of the ancient Pythagoreans.

Although the ideas of the Pythagoreans were not accurate in many ways, from a scientific standpoint, we can see the harmony of the spheres of stars and planets today. You could say that the music to which the spheres dance is loud and clear. Our solar system moves with definite rhythms, following a “musical score” written with incredible precision and purpose. As our knowledge and understanding has improved, the incredible complexity of the musical score has become obvious. Isaac Newton gave us the original score, and Albert Einstein fine-tuned it. Both gained their understandings by looking at the grand design. We have learned that the Moon helps to hold Earth at the proper tilt. We have seen that the large Jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) help to shield Earth from intruding comets. We know that the very substances of which we are made had their origin in the stars.

Dean Overman in his book A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization showed the fallacy of trying to explain everything we see in the cosmos by chance. It has been suggested that a large number of monkeys typing on a large number of typewriters would eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. Overman shows that the chance of monkeys typing a section from Macbeth containing only 379 letters would have a probability of 10 to the 536th power. When you consider that there are only 10 to the 80th power atoms in the known universe, you can see that the chances are very small. Mathematicians consider anything with a probability of 10 to the 50th power as a mathematical impossibility.

The dance of the spheres and the music to which it moves is nothing like what Pythagoras thought. It is much more complex. It is also very real, and it speaks to us in beautiful ways about our own design and purpose.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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TRAPPIST-1 Planets and Life

TRAPPIST-1 Planet Lineup - NASA
TRAPPIST-1 Planet Lineup – NASA Illustration

In May of 2016 astronomers using the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (called TRAPPIST) announced the finding of three planets orbiting a single star which has been labeled “TRAPPIST-1.” On February 22, 2017, astronomers released to the media a report stating that they have discovered four more planets orbiting Trappist-1. The planets are small, and their location in relation to the star they orbit indicates that they could have liquid water on them. The media has picked this up and USA Today (February 23, 2017, page B1) has headlined “Newly Discovered Network of Planets Could Harbor Life.”

This is just another example of media sensationalizing and misapplying a scientific study. Let us point out before going any further that we have repeatedly said that there may be life elsewhere in the universe. We have also pointed out that chance is an unworkable explanation for the creation of life anywhere. The Bible doesn’t say this is the only place where God has seen fit to create life, so the question of life in space is moot.

The facts are that this is a remarkable scientific achievement made possible because the planets transit the star so that we can see them because we are looking at them at the proper angle. We now know that the process of star formation produces multiple planets orbiting the stars. To suggest that there will be life on one of these planets is a wild speculation. First of all, the star is very small and very dim. It is a red star just slightly bigger than Jupiter. That means it will emit the wrong wavelengths for photosynthetic life at least, and radiation levels are probably prohibitive. There are many other parameters that have to be carefully chosen for life to exist–things like shielding magnetic fields, sheltering major planets, proper spin rates, protective atmospheric layers, proper densities of the atmosphere, and many more. A discussion of some of these parameters is available in videos # 6 & 7 on our doesgodexist.tv website.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Neptunian Influence

Neptune Photo from Voyager 2 - NASA
Neptune Photo from Voyager 2 – NASA

The planet Uranus was observed by scientists as early as 1690. For over 100 years astronomers watched this “last planet” in the solar system with wonder. The problem was that the orbit of the new planet did not follow the rules. The eccentricity of Uranus’ orbit told the astronomers that there was something very large and forceful that was having a real impact on what Uranus did and how it behaved. As time went by, better telescopes were built. Astronomers had watched Uranus long enough to know where the great influence was, so they turned their instruments to that part of the sky and were astounded to see still another planet–Neptune! The orbit of Neptune was established and studied, and it too did not quite obey the rules, so astronomers turned their most powerful instruments even further out and discovered Pluto. Most modern discoveries in astronomy are related to influence. We know where to look and what to look for because we see the influence of an object long before we see the object itself.

The same principle applies to human relationships and Christ. If people are Christians, their influence should be obvious to a stranger long before that stranger knows the source of the strength in the Christian’s life. Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another.” Jesus also said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” Scientists would never have thought of looking for the planet Neptune until they saw its influence on Uranus. Many people will never think of looking for Christ until they see his influence in the lives of Christians. We should not have to tell others we are Christians, but they should suspect it by the way we live and how we treat one another.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Alien Claims and the Media

No Aliens Are Near
Every time some unusual signal from space is discovered, we see headlines in newspapers about aliens being the source of the signal. In August of 2016, reports came out of a radio telescope in Russia known as the RATAN-600 that had picked up a strong signal in the 11 gigahertz band. This was coming from a star known as HD 164595 and was first detected in 2013. Since that time the RATAN telescope and SETI have listened for repeat signals, but none have been detected. Headlines in the media have been things like “Baffling Alien Signal Detected.” Dr. Eric Korpela who works with SETI says, “There’s always the problem that scientific vocabulary is different from the public vocabulary. Detection, to me, means something was detected. To the public, it may translate as ‘We found aliens.’” It turns out that the signals have several possible natural explanations, none of which involve aliens.

The question remains as to why the public is so obsessed with the theme of aliens. We have pointed out repeatedly that finding life in space doesn’t have anything to do with the existence of God. If God chose to create life in other places for reasons we don’t fully understand, that is no issue. The Bible deals with humans and our existence on Earth. It is becoming obvious that there are no higher forms of life anywhere close to us, so the question is moot. This is not a question that has implications for the existence of God or the credibility of the Bible.

I have had atheists respond to me by saying that if life exists elsewhere, it proves that life can come about by chance. That assumes that God exists only on our planet, which is a misunderstanding of what God is. The fact remains that having a story about aliens sells, and video games and sci-fi movies will continue to propagate the idea. I have often told the story of doing a radio debate with an atheist on the Larry King talk show in Washington D.C. before he became famous. A listener called in and asked the atheist what he would do if a spaceship landed on the White House lawn, and a little green man jumped out with a Bible in his hand and said: “Has Jesus been here yet?” My atheist friend responded “punt,” and maybe that’s what we should all do on this issue until we have more facts. Source of Information: Astronomy magazine December 2016, page 9.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Evolution of Big Bang Theory Sounding More Like the Bible.

Big Bang-Artist's Concept
Big Bang-Artist’s Concept

In 1931 a Belgian astronomer named Georges Lemaitre proposed that the universe emerged from the decay of a single supermassive particle which he called “The Primeval Atom.” Since that time there have been a variety of similar explanations with the “Cosmic Egg” proposal being popular in the 1950s. The Big Bang was a label conceived by Fredrick Hoyle as measurements of the temperatures of various regions of space became known, and as radiation from the start of the cosmos confirmed a very hot singularity at the beginning of the cosmos. Hoyle’s label was actually making fun of some of the theories of his day, but the label stuck.

As more and more data has become available, the evolution of thought about the origin of the cosmos has changed. Quantum mechanics is now suggesting a whole new physics to describe the creation. While this has been happening, the evolution of words and their meaning has also taken place. A “singularity” is no longer understood as a point in space and time. It is not a single particle or kind of object. It is a condition of the cosmos in which space and time came into existence, containing ultra-hot and ultra-dense particles. The current theory says that a trillionth of a second after the singularity came into existence the temperature was a billion times hotter than the core of the Sun, and the energy density was more than 10 to the 36th power kilograms (that’s 10 followed by 36 zeros) in every cubic meter of space. To make it that dense, you would have to compress the Sun to the size of a marble.

Jeremiah 10:12 is typical of the descriptions the Bible gives of God’s creative acts. “He has made the earth by his power, he established the world by his wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens by his discretion.” Just as physics now turns to quantum mechanics to comprehend processes at a subatomic level beyond what we can physically see with our eyes, so too does the Bible describe God not in human terms, but in multidimensional terms. Acts 17:28 is a good example with the description of God being totally non-anthropomorphic, “In him we live and move and have our being.” Other passages such as Jeremiah 23:23-24 and 2 Chronicles 2:6 give a similar view of the nature of God as a being outside space and time.

All Big Bang cosmologies have a common problem–explaining what banged and who banged it! What the evidence supports is the fact that the creation came from an entity outside of space/time. This entity wasn’t “nothing” but an entity that had a purpose for what it did and had great wisdom in how creation was accomplished. God fits those properties, and no chance process does. For more on this topic, we encourage you to read the booklet titled “A Help in Understanding What God Is” which is on our doesgodexist.org website. (http://www.doesgodexist.org/Pamphlets/Flatland.html)
Data from Astronomy magazine, February 2016, page 34.
–John N. Clayton © 2017.