Earth Archives

November 19, 2021November 17, 2021

Full Moon – Mini-Moon

If you saw the full moon last night and the partial eclipse early this morning, you might have noticed that it seemed to be a little smaller than usual. That’s because it was a mini-moon.

The Moon’s orbit around Earth is slightly elliptical. For that reason, it is not always the same distance away from us. The average distance to the Moon is 238,855 miles (384,400 km). When it’s closest to Earth, the distance is 225,623 miles (363,105 km), and we call that “perigee.” When the moon is farthest away, the distance is 252,088 miles (405,696 km), and we refer to that as “apogee.” So the difference in the distance is approximately 26,500 miles (42,648 km), and that’s just enough to make a noticeable difference in and size.

Since the Moon is now at apogee, the result was that the full moon last night was smaller, and some people call it a “mini-moon.” Why should we care about the distance to the Moon? Two things make our Moon unique as compared to other moons in our solar system. The Moon’s orbit is less elliptical than that of other moons, and it is also the largest compared to the size of the planet it orbits. Because of its size and orbit, the Moon has many beneficial effects on our planet.

We have previously discussed some of the beneficial effects of the Moon, such as HERE, HERE, and HERE. However, perhaps the most crucial benefit is that it gives stability to Earth’s rotation. Spin a top, and you will notice that it tends to wobble in its rotation. That wobble is called “precession.” Without the Moon’s stabilizing effect, the Earth would wobble, causing instability in our seasons, climate, and weather. In other words, without the Moon, our planet could not support advanced life.

Even if you call it a mini-moon, the Moon is the right size and distance with an orbit that is only slightly elliptical. Because of those precise design factors, we can look up at the full moon and thank the Designer who gave us everything we need to make Earth our home.

November 18, 2021November 17, 2021

Lunar Eclipse and the Bible

What is the connection between tonight’s lunar eclipse and the Bible? Before we answer that, let’s consider the eclipse.

Lunar eclipses occur twice a year on average when the Moon passes through the shadow of the Earth. Every 29 and a half days, the Sun, Moon, and Earth are in line with the Earth in the middle. When that happens, we see a full moon. However, a couple of times a year, the alignment is so precise that our planet momentarily blocks sunlight from reaching the Moon. When Earth’s shadow falls across the Moon, we call it an eclipse. Sometimes the shadow completely blocks the Moon, giving us a total eclipse. This eclipse will be 97%.

The eclipse will occur in the early hours of Thursday, November 19, and it will be the longest partial eclipse in 580 years. The reason for the length is that the Moon is at apogee, meaning it is at its farthest point away from Earth in its somewhat elliptical orbit. Because of that, the Moon will be moving at its slowest speed in its orbit. (That’s a little bit of high school physics.) This eclipse is occurring during what some refer to as the Beaver full moon because it was the opening of the beaver-trapping season. In this case, it is the Micro Beaver because the Moon is farther away and will appear a little smaller.

This eclipse will be visible from all 50 of the United States at different areas of the sky, depending on your geographic location. The peak will be at around 4 a.m. EST (9 a.m. UTC), but it will stretch over almost three and a half hours. You can see a world map of the areas where the eclipse will be visible, check the exact beginning and end times for your location, and even watch a live stream of the eclipse at the timeanddate.com website. You may have to resort to the live stream if your area is overcast, or you don’t want to go outside early in the morning.

Now, back to the connection between the lunar eclipse and the Bible. The point is that we can accurately predict the exact times and dates of lunar and solar eclipses many years in advance. We can also precisely know the time for sunrise and sunset anywhere on Earth. We can also launch a rocket to Mars, knowing exactly where the planet will be in space when the rocket arrives. How is that possible? Because God is faithful.

The ancients believed in many gods with human failings, acting capriciously. It was Christian faith in an omnipotent and never-changing God that made science possible. We have often said that we can know God from the things He has made. Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from has been made…” The book of scripture and the book of nature were both written by God, so they must agree. Even though we learn more details about God and His plan from scripture, we can know much about Him from nature. That is the connection between the lunar eclipse and the Bible. One thing the creation teaches us is that God is faithful, just as we see in Hebrews 10:23: “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful.”

November 17, 2021November 16, 2021

Do We Really Want to Move to Mars?

Mars is our closest neighboring planet at 33.9 million miles (54.6 million km), and it seems that various countries want to send people there. Several countries have launched successful missions to fly by, orbit, or land on the red planet, but none have yet sent people there. The list includes the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, India, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and China. As for human explorers, Elon Musk of SpaceX once expressed a desire to send people there in 2024—an overly ambitious objective. The UAE wants to establish a colony there in the next 100 years—a much more conservative goal. The question is, “Do we really want to move to Mars?”

Why does Earth seem to be designed for life while Mars is a rocky and barren place without an atmosphere? Scientists theorize that at one time, Mars had an atmosphere but then lost 99% of it. Why? Mars is smaller than Earth, so it has less gravity to hold onto the atmosphere, but that’s only part of the answer. One hypothesis is that solar wind (charged particles from the Sun) tore away the atmosphere. Then why didn’t Earth lose its atmosphere since we are even closer to the Sun? Earth’s magnetic field protected our planet. Why do we have a magnetic field? The movement of Earth’s molten iron core generates the magnetic field.

Many other factors make planet Earth ideal for life, and importantly, advanced life. So do we really want to move to Mars? The now-defunct Mars One project got tens of millions of dollars from thousands of people who signed up for a one-way trip to Mars to establish a human colony there. Elon Musk has indicated that he wants to get people to Mars just for the sake of getting there. He was quoted as saying, “Fundamentally, the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we are a space-faring civilization and a multi-planet species…”

With all of this desire to leave the planet ideally designed for life, the question we should ask is, “Was Earth’s design merely chance happenstance, or was it part of a divine design?” I suggest that the many factors that make our planet just-right for human life indicate more than chance coincidence.

November 7, 2021November 6, 2021

Happy Cross-Quarter Day!

Today is a cross-quarter day, meaning that the Sun is halfway between an equinox and a solstice. The word “equinox” is a combination of “equal” and “nox” (which means night), and it occurs when the Sun is directly overhead at the equator. The solstice is when the Sun reaches its greatest distance from the equator at approximately 23.5 degrees. Then it is directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer in the north or the Tropic of Capricorn in the south. Today, the Sun is at its halfway point between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.

For the Northern Hemisphere, the autumn cross-quarter day falls near Halloween. In the spring, it is near “Groundhog Day.” For those of us interested in astronomy and Earth’s climate and weather, that gives Halloween and Groundhog Day a significance different from what most people consider.

For us, a cross-quarter day is another reminder that our planet is extraordinary. The reason for equinoxes and solstices is Earth’s 23.5-degree tilt. That tilt is also vital to our survival. The Sun doesn’t overheat any section of the planet because Earth’s tilt changes the latitude where the Sun is overhead. It also avoids over-cooling as the Sun returns soon enough to avoid the extreme cold temperatures we observe on other celestial objects. This design also generates weather systems, the movement of ocean currents, winds to distribute plant seeds, and many other factors needed for life.

Indeed “the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they display knowledge” (Psalms 19:1-2). Happy cross-quarter day!

Reference: Archaeoastronomy.com

November 1, 2021October 31, 2021

The Overview Effect and What It Can Do

The International Space Station (ISS) has now been actively supporting humans in space for 21 years. Since November 2, 2000, people have continuously resided in that small laboratory looking down on the rest of us, watching sunrises and sunsets sixteen times a day from a different perspective. The experience can be a reminder of how small we are. Astronauts have described a feeling that has been called “the overview effect.”

The overview effect is a change in perspective that many people experience when looking down on Earth from space. We are accustomed to seeing a limited view of our surroundings. However, when a person’s horizon opens to see the circle of the Earth (Isaiah 40:22) hanging on nothing (Job 26:7) surrounded by an extremely thin and fragile atmospheric layer (Job 26:10), the experience can be mind-changing if not life-changing.

The ISS orbits a little over 200 miles (322 km) above Earth’s surface. The Kármán Line at 100 km (62 miles) is the internationally-recognized boundary of space. Recently, commercial space companies have taken private individuals beyond that boundary to view Earth from space and briefly experience microgravity described as weightlessness. Perhaps the most notable was 90-year-old actor William Shatner who played Captain Kirk on the TV series Star Trek. In a tweet he wrote before the flight, he described himself as “a boy playing on the seashore…whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Shatner’s reaction after he returned to Earth’s surface is very interesting. He shed emotional tears, and here is some of what he said:

“I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. It’s so much larger than me and life… It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death… To see the blue color whip by you, and now you’re staring into backness…everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see this.”

I think Shatner is correct that it would be beneficial for each of us to see Earth from that perspective just once in our lifetime. The overview effect could change our attitude toward many things, including life and death. In addition, it would help us realize just how small we are and how amazing it is that God cares about us. (See Matthew 6:25-34.)

October 28, 2021October 28, 2021

Hunger in the World and How Much Food Is Wasted

I added up the number of letters I received begging for financial help to address hunger in the world. I received 116 letters in September of 2021. They all displayed pathetic, horrible pictures of starving children, women holding emaciated babies, or men looking at barren fields due to drought or war. It is wonderful that people have set up various organizations to meet the pain and anguish of deprived people worldwide. But, the fact is that all of this shouldn’t be necessary.

The October 2021 issue of Scientific American contained a report of how much food is wasted. The article reports that 40% of all food produced is lost across the supply chain from farm to table. Each year 2.7 billion metric tons of food are lost—enough to fill 2,860 curbside trash tote bins every second. The article breaks down how much food is wasted in the various food groups, including seafood, meat, dairy and eggs, oilseeds and pulses, roots and tubers, cereals, and fruits and vegetables.

In addition to not meeting the hunger in the world, a significant amount of water and energy are wasted. We see skeptics complaining that if God existed, He wouldn’t allow this pain. Advocates of population control say the Earth can’t feed all of the people living on it. Some people have advocated eradicating the “unfit” mentally ill or physically incapacitated because they use resources that the “fit” need.

The fact is that God has blessed the Earth with the ability to produce more food than we can use with our present population. It’s human wastefulness and failure to wisely use God’s blessings that cause the pain and suffering of hunger in the world. Therefore, it is encouraging that various Christian organizations are working to prepare and transport food that would otherwise go to waste. They are also drilling wells and showing people in under-developed countries make better use of the resources available to grow crops and preserve food.

Matthew 25:35 shows Christ telling His followers that in the judgment, we will all be commended or condemned partly based on how we met the need of others. “Then shall (Jesus) say to those on his right hand ‘Come you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.’” The passage goes on to show people asking when they did those things, and Jesus replied, “Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me” (Verse 40).

Let each of us support works that address the issue of hunger in the world and the shortage of clean water. That may mean directly supplying those essentials or helping people in undeveloped areas of the world learn how to make better use of what God has given them.

Reference: “Massively Reducing Food Waste Could Feed the World” in Scientific American October 2021, pages 77-78.

October 11, 2021October 10, 2021

October Meteor Showers

October is the month for two meteor showers—Draconid and Orionid. They get their names from the constellations closest to the places in the night sky where they seem to originate. The truth is that they have no connection to those constellations. Instead, these October meteor showers come from comets.

Meteor showers result from Earth passing through dust trails left by comets. The Draconids peaked this year on the night between October 8 and 9. They originate from debris left by comet 21P/Giaconini-Zinner that makes a revolution around the Sun every 6.6 years. Every October, when Earth passes through the dirty dust trail, the bits of debris burn up from friction as they enter the atmosphere at extremely high speed, and we see them as “shooting stars.”

The Orionid meteors are the result of Halley’s Comet. That comet makes a complete orbit around the Sun every 76 years, but Earth passes through the left-over debris twice a year in May and October. This year’s Orionid shower will peak on the night between October 20 and 21. However, a few of them may be visible even tonight as the October meteor showers almost overlap.

Unlike asteroids, which can be very large and cause severe damage, comet dust is beautiful but harmless. The Chixculub asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was 6.2 miles (10 km) in diameter. The impact was like a 100 million megaton bomb blast, and it wiped out three-fourths of all plant and animal life on Earth.

What if a whole comet struck planet Earth? The result would be catastrophic. We can find comfort in the fact that our solar system was designed with comet sweepers to prevent that from happening. The comet sweepers are named Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and the main one–Jupiter. Those giant outer planets all travel in the same plane, or ecliptic, as our planet. Comets come from outside the solar system, and because those outer planets are much larger, they have much more gravity. Since they are in line with Earth’s plane, they pull in the comets before they can reach our home planet.

The picture from NASA shows some fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 being pulled into Jupiter after the planet’s gravity ripped it into 21 pieces in July 1994. Those pieces were up to 1.2 miles in diameter and traveling at 134,000 miles per hour. Imagine what would have happened if that comet, or even one of those pieces, had hit the Earth! That is something to think about while watching the beauty of the October meteor showers. There is a reason why God designed the solar system the way He did. It was not an accident–and neither are we.

October 5, 2021October 4, 2021

Ultimate Meaning, Purpose, and Morality

I enjoy watching BBC’s video programs “Planet Earth” and “The Blue Planet” written and narrated by David Attenborough. Those programs display the fantastic beauty and design of this planet and its many living creatures. Seeing the way planet Earth’s systems work together like a well-designed machine fills me with awe. However, I find it amazing that Attenborough believes that this incredible beauty and structure came about by mere chance and natural selection without any design, purpose, or meaning. How can he not realize that ultimate meaning, purpose, and morality come from the God who created these wonders?

In his book Miracles, Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis refers to unbelievers as “naturalists.” He wrote, “A moment after they have admitted that good and evil are illusions, you will find them exhorting us to work for posterity, to educate, revolutionise, liquidate, live and die for the good of the human race.” Lewis called that “very odd.” Attenborough teaches us about the beautiful design of our planet without a Designer. He advocates for the environment, even though that environment may have no ultimate purpose or meaning. A BBC interviewer once asked Attenborough if he ever had any religious faith, and he replied “no.” He said, “It never really occurred to me to believe in God.”

When asked why he does not believe in a creator, Attenborough will point out what he considers an evil creature, such as the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus that infects children’s eyes in tropical climates. He said creationists believe that God created each individual species, so why would “an all-merciful God who cares for each of us individually” make a creature like that. However, as John Clayton has pointed out many times, the Bible says God created “kinds” of animals, not each individual species. (See Genesis 1:11, 12, 21, 24, and 25.) But then He specially created the first humans in His image (Genesis 1:27).

Attenborough strongly advocates for various environmentalist causes telling us what we ought or ought not to do. C.S. Lewis said that those who don’t believe in God often tell us what we ought to do, but their natural impulses can say nothing about objective right or wrong. Lewis wrote, “Do they remember while they are writing thus that when they tell us we ‘ought to make a better world’ the words ‘ought’ and ‘better’ must, on their own showing, refer to an irrationally conditioned impulse which cannot be true or false any more than a vomit or a yawn?”

Lewis goes on to say that if we make moral judgments, “then we must believe that the conscience of man is not a product of Nature.” He writes that it “can be valid only if it is an offshoot of some absolute moral wisdom…” In other words, ultimate meaning, purpose, and morality come from God, not evolution.

References: Miracles by C.S. Lewis, and “David Attenborough” on Wikipedia

October 4, 2021October 4, 2021

Hebrew Word Yom

Ancient Hebrew used far fewer words than modern English. That can cause misunderstandings when translated into English. For example, a term that has confused many people is the Hebrew word yom, commonly translated “day.”

The Genesis creation account uses the word in multiple ways. It is present in Genesis 1:1-13 in connection with “evening and morning.” Genesis 2:4 uses yom to refer to the entire creation “week.” In Deuteronomy 10:10, we find yom used twice with two meanings, a longer period of time (40 days) and the daylight hours. “And I stayed in the mount just like the first time (yom) 40 days (yom) and 40 nights …” We also see yom used to refer to long time periods such as in Hosea 6:2.

In the New Testament. Peter reminds us that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years one day (2 Peter 3:8).” In Acts 1:7, Jesus says, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in His own power.” The context of that passage refers to restoring the kingdom, but the message carried throughout the scriptures is that God is in control of time.

Both creationists and atheists have often used the Hebrew word yom to make Earth’s age an issue, limiting what God can do or has done. God created time and is not limited by it. The “days” of Genesis may be 24 hours or some other time period. The creation verse in Genesis is verse one, “God created the heaven and the earth,” and it is undated and untimed.

Religious groups have done an injustice to the Genesis account by not recognizing the economy of language in scripture. Atheists have used that to destroy many people’s faith by showing evidence that the universe’s age is not measured in thousands of years. The message of Genesis is that God created everything, not when or how He did it. Taking the Bible literally is not taking a human theology and forcing it on the scriptures.

October 2, 2021October 2, 2021

An Asteroid and Snakes

There is an interesting connection between an asteroid and snakes. Evolutionists have often believed in uniformitarianism–the idea that no process has shaped planet Earth in the past that is not going on today. The problem with uniformitarianism is that a great deal of evidence shows that it’s not true. The most accepted example is that when dinosaurs ruled the planet, an asteroid strike caused a mass extinction of 76% of all plant and animal life.

A research study by the University of Bath in England has shown that one form of life did well through and after the asteroid collision. That life-form was snakes. There were small snakes before the asteroid strike, but large snakes were easy prey for dinosaurs and simply did not survive. After the asteroid collision, small snakes hid underground and survived for a time without food.

When the snakes emerged, they didn’t face competition from other animals. With their newfound freedom, they spread throughout the world. Today, snakes live on every continent on Earth except Antarctica. Catherine Klein, the lead researcher in examining the snake fossil record, has shown that large snakes did not appear again until all the dinosaurs were gone. She told the BBC, “It’s likely that without this asteroid impact, snakes wouldn’t be where they are today.”

The evidence for the asteroid collision grows every year, and it comes from many different disciplines. Uniformitarianism is not true, and yet a gradual evolution of all life depends on it. Evolution would have to start over after events like the asteroid strike that wiped out massive amounts of life on the planet.

You have probably never thought of a connection between an asteroid and snakes. Current theories of evolution have significant problems with a lack of positive evidence and a growing amount of counter-evidence. God works in mysterious ways, and sometimes He has used catastrophes to shape the Earth for human existence.

Reference: The Week, October 1, 2021, page 21.