Tag: Earth

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Optimum Martian Viewing

Optimum Martian Viewing
Recently there has been much talk about Mars in the media. NASA and private firms such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX are working on plans to send people to Mars and eventually build a colony there. For the past month, a planet-wide dust storm has blocked sunlight from reaching the planet’ surface and caused NASA’s solar-powered Opportunity rover to shut down. In addition, Mars is now in “opposition” to Earth and at its closest point to us since 2003. The current position of Mars gives us optimum Martian viewing.

When astronomers say that Mars is in perihelic opposition to Earth, that means the Sun, Earth, and Mars are in a line with Earth in the middle. That makes the apparent luminosity of Mars the brightest that it is at any time. Also, it means that Mars rises each night as the Sun sets and Mars sets each morning as the Sun rises. So Mars is visible in the sky all night long, and it is two times brighter than Jupiter, which usually outshines it. In addition to Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus are also visible at this time in an east-west arc across the sky after sunset. You can distinguish Mars by its red color, and it will continue to be bright through August for the optimum Martian viewing opportunity.

On July 26, NASA announced, “It’s the beginning of the end for the planet-encircling dust storm on Mars.” However, it may be weeks or even months before the Martian atmosphere clears enough for the Opportunity to have enough sunlight to recharge its batteries and return to life. NASA hopes that the batteries will recharge before Opportunity freezes to death. The average temperature on Mars is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 60 Celsius). That is not very hospitable to machinery, or humans.

In addition to the previous factors, Mars will be at its closest point to Earth today, July 31, 2018. It will be only 35.8 million miles (57.6 million km) away from us. Mars is at its closest point about every two years. When Mars is on the other side of the Sun, it is about 250 million miles (401 million km) away. For that reason, any mission to Mars will have to be precisely timed to reach our neighboring planet in the shortest time, but it will still take months to make the journey.

With all of the challenges of reaching and perhaps colonizing Mars, the work goes on to achieve that goal. Some, such as Elon Musk, are suggesting “terraforming” Mars. That is, modifying the climate to make it hospitable to earthlings. That would require raising the climate temperature, thickening the thin atmosphere, and having a stable supply of liquid water, among other things. Elon Musk suggested a method of doing that which involves bombing the polar ice caps with explosives. It sounds like science fiction, and a new report from two leading scientists, Bruce Jakosky of NASA and Christopher Edwards of Northern Arizona University suggest that it is. Their study published in Nature Astronomy concludes that “with current technology, we just don’t see that there are any viable options” for terraforming Mars.

What we need to remember as we consider all of this, is that God has given us a planet that has all of the right conditions for us to live on and enjoy. He has already “terraformed” it for us, and we need to protect that gift and use it wisely. In the meantime, we can enjoy the optimum Martian viewing opportunity He provided for us to see the “red planet” right now.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Believing in Uniformitarianism Raises Questions

Believing in Uniformitarianism Raises Questions
Evolution makes a very large number of assumptions. One of those assumptions called uniformitarianism is the belief that no process has ever operated in the past that is not going on today. Believing in uniformitarianism gives some answers, but it raises many questions.

Today we know how glaciers work and how volcanoes form and shape the land. We are aware of all of the various forms of erosion and the chemical processes that alter materials of the Earth. When we look at something like the Grand Canyon, we assume that those same processes deposited the rocks and shaped the canyon. There are places high in the canyon where there are beach deposits that look like the beaches we see along the shores of Lake Michigan. That leads us to believe that at one time there was a lake in what is now the canyon. When we look at the Coconino sandstone in the Grand Canyon, we see the remains of sand dunes that look like the ones I see out the window of my house. The angles of the dune faces, the frosting of the sand grains, and the footprints of lizards that sink deep into the dune faces all cause us to rule out a flood as the cause of the Coconino sandstone.

At the same time, processes going on today don’t explain catastrophic events that seem to have happened in the past. In the 1980s scientists found evidence suggesting that an asteroid struck the Earth and altered the history of our planet. Some scientists expressed strong resistance to the asteroid proposal and gave all kinds of alternative explanations. If an astronomical event of that magnitude took place wiping out a majority of land species, the evolutionary theories of that day would have to be modified or discarded. This gave support for proposals like punctuated equilibrium, but it also caused many people in the scientific community to reject the asteroid as a possible cause. Those believing in uniformitarianism and naturalism resisted any attempt to suggest that catastrophic events may have shaped the Earth’s history.

From a biblical standpoint, we see that there have been catastrophic events in the past that are not happening today. The flood of Noah, the crossing of the Red Sea, the deaths of the firstborn in Egypt, and all the miracles the Bible describes are not happening today and thus are not uniformitarian. These, however, are rare and are the exception to what happens on a daily basis.

New evidence shows that believing in uniformitarianism as the single cause of the Earth’s history is not valid. Evidence shows that about 12,800 years ago there was a very rapid cooling of the Earth called the Younger Dryas. One proposal is that a massive pulse of cold freshwater from glaciers flooded the ocean cooling the planet. Another suggestion is that a comet exploded in the atmosphere triggering wildfires which produced enough soot to block the Sun and cool the planet. In 1908 in Tunguska, Siberia, an event like that occurred when a meteoroid exploded producing as much energy as 1000 Hiroshima bombs and gave support to the idea that astronomical catastrophes caused some structures on Earth.

Scientific literature is full of current research reports supporting catastrophic change in the Earth’s history. Scientists will continue this debate, and new finds will establish support for various theories. It remains clear that believing in uniformitarianism and naturalism to explain the total history of our planet is on shaky ground.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Reference: Science News, July 7, 2018, P 18.

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Longest Blood Moon

Longest Blood Moon
It will be the longest blood moon of the twenty-first century. There have been books and articles about “blood moons” in recent years relating them to prophecies of various kinds. However, this event will not be a miraculous sign of some impending doom or destruction. It will not be a sign of the second coming of Christ. This lunar eclipse is an entirely natural phenomenon.

A so-called “blood moon” is actually an eclipse of the Moon. Most of the time, we see the light of the Sun reflected from the Moon. When Earth, Moon, and Sun are perfectly aligned with our planet in the middle, the Moon becomes covered by Earth’s shadow. Since Earth is much larger than the Moon, it can throw a shadow across the entire Moon. That is what will happen at 4:21 p.m. U.S. Eastern Daylight Time on July 27. However, it will not be visible in the United States. A partial eclipse will be visible in most parts of the Eastern Hemisphere, and it will be total in Africa, the Middle East, and part of Asia.

Why does the Moon appear red or orange during a lunar eclipse giving it the name “blood moon?” That’s because as the Sun’s light passes through Earth’s atmosphere, it is filtered and bent so that a small amount of light reaches the Moon’s surface. We see the effect of our atmosphere on sunlight when we watch the red-orange colors of a sunrise or sunset. If you were on the surface of the Moon, you would see that sunset effect as a halo around the Earth. Looking at the Moon from Earth, we see the reflection of that sunrise/sunset glow reflected back to us. The Moon takes on an eerie, but faint blood-red glow.

This lunar eclipse will be the longest blood moon of the century because of a near-perfect alignment of Earth between the Sun and Moon. From beginning to end, this eclipse will last almost four hours. The period of totality will be an hour and 43 minutes. The next lunar eclipse visible in North America will be on January 21, 2019, and it will last only an hour and two minutes. How do we know these statistics? We can know when lunar (and solar) eclipses will occur because we know how they happen. We know that our solar system is very orderly and predictable because it is well designed.

In ancient times eclipses caused people to panic. People in ancient Mesopotamia thought an eclipse was an attack by demons. The Inca people in fifteenth-century South America would shake spears and make noise to scare away what they believed was a jaguar attacking the Moon. There is a story that Christopher Columbus and his men were stranded for six months on the island now known as Jamaica. The indigenous Arawak people became less than generous in sharing food. Columbus knew from an almanac that a total lunar eclipse was about to happen. He told the local people that his God was angry and would take away the Moon in three days. When Columbus’ prediction seemed to come true, the Arawaks were terrified. They gave Columbus’ crew whatever they wanted to bring the Moon back. Amazingly, the Moon returned to normal, and everyone was happy.

So as the longest blood moon of the century comes and goes, don’t let anyone try to tell you it is some kind of miraculous sign. After all, we can’t predict miracles. The only miracle that was clearly (and repeatedly) predicted in advance and which actually happened was the resurrection of Jesus.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
In 1960 radio astronomer Frank Drake began research to find alien civilizations in deep space by aiming an 85-foot radio telescope at some sun-like stars. He found nothing, but it was the beginning of a program known as SETI – Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

The SETI program has continued through the years with many radio telescopes aimed at every area of space. In 1971 NASA funded a study that involved Frank Drake. They issued a report proposing Project Cyclops. That project would require the construction of 1,500 radio telescopes at the cost of ten-billion dollars. That project was never completed for obvious reasons. However, the concept of the report was used to continue the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence to this day with funding from various sources. Thousands of hours and millions of dollars have been spent with a net result of zero. No radio signals containing any intelligence have been detected–only noise.

Now there is “active SETI” in which scientists are sending radio signals toward distant stars. Frank Drake admitted that in 1974 he transmitted an encoded message toward a star cluster 25,000 light-years away in the constellation Hercules. Naturally, that message will arrive at its target in 25,000 years. If any intelligent being gets the message and responds immediately, it will take 25,000 years for the return message. Drake will not be here to receive that message in 50,000 years, and neither will anyone reading this.

As the search for extraterrestrial intelligence continues, is it possible that there really is an intelligent Being out there who is listening and waiting to hear from us? Is it possible that this Being is not limited by time and space? Is it possible that this Being is our Creator who has already communicated with us by becoming one of us? Is it possible that we are not listening?
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Ham-Nye Walking Debate

Ham-Nye Walking Debate
You are probably aware of Bill Nye and Ken Ham and their debate which took place in 2014. As if that debate wasn’t embarrassing enough (for both sides), Ham and Nye followed it in 2016 with a walking debate at Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter in Kentucky. The Ham-Nye walking debate was more of the two men talking past each other.

Bill Nye, you will recall, calls himself “the science guy.” Ken Ham, the producer of the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter, is the CEO of Answers in Genesis. Nye takes a naturalist position on everything. While he avoids admitting to being an atheist, atheists hold him in high esteem, and he is heavily backed by atheist publications such as Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, and American Atheist. Ham takes an extreme young-earth position and promotes the ideas that dinosaurs lived with humans, that the flood explains all of geology, and that dispensationalism is the proper understanding of biblical history.

What happens in the “walking debate” is that Nye walks through the Ark Encounter exhibits challenging what Ham and AIG have put together as bad science. At the same time, Ham attempts to denigrate Nye’s scientific material with religious views of young-earth creationism. The Ham-Nye walking debate doesn’t resolve anything and only serves to bring the two sides farther apart.

The “Does God Exist? program maintains that science and faith are compatible and that science supports belief in God and the Bible as His word. Over the years we have pointed out that what the Bible actually says is not what either of these gentlemen is presenting. Nye is correct in showing some very bad science in Ham’s exhibits. Ham correctly points out Nye’s tendency to use unproven scientific guesses and assumptions to attack those who believe in God. It is evident that Ham knows little about science and Nye knows even less about the Bible.

Our courses, books, booklets, DVDs, and websites go into a more in-depth discussion of science and faith. If you want to hear two extremes that both oppose our position, you can watch the first debate or the second debate on YouTube.
–John N. Clayton and Roland Earnst © 2018

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Nitrogen Mystery Answered

Nitrogen Mystery Answered
One of the great mysteries of the past 1000 years of soil studies has apparently been answered. The great nitrogen mystery is how nitrogen gets into the soil. Plants need nitrogen, and they need it in the form of nitrates and other compounds essential to plant growth.

Most of us put fertilizer on our plants to make them healthy and don’t think about the fact that while our atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, plants can’t absorb the nitrogen directly from the air. In high school, we learned about “nitrogen fixation” and were told about nitrogen-fixing bacteria and the role of lightning in transforming atmospheric nitrogen into forms that could be used by plants.

Plant scientists have known that this model was not complete. The nitrogen cycle clearly had some missing parts, and our knowledge of how nitrogen gets into the soil was obviously lacking. Scientists have now discovered that a significant portion of getting nitrogen to plants involves seeping through bedrock. Nitrogen becomes trapped in sedimentary rocks in the oceans. When tectonic activity lifts the sedimentary rocks, so they are at the surface of the Earth, they begin to release their nitrogen to the soils above them, Studies in California show that soils above sedimentary rocks contain 50% more nitrogen than soils above volcanic rocks.

This discovery is a breakthrough in soil chemistry and has strong implications for how we can accelerate plant growth. Choosing places suitable for agriculture can be made more accurate with this new understanding. The complexity of Earth’s various cycles to allow for plant growth and to provide for human needs is astounding. Even such a fundamental question as the nitrogen mystery is still revealing God’s wisdom and planning in providing a life-supporting planet for us to live.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Reference: Scientific American, July 2018, page 15-17.

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Life Chemical Factory on Enceladus?

Life Chemical Factory on Enceladus
The picture shows Saturn’s moon Enceladus with Saturn in the background and part of a ring visible. Scientists are talking about a life chemical factory on Enceladus. One of the interesting questions about the origin of life is the question of how the chemicals needed to produce life came into existence.

Many believers in God answer that question just saying “God created them” and leaving it at that. For many of us with interest in science, that question expands to trying to understand HOW God created those chemicals. Saying that He spoke them into existence may be theologically acceptable, but the evidence shows that God used processes that we can understand.

Enceladus is essentially a vast ocean of water surrounded by a massive layer of ice. Scientists believe that powerful hydrothermal vents mix up the material found in the moon’s porous core with the salt water that makes up its vast ocean. This material is then ejected out into space in the form of enormous plumes of water vapor and ice granules you can see in the picture taken by the Cassini spacecraft. The sight is quite spectacular, and it was into one of these plumes that NASA’s scientists were able to send Cassini to examine their composition.

What the scientists learned is that the plumes contain organic materials. These are materials that are part of the building blocks of life. Therefore, this moon seems to be a factory that builds several of the ingredients needed to produce life.

Think of how factories produce cars. Factories at different locations all over the country build the parts. The parts come together in one place where highly skilled and creative engineers assemble them into a working automobile. In the same way, we can see a possible life chemical factory on Enceladus.

The more we explore space, the more we understand why these “factories” exist and how they have been used by “the great Engineer” to produce life on Earth.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
For more information from a different perspective go to Space.com

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Does Your GPS Work?

Does Your GPS Work?
Does Your GPS work? If so, you can give credit to Albert Einstein. In 1905 Einstein published the Theory of Special Relativity which said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. This presented a problem because gravity acts between objects instantly and thus it seems to be faster than the speed of light. It was a problem that needed a solution.

Ten years later, in 1915 Einstein revealed his Theory of General Relativity which resolved the problem. The explanation was that the Sun and planets cause space to curve around them and this warped shape of space influences the motion of other objects passing by them. That’s why the Moon orbits the Earth, and it’s why Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun.

This warping of space also bends light beams that pass through space. In 1919 British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington confirmed that Einstein was correct. Eddington observed the bending of light from distant stars as the light passed by the Sun during a total solar eclipse.

The understanding of how gravity bends space and light beams has given us methods of making measurements in space and detecting planets orbiting other stars. Einstein also said that time is warped by gravity causing time to move more slowly near massive bodies like the Earth. The effect of gravity on time allows Global Positioning Satellites to determine the exact position of the GPS receiver you use in your car.

Does your GPS work? If it does, it works because brilliant minds have discovered many of the amazing details of God’s creation. We have been able to apply the things we have learned, but science has only scratched the surface of understanding the work of the Creator.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Adding Nitrogen to the Soil

Adding Nitrogen to the Soil
We all know that lightning can be dangerous. Each year people are killed, and a great deal of property damage occurs because of lightning. We don’t usually consider the benefits of this powerful force. Nitrogen in the soil is essential for plants to grow and lightning is a natural method of adding nitrogen to the soil.

Although lightning can be dangerous, it also produces materials that are critical to life. All living things depend on the chemical element nitrogen. Your body contains molecules known as proteins. Proteins are made up of several elements, including nitrogen. Nitrogen is essential for proteins, but it is very hard to make nitrogen into proteins. Even though nitrogen makes up 78 percent of our atmosphere, we don’t get any nitrogen from the air we breathe. With each breath, we inhale and exhale nitrogen without using it. The nitrogen in the atmosphere has three electron bonds between the atoms, and that is a very strong and stable chemical arrangement. It takes an enormous amount of energy to break those bonds to free the nitrogen.

When lightning slices through the atmosphere, it knocks electrons from nitrogen atoms. The atoms are then free to combine with oxygen and hydrogen in the atmosphere forming nitrates. Rain carries this new compound to the ground enriching the soil with nitrates which are the building blocks of proteins. Plants synthesize the nitrates into proteins. When animals eat the plants, they get proteins. When we eat the plants or animals, we get the proteins we need to build more proteins.

Without lightning and the other processes for adding nitrogen to the soil, life could not exist on Earth. There is a purpose in the design of lightning. The Designer has also given us the intelligence to avoid many of the adverse effects of this powerful force.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Summer Solstice Is Here

Summer Solstice
Today is the day of the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the longest day and the beginning of summer north of the Equator and the shortest day and beginning of winter in the southern hemisphere. Today everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, daylight will be more than 12 hours. In the Southern Hemisphere, daylight will be less than 12 hours.

The reason we have changing seasons of the year is that the Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees in relation to the Sun. As Earth orbits the Sun, the North Pole tilts directly toward the Sun today. At the same time, the South Pole is tilted away from the Sun. In exactly six months, the opposite will be true.

Why is the tilt of the Earth a good thing? If we didn’t have a tilted Earth, less of the planet would be hospitable for life. The area of the Equator would be extremely hot, and the northern and southern regions of the planet would be extremely cold all year. Without the changing seasons, the annual cycle of life would not happen. Life on Earth would not only be much more difficult, but it would also be much less interesting. If the tilt were much greater than 23.5 degrees, the extremes of the seasons would be much more dramatic. All animals and humans would have to migrate to survive.

The tilt of planet Earth is one of many “just right” factors that make our world not just a suitable place for life to exist, but an excellent place for advanced life to thrive. We think that is not an accident but by design. Will we ever find life on any other planet? The chances seem to be slim for any life. The prospect of finding another planet able to support advanced life is next to impossible. If God wanted to, He could create life anywhere. At present, in spite of the best efforts of astronomers to find a comparable planet, there seems to be no place like home.

Welcome to the summer solstice if you are in the Northern Hemisphere and welcome to winter if you happen to live on the southern half of the globe.
–Roland Earnst © 2018