Earth Archives

April 6, 2024April 5, 2024

There Is No Experience Like a Total Solar Eclipse

On Monday, April 8, 2024, millions will see a rare occurrence as a total solar eclipse travels across North America. Those living outside the totality path will see a partial eclipse, but, as we said yesterday, it won’t be the same. There is no experience like a total solar eclipse.

April 8 will bring in the “new moon” when the Sun, Moon, and Earth line up, with the Moon in the center. The Moon will block light from the Sun, creating a shadow that will travel across the Earth’s surface. The shadow will be about 9,000 miles long, 115 miles wide, and traveling at a speed exceeding 1500 miles per hour. If you are in the total shadow (the umbra), you will experience the total eclipse. Most of the United States will be under the outer shadow (the penumbra), and people living there will experience a partial eclipse.

I said there is no experience like a total solar eclipse. Eclipse watchers outside the path of totality will see a portion of the Sun obstructed by the Moon, with less obstruction farther from totality. People may also see a reduction in the light level, which is more significant near the totality path. Near the path, they may also notice a slight decrease in temperature. Let’s compare that with the experience of totality.

We emphasize that you must never look directly at the Sun without using approved solar eclipse glasses. If you are outside of totality, you must always use them when viewing the eclipse. However, during the brief minutes of totality, when the Moon completely obscures the Sun, you can take them off. In fact, you should take them off to see the Sun’s beautiful corona. That corona is one of the reasons why there is no experience like a total solar eclipse.

During totality, the darkness will be like deep twilight with a noticeable drop in temperature. You may hear night-time sounds as birds and other animals take on twilight behavior. Since the Sun is currently in a very active stage, you may see pinkish solar flares along with the corona. Some of the brighter stars or planets may become visible.

If you are on the edge of the shadow or as the Moon starts to move away from totality, the light you see may be affected by the mountains and valleys on the Moon. The effect is called Baily’s beads, as beads of light become visible between the Moon’s geological features. At the moment the Moon begins to move away from total coverage of the Sun, you may see an effect called the “diamond ring” as the Moon’s mountain features allow a larger bead of light to emerge. I took the above picture of the diamond ring during the 2017 eclipse.

I want to emphasize that there is no experience like a total solar eclipse. Actor William Shatner, Captain Kirk of the original Star Trek series, is scheduled to appear in the Hoosier Cosmic Celebration at Indiana University in Bloomington on eclipse day. He said, “To me, the magic of the eclipse, the extraordinary events it all took in the heavenly bodies to cause this eclipse, should make us ponder the mystery of existence, of our own existence, of the existence of everything else…”

I agree with Shatner’s words, but I would go further. The eclipse should cause us to ponder the existence of God, who created the heavenly bodies and put them in motion. It should also cause us to ponder the purpose of our own existence and our relationship to the Creator.

References: Space.com and GreatAmericanEclipse.com

March 20, 2024March 19, 2024

Earthquake Catastrophe Risk

The United States Geological Survey published a map showing the earthquake catastrophe risk in different parts of the country. This data comes from seismic records of 130,000 earthquakes of a magnitude on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale of six or higher, which is severe enough to frighten people, move furniture, and cause other damage, like falling plaster. Most of us know about some geologically unstable regions of the country, but other areas may be surprising.

The highest earthquake catastrophe risk within the next 100 years is essentially the whole western edge of California, the southern part of Alaska from Juneau through the Aleutians, and the eastern islands of Hawaii. Those areas with a 75 to 95% chance of a damaging earthquake include virtually all of California, the Yellowstone National Park area, and the intersection of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The study says that 230 million people live in areas with a 95% chance of a damaging earthquake.

The point of this data is that there will be a massive earthquake sometime in the next 100 years, causing death and structural damage. Many people will blame this coming catastrophe on God. The fact is that earthquakes are a natural product of the uplift of the land. Without those forces, erosion would have brought all land masses to sea level. Despite the data, humans continue to build huge structures in areas where earthquake catastrophe risk is high. This can be added to a long list of situations where humans set themselves up for a catastrophe.

My wife and I were on Hawaii’s “Big Island” when Kilauea erupted in May 2018. In one of the places we visited, lava flow had destroyed many homes. We happened across a man who was working on a new house. I asked him if he was not concerned that another lava flow might destroy this house. He laughed and said, “God wouldn’t do that to me twice.”

We need to understand that God does not cause bad things to happen to us. If you eliminate what humans do to each other and the foolish acts humans engage in (like building a house in the path of a lava flow or on an earthquake faultline), much human pain and suffering would stop. Read James 1:13-17.

Reference: U.S. Geological Survey HERE and HERE

March 19, 2024March 18, 2024

Analysis of the Bennu Asteroid Sample

In 2016, NASA launched a spacecraft to the asteroid Bennu with the goal of collecting a sample and returning it to Earth for analysis. The canister containing the sample material arrived back on Earth last year. Everything worked fine until scientists tried to open the canister. Thirty-two screws held the container closed, and two of them were stuck. Scientists were cautious not to contaminate the asteroid material with Earth molecules, so they had to develop a new tool to remove the stuck screws. On January 10, 2024, they succeeded in opening the canister to analyze the contents. Analysis of the Bennu asteroid sample gave interesting results.

Some people have suggested that creation occurred in various regions of the universe with different materials. Those who promote that idea have maintained that chance, not creative design, formed the cosmos. They predicted that material from outer space would contain different elements arranged differently from what we see on Earth. The Genesis account maintains that creation is a singular act of God, and Proverbs 8:22-30 indicates that He used wisdom in the creation.

The Bennu minerals contain no elements that don’t exist on Earth, and the rocks formed by those elements contain no surprises. They contain serpentinite formed from olivine and pyroxene. Those minerals are familiar to anyone who has taken a petrology course. Analysis of the Bennu asteroid sample shows evidence of being formed by ice made of carbon monoxide and ammonia. That requires extremely cold conditions, which could only exist far from the Sun. Temperatures needed to form carbon monoxide and ammonia ice do not exist on any of the inner planets. So, Bennu was formed in the outer solar system beyond Mars.

We still have much to learn about how the formation of the solar system, and this research may be more critical as humans venture beyond the Moon into outer space. Even the possibility of establishing human colonies on other planets will depend on what materials are available there. Analysis of the Bennu asteroid sample is only the beginning. The more we learn about the solar system, the more we realize the importance of the unique features of Earth. It also reminds us of how essential it is to care for the planet God has given us.

Reference: Science News, March 9, 2024, page 7.

March 18, 2024March 17, 2024

The Origin of Life on Planet Earth

When I was in college in the late 1950s, our biology professor at Indiana University gave us a nicely packaged explanation of the origin of life on planet Earth. In 1952, scientists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey built a test tube environment containing water vapor, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen, the gases Alexander Oparin and J.B.S. Haldane said would be needed for life to begin.

Miller and Urey used an electrical discharge to simulate lightning in the primitive Earth and placed a trap to collect any residue produced. After a time, they found the trap contained some amino acids, the building blocks of life. The media and our textbooks wrongly suggested that science had created life.

An old adage says, “Science education is the process of taking data from the professor’s notes and transferring it to the student’s test paper with as little interference as possible in between.” As a young atheist, I loudly proclaimed that it was impossible for an educated person to believe that God created life.

Nobody thought to question the assertion that the Miller-Urey experiment explained the origin of life on planet Earth. In fact, amino acids are not life, and life contains only specific amino acids. The Miller-Urey apparatus destroyed amino acids faster than it produced them, so the trap was necessary to prevent them from all being destroyed. The apparatus contained no oxygen, but in my geology class, we learned that there was much evidence for oxygen in the Precambrian rocks of the ancient Earth.

The quest to understand the origin of life (OOL) remains a topic of intense debate and exploration. In a recent publication in the esteemed journal Nature, researchers Nick Lane and Joana Xavier candidly acknowledged the persistent challenges in OOL research:

“The origins-of-life field faces the same problems with culture and incentives that afflict all of science—overselling ideas towards publication and funding, too little common ground between competing groups, and perhaps too much pride: too strong an attachment to favored scenarios and too little willingness to be proven wrong.”

Dr. James Tour of Rice University has called this area of research “clueless,” but the media continues to make unsupported claims. Perhaps the most crucial point of this research into the origin of life on planet Earth is that if science ever does discover the OOL, all it will show is that it took intelligence for it to happen in the first place.

We need Christian young people to go into science so they can explain false claims about OOL to those of us who may not have the inclination or the training to understand it solely by ourselves. However, we still need to educate ourselves enough to fulfill the admonition of 1 Peter 3:15, “Always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.”

References: “To unravel the origin of life, treat findings as pieces of a bigger puzzle” in the journal Nature for February 26, 2024, referenced in Evolutionnews.org February 28, 2024

March 11, 2024March 8, 2024

Mutualism Shows Life Design

We call it mutualism when various complex relationships occur between two species, producing codependency and benefits to both. There are two kinds of mutualisms. In obligate mutualism, both species depend on each other for survival. Facultative mutualism refers to relationships that benefit the species, but they could survive without it. Looking at life on Earth, we see many examples of how mutualism shows life design.

In Borneo, a carnivorous pitcher plant and wooly bats have a relationship of obligate mutualism. The plant lures bats in with an echo reflector, but the plant doesn’t eat the bat. The pitcher plant grows in soils with low nutrients and needs additional fertilizer. The droppings of the bats provide that fertilizer, enabling the plant to survive. The woolly bats are easy victims of predatory animals, but during the daytime, when the bat isn’t hunting insects, it finds refuge and protection inside the pitcher plant. The plant and the bat depend on this relationship, but no one would suggest they are related.

Legumes such as beans, peas, and clover form a mutualism with bacteria. The bacteria can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, turning it into ammonia. The plants use the nitrogen from the ammonia to synthesize proteins needed for growth. The plants serve the bacteria by housing them in root nodules and providing them with sugars and oxygen so they can grow. Once again, mutualism shows life design.

There are a vast number of smaller organisms that depend upon obligate mutualism. An example is a green-brown spongy sludge that grows on the marshes of the Florida Everglades. It may look like a toxic algal bloom drawing oxygen from the water. But instead of being destructive, it is a mutual design of algae, fungi, microbes, and bacteria. This perfectly matched relationship is called a periphyton. It is a system of life that provides the basis for the entire food chain of the Everglades and another example of how mutualism shows life design.

Trying to explain how mutualism became part of Earth’s living systems by a chance process takes a huge imagination and a great deal of faith. It seems far more likely that mutualism is not an accident but part of God’s design for life. The more we know of the creation, the closer we get to the Creator.

References: BBC News for February 14, 2024, and Wikipedia

March 8, 2024March 7, 2024

Evidence for a Changing Climate

Those of us who live in the Great Lakes area are wondering what happened to winter. This year, we have had very little snow, virtually no frigid temperatures, and a lack of ice on our lakes and rivers. Usually, we see 53% of our Great Lakes covered with ice. We frequently travel to the lighthouses and bays to see ice piled up against the shoreline and other obstacles. The total ice coverage of the Great Lakes for 2023/2024 was 2.7%, and the chances of that number changing in March seem nonexistent. This is another evidence for a changing climate.

The United States experienced 28 weather-related disasters, causing over a billion dollars in damage. These numbers are gleaned from data on hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, but the damage goes far beyond the obvious causes of expense. A major industry in this part of the country is fruit growing. Apples, apricots, blueberries, and peaches provide a good income for growers, and we can purchase most of these crops at relatively low prices in this area. The problem is that the crop can be lost if the trees bloom too early and the buds get frosted. In the first week of March, we had temperatures in the 60s and 70s, increasing the prospect of losing the fruit crops if the temperature drops.

Some people say there is no evidence for a changing climate, so we don’t need to make serious changes in how we manage the planet. This ministry is built around the appeal to evidence. The Bible contains many examples of God calling people to look at evidence – for example, Gideon and the fleece and Thomas and the resurrection. Evidence shows that the Earth is going through a period of increasing temperature. We also know that at times in the past, Earth’s climate has been mu c h warmer than it is today.

Just as there is strong evidence for a changing climate, the evidence for God’s existence is massive. Ignoring the need to care for the Earth can be catastrophic. Ignoring the importance of changing how we use what God has given us will bring hardship to all of us. Ignoring God’s existence and the importance of living as He calls us to will be even more catastrophic, with eternal consequences. We need to deal with the evidence God has given us and change how we conduct our lives.

Reference: The Week for March 8, 2024, page 16.

March 5, 2024March 4, 2024

The Habitability of Mars Is Bogus

The media presents Mars as the next home for humanity. The main reasons include that it is our closest planet, has received massive treatment by science fiction writers, and scientists say it has an earth-like history. However, a significant amount of data from robotic spacecraft has exposed the fact that the habitability of Mars is bogus.

Mars doesn’t even begin to approach the conditions necessary for humans to exist on its surface. We are realizing that planet Earth is a very, very unusual place. Discover magazine published an excellent summary of what Mars is like and how difficult it would be for human habitation. The enormous distance to Mars is an obvious problem, but consider these facts:

1) Mars is a barren desert with temperatures regularly hitting -81 degrees Fahrenheit.
2) The air on Mars is 95% carbon dioxide, and no liquid water has been found on its surface.
3) Mars’s magnetic field and atmosphere would not provide adequate protection against cosmic radiation, known to cause massive health problems for humans.
4) The Martian soil contains perchlorates, toxic compounds of chlorine. Growing plants on Mars for food would be impossible because of this and because the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of Mars is about 60% of that on Earth.
5) Mars is smaller than Earth, and thus, its gravity is less. Experiments show that constant physical training would be required for anyone staying on Mars for any significant time.

The bottom line is that the habitability of Mars is bogus. Living there would be extremely difficult. People would have to take with them the things God has provided on Earth. Living on Mars would require synthetic buildings that duplicate Earth-like conditions. They may have to be underground for radiation protection.

Something that the media and most of the general population have not understood is that the planet God has given us is unique, and the habitability of Mars is bogus. There is no place in our solar system where humans can exist without making extreme provisions. Please don’t take what we have on planet Earth for granted. It is an incredible gift created for us, and the Creator expects all of us to take care of it.

Reference: March/April 2024 issue of Discover magazine

March 4, 2024March 3, 2024

Blaming God For Human Mismanagement

Our hearts go out to those who have lost property and maybe even loved ones to the so-called natural disasters that have increased in frequency and size. Few of these disasters are the typical product of nature. What God created has always been in balance and functioned without the massive changes we are seeing in today’s world, but skeptics are blaming God for human mismanagement.

Among the disasters that have increased in number and ferocity are wildfires. They destroyed massive numbers of trees, causing a shortage of wood and wood products, destroying homes and businesses, and even entire towns. The Nature Conservancy reported that the average wildfire size today is 23,000 acres. In the 1980’s, the average wildfire size was 7,000 acres. A currently burning wildfire in Texas has destroyed more than one million acres.

Those of us with some training in environmental management know that the “Smokey the Bear” idea of preventing any kind of fire was an ignorant practice. In the natural world, lightning and spontaneous combustion produce small fires. When you allow leaves and dead wood to accumulate for decades, a lightning strike can cause a massive fire with lots of fuel for combustion. Even the amount of smoke these huge fires generate threatens people living thousands of miles away.

God has used fires in surprising ways. There are some trees whose seeds do not germinate unless they have been exposed to fire. Some animals depend on naturally burned-over areas to produce food such as berries and nuts. Still, we have been in some areas where the fire’s massive heat sterilized the area, preventing anything from growing.

Skeptics are blaming God for human mismanagement that has caused the devastating fires we are seeing today. A major cause of today’s catastrophic fires is human prevention of naturally occurring small fires. We need to recognize that the intelligence of design has kept woodlands healthy and stable in the past. We must work with that design intelligently to avoid the tragic pictures we see on the news.

We also need to understand that there are some places where humans should not build buildings. We all know that Los Angeles and San Francisco straddle the San Andreas fault, which has produced severe earthquakes in the past and will do it again. When that happens, skeptics will be blaming God for human mismanagement, even though the warnings were there. We know what we must do, but greed and selfishness seem to rule the day instead of intelligent management of what God has given us.

References: The Nature Conservancy newsletter first issue for 2024 (page 13) and NBC News

January 25, 2024April 12, 2024

Lunar Cycles, Lunar Influence, and Lunacy

The Latin name for the Moon is “luna.” Many English words are derived from that root, including lunacy, lunatic, and even loon, as in “crazy as a loon.” Having grown up in the north, I know that hearing the cries of loons could lead to thoughts of them being crazy. Lunar cycles occur naturally, but many people believe a “lunar influence” is connected to abnormal behavior.

People have given unique names to certain full-moon appearances, such as blue moon, sturgeon moon, harvest moon, cold moon, snow moon, pink moon, flower moon, strawberry moon, hunter moon, beaver moon, worm moon, and wolf moon. You can find those names in the Old Farmer’s Almanac, so it should not be surprising that most of them have connections to agriculture or to a time when people did not have electric lights clouding their view of the sky. I have found that seeing the full moon in remote areas hundreds of miles away from city lights is a moving experience. If you were fishing, harvesting, hunting, or plowing, you would have no problem with just the Moon for illumination.

The Moon is not just an accident, nor is its influence on life. Genesis 1:14 describes God clearing Earth’s cloud cover to let the lights of the heavens (Sun and Moon) become visible “for signs and seasons and for days and years.” Some birds use the Moon for migration journeys that coincide with specific lunar phases. Many animals respond to both circadian rhythms and a lunar clock.

So, how does the Moon affect human activity? Studies show that there are more animal bites from cats, rats, and horses during full moons. That is probably because more humans are doing more things outside at night during a full moon. Also, data show there are more crimes during full moons. Apparently, criminals can use the light of a full moon for their activities just as farmers can.

The Bible refers to lunar cycles for time and mentions lunar festivals (Colossians 2:16) but otherwise makes no particular connections to the Moon. All of the claims of abnormal human behavior during various lunar cycles are in the realm of what is called “folklore.”

I hope you can take some time to admire the full moon away from city lights and imagine how ancient people depended on it for nighttime light to carry on their lives. Meanwhile, don’t worry about it affecting you psychologically or causing biological changes. The animals and insects may be altered by lunar cycles, but you are not a bug or a werewolf.

January 22, 2024January 20, 2024

What Is Gravity and How Does it Work?

Many things in the creation do not lend themselves to conventional science. Gravity is an excellent example. What is gravity, and where did it come from? Issac Newton suggested that gravity was a property of mass because the more mass something has, the more it weighs. A physics equation describes gravity, saying that if you have two masses, there will be a force of attraction between them.

In a high school physics experiment, we hung two large bags of sand near each other. Gravity would pull them toward each other, and if you increased the amount of sand, it would draw them closer. Using a group of levers, the students could measure the force between the two bags. We can measure it, but what is gravity?

Instead of bags of sand, scientists measure the gravity force between the Earth, Moon, and Sun. What keeps Earth orbiting the Sun and the Moon orbiting the Earth? Isaac Newton proposed that the distance between objects affected the amount of gravitational force between them. An equation describing the attraction between masses 1 and 2 must include the masses, the distance between them, and a number known as the gravitational constant. The equation is F = G (M-1)(M-2)/X². G is the gravitational constant, and scientists have measured it to be 6.67 x 10^-11. If the value of the constant G differed from what it is, the Earth could not exist, and neither could we.

If you don’t follow all of that, don’t worry about it. The point is that gravity is a complex quantity that holds everything together. But that leaves questions unanswered. What is gravity? Is it a wave? How can it work over huge distances? How can mass cause gravity – or does it? Why is the gravity constant precisely what it is?

As science probes deeper into the nature of matter, time, space, and energy, it becomes increasingly evident that not everything physical has a physical cause. We cannot explain the creation of time, space, energy, or gravity by conventional science. As you read modern research reports, you see that our world was shaped from dimensions beyond the four we know about. The laws that govern our world and the dimensions we live in do not fully describe the nature of gravity, time, or even space.

Ancient biblical writers guided by the Spirit of God understood that a wise Creator designed our world. The writer of Proverbs 8 personifies wisdom, giving it a feminine nature. Wisdom says, “O you simple, understand wisdom and have an understanding heart. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way before His works of old. I was set up from eternity, from the beginning and before the earth ever was.”

Open-minded contemplation of the creation leads to the recognition that an infinite intelligence beyond that of any human brought the physical creation into existence. We learn from the Bible that God’s purpose was to allow the war between good and evil to end once and forever and that we play an essential role in that war.