Is Our Solar System Young? (Part 3)

Now for the Ice Giants! No, not you.

Before we start, I would recommend watching this old video by Bill Nye.  Get the actual distance between planets now? Good.

Uranus

 As we can see here, this magnificent monument to instantaneous creation has its poles oriented the wrong way, having an axial tilt of 97.77 degrees, as opposed to Earth's humble 23.5 degrees.  \Another oddity is that, as you can see in this picture, the rings and moons orbit in line with the equator and perpendicular to the ecliptic.  Although consisting mostly of hydrogen and helium in its relatively thin atmosphere, the overall composition of these two gases throughout the entire planet is only about 15%. The rest consists of ammonia, methane and water ice. Something to note is that its significantly less dense than Neptune, at 1.27 g cm^-3 as opposed to 1.64 g cm^-3.

 So, because of its irregularities, Answers in Genesis published a paper back in 2002 showing how it was, yet again, another problem for naturalism (why am I not surprised anymore?). I have  neither the time nor inclination to perform a detailed breakdown, but their assertions are:

1. Evolutionists cannot explain how it formed by natural processes!
2. Since they cant, they invoke a planetesimal colliding with Uranus to explain its tilt!
3. But that's impossible, because a collision would have greatly increased its orbital eccentricity!
4. Also, its moons are orbiting around its equator! And there's not enough debris for a planetary collision! How is this possible??!!
5. Its radiating considerably less heat than it should be!!
6. Its magnetic field is tilted 60 degrees from its axis of rotation!
7. It's moon, Miranda, is heavily scarred!! (they are actually shooting themselves in the foot with this)
8. Therefore Goddidit!

What annoys me to no end is when the Goddidit argument becomes so ubiquitous I cannot resist saying something negative. So, to divert my attention I ve decided to defend the validity of planetesimal collision and address their accusations.

Warning: Armchair Speculation and Philosophical Ramblings Ahead

Before we begin, let's take at the orbit of the not-planet Pluto. As we can see, Pluto's orbit possesses a very high eccentricity, meaning it is very elliptical. Another feature you can see is that its orbit is also not aligned like the other planets, having a rather hefty 17 degree tilt to the ecliptic. 

How is this relevant to Uranus? Now, imagine a rogue Trans-Neptunian object, larger than Pluto, tilted to a greater extent and possessing a higher orbital eccentricity. In all likelihood its orbit was skewed by Neptune (like Pluto). Now let it collide with Uranus in its orbit. 

Imagine the angle of collision. It explains the axial tilt that would result wouldnt it?

Now let us look at the other complaints. Of course a collision doesnt necessitate a massive change in its orbit. Many of the other planets, early in their formation, experienced large collisions of their own. Yet we dont see them have highly elliptical orbits. Why is that? 

As for why the mass of Uranus' moons is so low: what would you expect, from a collision with a gaseous planet? Most of the material blasted out was probably from the planet's rocky, icy core. 

This also explains why Uranus would radiate less heat than Neptune: the collision would have resulted in a loss of momentum of the planet's rotation, resulting in less friction and heat between the atmospheric layers (which is probably why Uranus is the coldest of all planets-its surface temperature is about -223.4C).  

Let me draw a quote from the article:

If all of this wasn’t bad enough, evolutionists received a further series of rude shocks when Voyager 2 flew by the Uranus system in 1986, taking many photographs and measurements. “To the complete astonishment of scientists, the magnetic axis [of Uranus] is tilted approximately 60 degrees with respect to its axis of rotation. It is not known why.”6The strength of the magnetic field was also a surprise to evolutionists, though not to creationists, as creationist astrophysicist Dr Russell Humphreys, using Biblical assumptions, had accurately predicted the strength two years previously!7

Well, Im not sure about Mr Humphrey's predictions (couldnt find the linked article), but Uranus had long been predicted to possess a very different magnetosphere. So, no, the "evilutionists" did not receive the "rude shock" as the article claims. It seems AiG takes every opportunity to mock and deride the godless heathens right? And look here for more of Humphrey's "predictions" like where he speculates that God used water to create the heavenly bodies. Seriously. 

An interesting note is that Uranus doesn't spin about its poles, but its orbit around the Sun causes each pole to be exposed to the Sun for about 21 years apiece. Its equator also get a short, but nifty day-night cycle when Uranus is at the equinox of its 84 year orbit. 

Let us turn to the moon of Uranus: Miranda. As usual, the article continues to pit scientists' words against each other to support its own even more tenuous views.  

With one sheer cliff reaching nearly 10 km (6 miles) high, Miranda has some of the most dramatic terrain in the solar system. Heavily-cratered plains alternate with smooth, largely uncratered areas laced with intricate faulting and grooving, forming a spectacular patchwork, and posing all sorts of problems for naturalistic theories. 

 The author doesnt even notice the theological problems with a literal six day creation any more. If God created Miranda instantaneously, He did so uncaringly. In fact, He created the gas giants, with most of their moons the same way. God's creation was supposed to be "very good". Yet this is not what we see. We see massive, wrecking storms on Jupiter. We see the surface of moons like the Galilean moons Ganymede and Callisto, the Saturnian moon Tethys, and now the Uranian moon Miranda ravaged by millions of impact craters and geological damage. 

We see Enceladus trace giant vapour plumes around Saturn thanks to its brutal cryovolcanism.  We see Titan, raining liquid methane on its cold, dead surface, a gross caricature of Earth's life-giving water cycle. Planet Venus, a Hadean Hell in front,  and Mars, a frosty deadland behind. 

Perhaps its a matter of worldview, but does Psalm 19:1 seem appropriate now? Are we supposed to feel glorious in the midst of all this desolation?

The finale of this series will be next week. 

Is our Solar System young? (Part 2)

Alright, before we start, I ve decided to leave the geology of Mars for the last of this series. Instead, let us turn to the Jovian planets! As well as all the misshapen objects hurtling in between them.

Interesting Appetizer Questions

Position of Mars in the night sky across a period of 6 months
Image borrowed from hyperphysics

1. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, the three planets beyond Earth visible to the naked eye, appear to loop back across the night sky. Shown here, Mars from the 21st of June 2003 to the  25th of March 2004. Can you guess why?

2. The sidereal day of the Jovian planets is very short-for Jupiter its about 9 hours 56 minutes, and for Saturn 10 hours 39 minutes.  Why is this so?

3. Jupiter and Saturn consist mainly of hydrogen and helium, while the ice giants Uranus and Neptune,  contain significantly more ammonia, methane and water ice. Why?

The Asteroid Belt

Image from Wikipedia

There's more than 100,000 asteroids floating between Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers are interested in asteroid families you see, its because sometimes when mommy asteroid and daddy asteroid love each other very much two asteroids will smash into each other and produce daughter asteroids. Maybe their child would even head off to Earth and give us cooties. What a joy!

 Anyway, according to those godless evilutionists the asteroid belt was part of the proto-planetary disk that was circling the Sun some 4.5 billion years ago. At first, they were busy forming planeteismals, but over the next few millions of years, gravitational perturbations from the Jovian planets disrupted them and caused them to smash against each other with velocities too high to cause fusion of any kind.  This was the same mechanism that probably caused the Late Heavy Bombardment of our Solar system. It explains why the combined mass of asteroids in the disk would probably only have 0.1% the mass of our Earth, many were deflected away from the belt. Of course there are problems with this theory, but it remains, by far the most plausible.

There's another very telling sign of the asteroid belt. There are conspicuous absences in  the distribution of main-belt asteroids known as Kirkwood gaps, named after Daniel Kirkwood, their discoverer. In the distant past, when the orbit of Jupiter was still unstable, it would pass closer than normal to the asteroid belt and throw some asteroids off orbit. How are these gaps even explained if our Solar system is so young?

So.........if the Sun and planets/stars were all created simultaneously on the fourth day of Creation Week, why did God create all the space debris too? There's just no reason to! Or does He intend to send one to our doorstep every now and then as an act of divine retribution? Or did He...well, forget to clean up?

Jupiter

Image courtesy of www.celestialmotherlode.net

The biggest and heaviest planet in the Solar System. Having more than 2.5 times the mass of all other planets combined (probably related to the amount of gloop it has gobbled up), in possession of more than 50 named moons, this gargantuan monster of a planet is, well, ugly as hell. The Great Red Spot, pictured as the giant bulge here, is basically a giant storm larger than the Earth, with wind speeds up to . Not only that, it, by far has the largest, most powerful magnetosphere, of all the planets. It stretches all the way to Saturn.  So much so that the solar wind is deflected well before it reaches any of Jupiter's moons. What makes this worse is that its closest moon, Io, is violently volcanic, thanks to tidal heating by Jupiter's intense gravitational field . It continues to spew out a steady stream of particles, which are subsequently picked up and ionized by Jupiter's magnetosphere at the rate of 1 tonne per second. Which makes chance of life on the Galilean moon Europa probably quite slim - the Van Allen radiation belt is lethal. Not to mention that Europa is freezing cold.


There is actually an argument that Jupiter was specially created to provide protection from meteors, by acting as a cosmic vacuum cleaner thanks to its large gravity field. Is this true? Well, not really. Unfortunately, Jupiter has a good chance of slinging a rogue comet towards the inner planets as well as devouring it like Shoemaker-Levy 9. Of course,  it ultimately begs the question: why was Jupiter created in the first place if comets and asteroids neednt be created? 

Oh, and the creationist argument that Io could not possibly be as old as the evilutionists claim? Debunked here. 

Another interesting tidbit : the Galilean moon Callisto. It has the most heavily cratered surface in the entire Solar System, evidence of its age. Methinks it is a captured protoplanet during the aforementioned Late Heavy Bombardment.

Saturn

Ah, the prettiest of them all. The rings of Saturn, consisting of millions and millions of (mostly water ice) debris. There's probably 12 rings in all. A majesty of creation, wouldnt you think? Pictured below are Saturn's rings and moons close-up. The innermost rings:  A, B, C and D rings are what one would consider the main rings, densely packed with ice particle aggregates, with the D ring the thinnest and nearest to Saturn. The rest are dusty rings, which are much thinner.

Image courtesy of NASA

Funny enough, Saturn, being only slightly smaller than Jupiter, is considerably less dense. It also has a considerably weaker magnetosphere: slightly weaker than even Earth's one.

Of course, like any true creation research society, AiG and CMI both have articles claiming "Saturn's rings couldnt be as old as them evilutionists say, cuz' it would have been sucked into the planet / spread out too far to be visible millions of years ago!" This argument is so silly because they assume the evilutionist believes everything in the Solar System is 4.5 billion years old. Its almost as if they have a pretty cloud of debris circling their own heads too!

Conventional wisdom states that the rings were probably caused when a moon, about 100 million years ago, wandered too close to Saturn's Roche limit and started tearing up due to tidal stresses. I wont go too far into this, as the usual creationist spin has already been addressed here and here and of course, here.

Another argument was about Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The only moon to have an atmosphere (interesting fact-it rains liquid methane on Titan), one odd feature is the apparent lack of cratering on its surface. So CMI recently jumped the gun and proclaimed the lack of apparent craterism on Titan meant it was young. Of course, hilariously, the implications are that they agreed that the number of craters was a reliable estimate of how old a moon was! Now apply this same logic to another of  Saturn's moons, Tethys and the aforementioned Galilean moon Callisto. How old do you think they are now?

Titan. Image from Wikipedia

Now, lets look at Titan. There's strong evidence that it was once geologically active. Andrew Alden of geology.about has written an interesting piece about this. The presence of volcano-like domes and basalt-like flows is a strong indicator Titan once underwent geological recycling, just like Earth.

And of course, there's the remaining problem. We havent identified all craters on Titan yet. Its atmosphere is thick and heavy, seriously hindering visibility of its surface. Weathering processes caused by the methane rain will also weather down the smaller craters on Titan over the years.




 Conclusion

Do you actually see how a phenomenon can be so easily mis-interpreted and twisted to support one's pre-conceived conclusions? That's why it's important to think critically about things you are not familiar with and listen to multiple, qualified experts before making a judgement about what's true and what's not. I will admit I am clouded by confirmation bias as well, so I try my best to listen to all sides of an argument.

The standard game for the YEC scientist is on a completely different playing field. If he submits a thesis to the scientific community, it doesn't matter if it is accepted or rejected, he wins. This is also known as the Xanatos Gambit. If his thesis is accepted, he gains repute and further bolsters the YEC layman's confidence in a young earth. If he's rejected, he can play this by further confirming YEC suspicions that the "religion of naturalism" has been integrated into the sciences and "academic discrimination" is rife.  Either way, he gets paid, so whats the harm?

Thats the importance of the peer review process-it helps siphon out bad, bad research and let the lay public know the truth. Scientist reputation alone isnt good enough-quality of his or her latest research must also be subject to rigorous scrutiny. What would you think happen if the works of biologist Peter Duesberg the AIDS denialist was accepted?

Up next: the ice giants and TNOs!

Is our Solar System young? (Part 1)

Warning: If you are offended by this, please read the conclusion of this series. You may be surprised. 

We all know the Genesis creation account. A simple story, short and sublime, detailing the creation of the heavens and the earth, and Man's subsequent fall from grace. The problem is, some people just take it too bloody literally, despite having been forewarned by the ancient church fathers, from  Jewish theologian Philo of Alexandria, to Bishop Origen and even the famous Saint Augustine (who founded the doctrine of original sin, yes!).

Well, lets assume a young age of the Solar System. There is absolutely no natural mechanism that  it could form in 6000 years, therefore we must assume  it was  "poofed" into existence.

Now what are the problems with this? You will notice that, throughout the account of Genesis 1, there are numerous details of the heavens omitted, or sometimes just seemingly downright wrong about. Read a  version here.

The most obvious problems from a literal reading is:

1. How could light appear before the Sun?
2. From Genesis 1:7-8, it implies there was water above the Heavens. How is this even possible? Are the clouds considered to be part of this water?
3.  Why was the Moon considered the "lesser light" when it got its light from the Sun?
4. Why were plants created twice, first time in Genesis 1 and second time in Genesis 2?
5. Why was there only 1 piece of land mentioned,when there's five continents in Real Life?

Nevertheless, YEC organizations like the ICR or AiG have addressed these questions, if somewhat unsatisfactorily.
Even from an exegetical point of view, this could easily be hand-waved as saying this was how the Earth once was during the Creation Week and was different afterward.

What I would want to discuss here, is what the Bible omitted.

1. Apparently God did not create any spore-producing non-flowering plants, only plants that bore seeds.....
3. What about bacteria?
3. What about them other planets?
Just to name a few.

Point #3 in particular struck me when I first thought about it. Its alright, the average YEC could say, well, it wasnt important to mention them as they weren't relevant, but it gets rather icky when you remember that ancient people once thought that planets were, well, stars.

But I digress. My point is, observation of our planets, and even the Sun itself leads to conclusions that our Solar System is either:
a) ancient, created by natural processes rather than uber-magic
b) if created recently and instantaneously, rather haphazardly and/or halfheartedly,

Let us turn to impact craters in the inner planets shall we?

A Discussion of Impact Craters
There are actually several forms:

1)simple craters- typically small, bow-shaped and smooth-walled. Its what automatically people imagine when they hear "impact crater".

2) complex crater-larger, more complex, with an uplifted centre and concentrated, undulating "terrace" like structures. Check this out. 

3) elongate craters-imagine an asteroid striking at an angle. Leaves a great big scar. Like this.

4) multi-ring craters- the biggest kahunas of all, they generate "ripples" which is basically the shock of the impact deforming the asthenosphere, yup, all the way in the upper mantle!

Irregardless, lets look at the inner planets shall we?

 1) Mercury

Other than Mercury apparently having an unnecessary molten core, something creationists have touted as a young solar system (while neglecting that a) Mercury's core has large amounts of sulphur, lowering the melting point of iron in the core b) tidal heating from the Sun's gravity probably drives heating of the core c) Mercury has a smaller surface area, meaning it loses heat slower ), the evidence, particularly from the vast number of craters on its surface points to its ancient formation. Why do other planets not have the same level of cratering? Simple, early on in the formation of the Solar system, the larger planets had geological activity capable eroding impact craters. That doesnt mean Mercury never had geological activity early on in its history, as evidenced by ancient basalt flows and "ghost craters", but simply means it died sooner than the other rocky worlds.  Either that, or Mercury was created recently with all those craters. Or hilariously, let me draw a quote from Creation wiki on impact craters: (its by creationist astronomer Danny Faulkner)

Faulkner has lately proposed that two episodes of bombardment occurred, the one occurring incident to the fall of man and the other occurring incident to the global flood. The latter episode produced the astroblemes found on earth and also accounts for the markedly uneven distribution of low- and high-energy impacts on the Moon.^[1][7] The observed bombardment of the other planetary satellites, according to this model, came from the first bombardment episode and not the second.^[1]

  God was so pissed after the Fall He threw a hissy fit and sent huge meteorites to scare Adam & Eve! 

2) Venus

Image courtesy of
http://www.windows2universe.org/venus/space_missions.html

What's interesting about Venus is that it is a striking image of what Earth could have been, a literal burning Hell. (And to some, the fate of many in the future.....). Of course, it raises the question onto why it needed to exist in the first place in order for the ancients to mis-characterize it as "the Morning and Evening Star" . I suspect even the ancient Israelites thought so too, the Bible not mentioning planets and all. And it is not evidence of a young solar system, as Prof. Stuart Robbins points out so eloquently. 





3) the Earth-Moon system

Ah, craterism has already been discussed in Mercury. There are more than three hundred thousand craters on the Moon alone, and I pointed out the silly theological problem with a "young Mercury craterism" which applies to our Moon as well. The fact that many more craters on the Moon than the Earth is consistent with an ancient solar system and a geologically active Earth, that continually recycles its surface with the processes of uplift and erosion,  but let me bring up Creation Wiki's infamous hydroplate theory in which they explain how the Global Flood led to massive ejaculation ejection of rocks from the Earth, bombarding the Moon with tons of space debris.

Of course it conveniently ignores the fact that its the Moon's Far side i.e. the side that is perpetually facing away from the Earth that is much more heavily cratered than the Near Side. And also, take a look at this image:

Earth Moon distance, to actual scale,
Image courtesy:
http://www.newegyptevents.com/events/2011/November/2005-YU55-Close-Approach-Information-and-Risks.aspx

 Just look at the distance between them! I cannot imagine the density of Earthen asteroids needed to create some three hundred thousand craters. 

  Furthermore, there's this pesky little thing called escape velocity, which is the velocity an object needs to escape the pull of the Earth's gravity. The standard formula, is of course, (2GM/R)^0.5, which, on Earth, translates to roughly 11200 metres per second, which means our Earthly asteroids needed to travel more than thirty times the speed of sound to escape Earth's atmosphere. LOL!

EDIT: Rational Wiki deconstructs this wonderfully. Read their essay on the Lunar Bukkake hypothesis.

4) Mars

Curiosity Rover image of Mount Sharp. Image credit goes to NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/msl/mount-sharp-pia17946/#.U5Vp7fmSzyQ

The Curiosity Rover continues to bring stunning images everyday, so lets discuss this more in detail.
The Red Planet has had its own share of war wounds: battle scars from strikes by asteroids. Being mostly geologically dead however, more than half a million craters remain on its surface. How old do you think it is now?  Regardless, I already discussed craterism to a great extent. In the next post, I will discuss the geological features of Mars and why it points to its ancient grandeur.

Conclusion

 Seriously how could a young Solar system gain so many impact craters? And why does the Earth have so comparably few? It seems so petty for God to begin laying vengeful waste to the surface of the planets He created with millions of asteroids.

The Solar system is ancient!

P.S. Danny Faulkner may be a competent astronomer, but he would make a terrible theologian. Apart from  believing God to have thrown temper tantrums, as shown above, he also once theorized that the
cosmic microwave background could be the remnant of the "light" that God used in the first three days of the Creation Week. Seriously is he saying that the CMBR is the Holy Spirit's malfunctioning flashlight or something?

Are These Intelligently Designed....

By now, most would be familiar with the views of the Discovery Institute. They have various campaign-related sites such as Dissent from Darwin, Intelligent Design, Idea Center to name a few. I am particularly interested in their daily blog, the ironically named Evolution News & Views that keeps readers updated of latest bits and bytes from the "evolutionist front" (with a liberal sprinkling of ad hominems). 

 The far-reaching effects of Kitzmiller v. Dover probably left them simmering. Nevertheless, its best not to attack them. 

 To quote from IntelligentDesign.Org directly:

"The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."        

 Lets look at the combination of their theories for detecting design, irreducible complexity and complex specified information. I name one that fits this criterion: the CTX toxin of Vibrio Cholerae. To quote Wikipedia (its not necessary to read the whole thing):

Cholera toxin acts by the following mechanism: First, the B subunit ring of the cholera toxin binds to GM1 gangliosides on the surface of target cells. Once bound, the entire toxin complex is endocytosed by the cell and the cholera toxin A1 (CTA1) chain is released by the reduction of a disulfide bridge. The endosome is moved to the Golgi apparatus, where the A1 protein is recognized by the endoplasmic reticulum chaperon, protein disulfide isomerase. The A1 chain is then unfolded and delivered to the membrane, where the ER-vcoxidase - ER oxidoreductin triggers the release of the A1 protein by oxidation of protein disulfide isomerase complex. As the A1 protein moves from the ER into the cytoplasm by the Sec61 channel, it refolds and avoids deactivation as a result of ubiquitination.

CTA1 is then free to bind with a human partner protein called ADP-ribosylation factor 6 (Arf6); binding to Arf6 drives a change in the shape of CTA1 which exposes its active site and enables its catalytic activity.^[5] The CTA1 fragment catalyses ADP-ribosylation of the Gs alpha subunit (Gα_s) proteins using NAD. The ADP-ribosylation causes the Gα_ssubunit to lose its catalytic activity in hydrolyzing GTP to GDP + P_i so it remains activated longer than normal. Increased Gα_s activation leads to increased adenylate cyclaseactivity, which increases the intracellular concentration of cAMP to more than 100-fold over normal and over-activates cytosolic PKA. These active PKA then phosphorylate thecystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) chloride channel proteins, which leads to ATP-mediated efflux of chloride ions and leads to secretion of H₂O, Na⁺,K⁺, and HCO₃^- into the intestinal lumen. In addition, the entry of Na⁺ and consequently the entry of water into enterocytes are diminished. The combined effects result in rapid fluid loss from the intestine, up to 2 liters per hour, leading to severe dehydration and other factors associated with cholera, including a rice-water stool.

Its potency is such that a single molecule is enough to cause a cascade of reactions in a cell leading to massive loss of intestinal fluid. This is the cause of cholera.

Plasmodium infected red blood cells. Image credit goes to
https://vethematology.wordpress.com/category/blood-parasites/plasmodium/

Its even worse when you consider the malaria parasite Plasmodium. They are obligate parasites i.e. they must complete their life cycle inside their host cell, in this case both the Anopheles mosquito, followed by alternatingly infecting both liver and red blood cells. The most deadly kind-Plasmodium falciparum is host specific i.e. it has been developed to an extent it only targets humans. And did you know malaria is killing more than a million people a year, the majority of them children?

To what extent is design ubiquitous in nature? If we are to teach ID, that the flagellum is a product of design, are we to teach them that the type 3 secretory system, responsible for delivering bacterial toxins is a product of deliberate tinkering too? Shall we teach them the irreducible complexity of the eye, alongside the elaborate design of the cobra to kill and incapacitate? Or how about Mycobacterium tuberculosis, its slow replication cycle which reduces the effectiveness of antibiotics, its deadliness which killed more people than all wars combined?

In essence, it exacerbates the problem of evil to astronomical proportions, because the "Designer" would now be responsible for billions of deaths. Yes, the Designer is now a mass murderer.

This is what makes it so disturbing. I understand its not the DI claims its not its role to make theological inferences of designed life. But it is inevitable people will begin to question and ponder. People will begin to realise the nature of the Designer, who, aside from designing life, also decided to throw in deadly pathogens to the mix. Is it the loving God of the Bible?