I would again like to thank Dr. Cheesman for participating with us. I consider him a brother, and having himself signed the Discovery Institute dissent from Darwin list, I consider him a special comrade. He forwarded the following scientific and philosophical questions concerning the moon. I post it with his permission:
The craters on the moon.
How do the craters on the moon fit into a YEC world-view? What event, occurring during, or after the creation, produced them?
Things that must be accounted for include:
a) Any celestial meteor storm is bound to have had a vastly greater affect on earth than on the moon, due to the fact that the earth is a far larger gravitational target than the moon; not only would it sweep up more objects, the impacts would average several kilometers per second higher in velocity. Large areas of the moon are at saturation, e.g. it is apparent that any new craters were covering up previous ones, so the devastation was total, in fact they would have had an affect far greater than would have been achieved by a world-wide flood in terms of geological impact.
b) Such a storm would have produced a cloud of debris in orbit around the earth that would still be detectable today.
c) It would also likely have produced a cloud of debris around the moon as well, which should still be detectable today (in an OEC viewpoint, the impacts would have occurred when the moon was very near the earth, and the orbiting debris would have been swept away long ago by interactions with the earth).
d) Why is the distribution of impacts different on the “near” side of the moon than the “far” side (in an OEC perspective, this is all wrapped up with the origin of the moon)?
I would submit that any celestial event capable of producing the cratered surface of the moon, occurring in the short time-scale offered by the YEC perspective, is incompatible with the continued existence of “higher” life forms on the earth, and, at the least, would have been worth recording in the Bible.
1. Stable Resonances and Tidal Locking
An orbital resonance, according to Wikipedia, “occurs when two orbiting bodies exert a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually due to their orbital periods being related by a ratio of two small integers.”
Stable resonances occur when the orbits of two bodies become trapped in a fixed ratio due to the mutual exchange momentum, and deviations from the resonant state are self-correcting.
Examples include:
a) The 1:2:4 resonance of Jupiter’s moons Ganymede, Europa, and Io.
b) The 2:3 resonance between Neptune and Pluto that maintains the stability of this pair, despite their crossing orbits.
c) The resonances defining boundaries and gaps within the asteroid belt, due to the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn etc.
d) Various other resonances between the moons of Saturn, Kuper belt objects, planetary rings etc.
Tidal locking is the process whereby the rotation of a planet’s satellite becomes locked to the planet; e.g. like the earth’s moon, which always keeps the same face towards the earth. In addition to the earth and the moon, there are a large number of cases of tidal locking in the solar system, including Mercury (3:2 with the sun), and many of the moons of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
The point I want to make here is that stable resonances and tidal locking are the natural result of gravitational interactions operating over millions of years (because that is the time scale on which these things settle out at). If the solar system were truly old, we would expect to see exactly this phenomena; in fact the absence of stable resonances or tidal locking in bodies highly susceptible to it would be evidence that they are recent additions to the solar system.
But, why would we see such things in a newly created solar system? The stable resonances and tidal locking, in and of themselves, do not generally confer any advantage in terms of the stability or longevity of the systems involved. The moon could quite happily rotate once every 10 hours and nothing would be any different here on the earth. God could certainly have created moons and planets in any number of stable orbits and with any variety of rotationary periods, with and without tidal locking, with no ill short or long-term affect on the stability or longevity of the solar system, or life on earth. It has always been my experience that God does things for a very good reason. I can see the reasons in an OEC perspective, but not in a YEC one, except that God may have intended the solar system to look very old even though it is really young, and I can’t find a great deal of satisfaction in that answer.
Sincerely,
Stephen Cheeesman
Possible answer. Hydroplate explosion from the Earth which created the craters. You may be intersted in this energy profile of comets:
The explanation for comets being a recent phenomenon from an Earth-borne explosion are given here. I found the arguments compelling from the standpoint of physics.
There are two interpretations of OEC:
1. Old Universe + Evolutionary creation of the Earth-Moon system
2. Old Universe + Special Creation of Earth-Moon system
The orbital dynamics for putting the moon in place via planetary evolution seem to be an extraodinary stretch. Solving the problem via classical dynamics seems severely problematic.
Special creation of the Earth and Moon does not rule out an Old Universe, but like life, it seems special creation is a good answer.
Of course, a finely-tuned, intelligently designed collision-scenario as Michael Behe describes in his latest book is possible in theory so far, but I think further scrutiny will prevent interpretations via planetery evolution. I believe we are dealing with a Cosmic Message which will prevent evolutionary interpretations (galactic, stellar, planetary, life) from succeeding. The objects in the sky are designed to resist anything except a scenario via special creation.
Since we are not positing a celestial meteor storm these two issues are moot.
Becauase the debris came from earth.
The flood is in there and it was pretty darn incompatible with life on earth.
That is one of the worst arguments for an old cosmos I have ever heard. The answer is that the solar system is designed. The moon and the stars (which includes the other planets) have been set in a path. They are not wobbling about trying to find their groove.
Now let me ask you this. If the solar system is billions of years old, where do comets come from? An Oort cloud? Is so, how do they contain olivine, pyroxene and osbornite – minerals known to form at high temperatures – instead of the cold outer solar system where the Oort Cloud is supposed to be? Why would God trick us with comets from a hidden Oort cloud to make the solar system appear young?
Why is there so much volcanic activity in the moons of the planets? They should have cooled off millions of years ago?
For example, “Why is there geology on Saturn’s icy satellites? Where did these smallish moons get the energy to refresh their impact-battered surfaces with smoothed plains, ridges, and fissures? These questions have nagged at scientists since the Voyager flybys in the early 1980s, and the Cassini spacecraft’s recent discovery that Saturn’s Enceladus is spouting like an icy geyser has only compounded the problem.” Richard A. Kerr, “Planetary Science: How Saturn’s Icy Moons Get a (Geologic) Life,” Science, 6 January 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5757, p. 29
I think it is great that Dr Cheesman sent you his thoughts on YEC and some objections he might have considered. I’d like to thank him for that. It’s very good to have OE objections laid out to consider and answer.
His questions were interesting to me, as I have also considered most the very same questions and observations as his in my past. In the end, I did not find them overly problematic for YEC.
Even though it is not a most surprising objection, the primary question that stands out to me is the tidal locked moon. And really this seems to be only a matter of, “Why would God do that, when He has so many other options?”.. I think it is a good question. For now, I do not have a ready best answer; but as I stated, I do not feel it is overly surprising or problematic. For now, I will suspect that there is likely a good reason for God to tidal lock the moon with the earth from day one. It could be a simple a reason as providing a message about the flood and how sin’s wages are death. Also, it may have had an effect in enabling our ability to discover. Such as discovering evidence for Einstein’s theory using eclipses. But I’m not sure what effects rotation of the moon would have had on this or other such discoveries, but this is a possibility to explore. Also, assuming again the debris from earth caused the marring of the near side of the moon, a rotating moon might have added too much energy to the impact (on one side of the near side), leading to a scenario that would have been unfavourable in the overall plan of God. That is, perhaps, a rotating moon would have launched too much (more) moon/mineral (earth-like) debris with unfavourable trajectories in such a case. Can anyone think of any unfavourable effects that would have resulted from a rotating moon on discoveries and/or with earth borne debris impacting a rotating moon?
[Side comment: I'd say it is more surprising for OE/OEC to ponder why we are conscious today, in a time we would expect to be conscious if young earth creationism were true. Whereas, if evolution or long earth models were true, we would not expect to be conscious within this particular time frame (i.e. the ~6000 yr window of the yec model) among millions or billions of other possibilities for OE models. Yec has effectively zero surprise with present day consciousness.]
The craters on the moon:
It seems the flood model provided by Dr Brown [perhaps even the one by Dr Baumgardner], would provide viable explanations for the craters, to include the reasoning that they are on only one side of the moon. Priamry reason being, that the debris (earth & water) originated from earth’s crust from super sonic jetting water. I don’t think Baumgardner’s model emphasises this possibility; however, his model does allow for super sonic jets of water that account for excessive heat being lost into to space.
Assuming the flood is the cause. Then the craters on one side of the moon would seem to imply that the moon’s rotation was “locked in” or sync’d with it’s revolution around the earth before the flood event. I think possibly significant to consider that the earth may not have had large oceans prior to the flood. And I do have the bias that there were only relatively shallow seas pre-flood and that the earth’s land:water surface ratio was inverse from what we see today. That is, it may have been 70% land and 30% water on the earth’s surface. The overall climate would have been moderate (even towards the poles). This would also account for the relatively (compared to today’s living biomass) excessive amounts of biomass in fossil fuels, for example, around the earth.
The fact that Dr Cheesman stated such an event would be devastating to life on earth is simply consistent with the purpose of the biblical flood. The purpose was to destroy all of life.
I can not comment much on debris in orbit, only to add these factors. [Assuming the flood models of Brown or Baumgardner] The bulk of the impacts would have been water or ice. Does water make very detectable debris in orbit? Except in cases like Saturns rings I can not think it would necesarily be detectable. Also, the effects of solar wind and the earth’s rotation around the sun would be likely important factors. The orbital position during moon impact would be important, I’d think.
Dr Cheesman stated: “… (in an OEC perspective, this is all wrapped up with the origin of the moon)?”
If this implies that OEC has the situation explained (wrapped up). I’d like to know how. Assuming that the moon eventually became tidal locked with an old earth, I can not see why one face of the moon would be favoured to be marred more than the other in an OEC scneario – including an OEC origin of the moon scenario. Unless the OEC uses a YEC flood model similar to Brown’s or Baumgardner’s. This crater distribution problem actually seems more problematic for an OEC model to explain than for YEC.
JGuy
This is slightly off topic, but tangentially related, as it has to do with the orbits of the planets and their rotation, formation of the solar system, etc. I came across this from the Astronomer / skeptic who runs the “Bad Astronomy” blog:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/06/24/braking-news-for-creationism/
I’m curious what your comments on this would be. Note that he specifically mentions Walter Brown’s web site in his criticism.
(I also noticed that in his latest post, he links to a YouTube video in which he purports to “destroy creationism”–I’ve not watched the video.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/06/26/evolution-versus-creationism-astronomy-edition/
I seriously doubt that he has destroyed anything. In fact, he seems to be unaware of the existence of OEC, and conflates the term “Creationism” with YEC; he doesn’t seem to be aware of the subtle nuances and differences of opinion within the creationism camp).
jb
I watched that YouTube video. It isn’t anything special. Imagine a video taking poor arguments by some creationists (eg. using the various spin of the planets as arguments against the Big Bang of all things), and then attacking those arguments. And then taking a good creationist argument (eg. cosmic fine tuning), and misrepresenting it.
One of the clips in the video shows a guy saying a short list of stuff that creationist might say, such as that the speed of light was faster (or infinite) in the past, but that these claims are now “known” not to be true… However, he doesn’t explain how “we know” that the speed of light was not faster in the past. I’ve read one person that, I think, refers to this same kind of talking as tossing elephants. That is, making several large claims in a discussion/talk that you are expected to take as some kind of “fact”.
That summarizes it.
JGuy
I would like YoungCosmos to be a place where peole can comfortably say “maybe I was wrong”. Through my discussion and invitation of Dr. Cheesman and Dr. Jellison, I can definitely say, “I was wrong” about a number of things. Dr. Cheesman’s criticisms of CDK helped me to realize that I was wrong about the time dilation effects of CDK. Dr. Jellison’s criticisms helped me understand I was wrong about the nature of redshifts in CDK (I attributed CDK redshifts to nu, rather than lambda).
There are some very passionate defenders of YEC, and without passion the YEC movement will falter. However, let us be grateful that God has given us brothers who will sharpen us like iron with their criticisms of our ideas. They will make us better people and defenders of creation science.
I say this to thank everyone for their attempts at civility. If we drive away first rate critics from YoungCosmos this place will look like TelicThoughts or ARN. With few exceptions such critics have added little to the discussion at TelicThoughts and ARN.
In contrast, the critics here have made valuable contribution and insight to the YEC debate. I have already been forced to concede “I was wrong” 2 times because of valuable input from civil critics at YoungCosmos. Let us be welcoming of reasoned criticism. Good science welcomes criticisms. In fact, it looks forward to it.
Salvador
I
Thanks, JGuy. I actually wasn’t too worried about the video. What you reported about it is about what I expected.
I’m more interested in what people here would have to say about the entry on angular momentum (the first link).
jb
If you look up Dr Browns book online where it was referenced from that site, you will find that Dr Brown also provides references that do include the idea of “magnetic linking”. Dr Brown was not oblivious to this concept, nor was he hiding it. It was reference g at the end of the comment on Angular Momentum. Link to page with reference g:
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes43.html#wp1013858
Furthermore, from Phil Plait’s badastronomy website, the author of that article (Phil Plait??) stated:
There are two false claims here that I’d like to point out:
#1 The creationists sites did not say anyone was lying. Look up the referenced links (there, there and there) and check for yourself.
#2 He claims the last reference made an “out-and-out lie”. This in itself is actually disingenuous & deceptive (or simply very negligent research). Because even though the last source did say this:
Just a tiny bit of effort in reading the next sentence [conveniently unacknowledged by Phil Plait's 'badastronomy'] you would see this from the same source:
Was Phil’s website being ingenuous or not? Does it seem like the creationists sites were unaware of this idea? I think the argument that the creationist have all simply tried to make here is this: Modern theories of planetary & solar origins are struggling without clear answers. And this is not untrue (much less a lie) – so far as the variety of literature I’ve read.
JGuy
jb and jguy,
You both have admin privileges so if there are topics you would wish to explore by all means you may start a thread on them. YoungCosmos would welcomes hearing criticisms of YEC theory, even occasionally ill-conceived ones which have great traction in the popular culture.
regards,
Salvador
Salvador,
Would you like for us to cut/paste that discussion to another new thread? [clean up] I’m done with it for now. I suppose my comments can be lengthy, even though they were meant to be succinct.
JGuy
Sorry for the distraction from the main topic, Salvador. I’ll try to behave.
But just to wrap up the item I brought up (and then I’ll stop going on about it)…
JGuy, thanks for the response. In retropsect, I now realize I probably could have figured out how skewed Mr. Plait’s thoughts are if I had taken the time to read a little more. I actually feel a little silly for being somewhat lazy that way. Looking over Mr. Plait’s site some more (I was not familiar with it until now), it appears that he is badly slanted against Creationism and ID. I’m resisting the urge to go on about it, but suffice it to say that upon further examination of Mr. Plait’s site I probably won’t waste any more time there (yours and mine).
JGuy,
I think that would be a great idea. I’d like to continue specifically on Dr. Cheesman’s letter to me. I think those are important issues.
Salvador
I appreciate you may feel that way, but a soft response is more persuassive. I have had many bad ideas in the past, but it was always good to have the reasons explained why the idea I had was a bad idea. Having someone say it’s bad doesn’t further understanding and dialogue, in fact it may hinder it.
The objections Dr. Cheesman offered are sincere.
In the engineering world (I think you’re an engineer too), we’re used to having our bad ideas shot down daily (if not hourly), but there are ways to foster the flow of valid criticisms.
Salvador
Thank you Salvador I will try to be more cordial in the future.
I will try to keep my response focussed on direct questions or comments on the points I raised.
First, I should clarify the thing about craters on the near vs. the far side of the moon. The far side of the moon actually has MORE craters than the near side; it lacks the large, smooth Mare regions we can see with the naked eye on the near side; so if the craters on the moon were due to some target-practice from earth, it must explain that fact! In any case, there are a huge number of craters on the near side, too, as any small telescope will reveal.
I found the idea that the craters might be due to same cause as the initial hydro-plate phenomenon which is postulated to have caused the flood quite astonishing. Consider that the moon is about half a degree in diameter as seen from the earth. (I’m assuming the distance would not have been appreciably different 5-6 thousand years ago). Since there are 41,253 square degrees in the sky, this represents less than one part in 200,000 of the full sky as a target. Now, of course lunar gravity would tend to increase the target “size”, but even if that’s by a factor of 10, the amount of material ejected by the earth in order to produce the affect on the moon would have been unbelievable! Add to this the fact that it has to have a velocity greater than the escape velocity of the earth (or almost the full escape velocity, once you get as far as the moon), and the energy unleashed would have easily vaporized all the oceans of the earth and quite a bit of the upper crust. Noah’s arc would have needed more than a good asbestos coat to survive.
Then, consider that any ejecta would have had a range of velocities in some sort of Poisson distribution, ranging from zero, then with a majority having some large value, and with highest velocities for smaller fractions of the material. How much of this would have been less than escape velocity and returned to the earth? How much would have exceeded that value, but be too large to be affected by the small additional pull of the moon, and simply bypass it? Shouldn’t a lot of this stuff still be flying about in earth-crossing orbits endangering our lives every day?
Is there any mechanism in existence with the energy to eject solid, rocky material outside the earth in the first place? Even the hydroplate theory deals with water, doesn’t it? You can eject water like a fountain because its density (1 gm/cm^3) is less than continental crust (>2.3 gm/cm^3). Rocks won’t eject the same way, because the potential-energy difference doesn’t exist, and even if they did, could they maintain themselves as the large, km-size single bodies necessary to form impact craters on the moon? Finally, even the water is proposed to have remained at sub-orbital velocities, condensing in the high-atmosphere, for instance, to form rain, and polar glaciers.
A good question about why Mare are seen only on the near side. Lots of interesting stuff about the Mare can be found at Wikipedia (I find it a good source if you’re not dealing with Darwinian Evolution!):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_mare
Just another thing we don’t know all the answers for, but not an indictment of the whole billions-o-years paradigm.
Keep those suggestions and comments coming! I’ve got a thick skin, and as a former YEC myself, I’m more than willing to give every serious question an honest and respectful response.
Dr. Cheesman,
Thank you for your observations.
This is off topic, but it will help me understand your position a little more clearly, and I would like to represent your position accurately.
Is it fair to say you accept a global flood, or at least some sort of flood? The reason I ask this now is that if you do accept the global flood, I want readers to be aware of that.
Salvador
You are of course correct, and my earlier comments were incorrect. Thank you for your graciousness for a glaring mis-statement on my part. This picture reveals exactly what you were talking of, but my recolection of Brown’s argument some how got everything backward.
< I was referring to Brown's comment:
these are valuable objections to consider and some that I’ve not pondered until now. What is going to the moon at approximately escape velocity is the result of ice being lobbed from the water boiling in the vacuum of space.
Now, before we go too much further into this. If the craters on the far side are return ice meteors, or whatever, we should detect remnants of biotic material in the meteorite cores (should we be so lucky to retrieve them!).
We have evidence of biotic material coming from meteorite cores that have landed to Earth.
And let me offer one complication that just occurred to me. Large Meteors landing back to a flooded Earth will cause enormous Tsunamis (if that is even an appropriate term). I don’t know yet how this problem may be resolved.
Salvador:
“And let me offer one complication that just occurred to me. Large Meteors landing back to a flooded Earth will cause enormous Tsunamis (if that is even an appropriate term). I don’t know yet how this problem may be resolved”
Consider the earth covered with about a 10,000 foot depth of water. I think that this depth around the flooded earth would have minimised any effects of tsunamis. This is reminds me of the tsunami that began off the coast of Indonesia a couple years ago… it was perhaps a foot or so at the point of origin, but traveled super fast..only until it approached shallow water did it actually have a massive size.
Regardless, what would be the problem with fully expanded tsunamis anyway? Everything was being destroyed on purpose.
BTW: ICR predicts there were super storms they call hypercanes – dwarfing modern day hurricanes.
JGuy
Dr Cheesman:
I appreciate your commentary very much. With myself as a former Old Earther, and you a former Young Earther, I find this somewhat humorous.
Thanks for the clarification on the marring of the surface of the moon (nearside vs farside). I was mistaken in making an assumption based simply on the fact that both sides are different, and mis-recalling the actual nature of the surfaces. I suppose it has to do with underestanding that there is an actual deliniation of the textures of the two surfaces/sides. Yet, I still think that some kind of earth borne projectiles could better explain this delineation better than chance collisions. Perhaps those ejected material that would miss the moon with higher velocity than larger projectile.. make a parabolic u-turn to hit the far side
A somewhat neutral idea is that with a tidal locked moon.. perhaps there is more geologic activity on the near side to affect (clean up) of that surface side?? I know you probably still find earth bone debris as hard to continue to consider… However, please be patient with the few of us that may still find it palatable. I like to be very thorough – to the point of migranes, perhaps, for some.
You said:
“I found the idea that the craters might be due to same cause as the initial hydro-plate phenomenon which is postulated to have caused the flood quite astonishing. Consider that the moon is about half a degree in diameter as seen from the earth. (I’m assuming the distance would not have been appreciably different 5-6 thousand years ago). Since there are 41,253 square degrees in the sky, this represents less than one part in 200,000 of the full sky as a target. Now, of course lunar gravity would tend to increase the target “size”, but even if that’s by a factor of 10, the amount of material ejected by the earth in order to produce the affect on the moon would have been unbelievable!”
That is definitely a good argument. Let me ask this, according to some writing by Dr Brown, I’ve become aware of a principle called the sphere of influence. As I understand this idea, an object will have an enormously larger range of gravitational influnce as it distances itself from more massive bodies in space. Such could be the case for ejected material leaving earth. Wouldn’t this further increase the target size of the moon?
See reference 19 found here:
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Comets19.html#wp1301597
Thanks for your comments!
JGuy
Salvador. You wrote:
I just wanted to note that there was the recovery of material directly from a comet last year to look out for. I am not sure of the status of the findings, but it would be interesting if they found bacteria or some other biologic material. Simply finding cellulose would be an incredible find! If any is found - and I think that cellulose would be the most likely organic material if it is from earth born debris - it would be a monumental boon for YEC.
JGuy
Update to this post:
I did a look into that NASA mission. The misison is called “StarDust”. Here are some findings:
Not surprising, but noteable: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/status/060313.html
Soimething more interesting: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news108.html
Main page: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html
Regarding tsunami’s, that would be a great danger to an Ark. Let me concede that although I believe God can work miracles and protect Noah, my attitude is that traceble historical events depend on a certain very large degree of NON-miracles happening so that we can make inferences.
It is possible someone could miraculously just happen to have the DNA to make him a supposed parent of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby, but those are the sort of miracles that would distort our ability to make inferences.
The story of Noah would be the most believable the fewer miracles we need to invoke. Yes, the flood is a miracle of design, but it has a powerful argument if it can be shown to be a “front loaded” miracle tied in a manner traceable with historic inferences on the assumption of few intervening miracles. That is Brown’s model.
In any case, I think we are seriously wondering from the central topic. I will leave Dr. Cheesman’s very well-reasoned criticisms relating to specifics of hydroplate for another thread. They are significant enough to merit a separate discussion.
Salvador
There is the possibility of a non-Earth based explosion causing solar system craters. The explosion had such ferocity most of the debris escaped the Solar system. This view is compatible to some extent with Hydroplate theory. It is a view that is advocated by Tom van Flandern. I have been one who has thought the possibility is worth more of a look: The Exploded Planet Hypothesis.
However, I do not mean to suggest Dr. Cheesman’s concerns of the moon craters are anywhere near resolved to the level of satisfaction we might hope for in other scientific disciplines where we can affix a great level of confidence in a hypothesis.
The supposed tidal lock and spherical orbits also resist interpretations random capture. Most orbits are not of this variety if we had random capture scenarios recently. Sure it could suggest millions of years, but it does not have to, it can strongly suggest special creation as well.
Let me give another interpretation. If the orbit, particularly of the moon were not the way it was, it would destroy the Privileged Planet hypothesis. Given the current recession rate of the moon, we would not be able to make the scientific discoveries we are making if Homo Sapiens appeared 200,000 later than they did (assuming old earth). What you express as concern for the appearance of age can be interpreted as actually optimal conditions for scientific discovery.
I unfortunately do not have Gonzalez book to confirm the 200,000 year figure, but I believe that is in the ball park. It appears the moon’s orbital distance is highly optimized for our day and age and for humans. If humans appeared 200,000 years too late we would not know what we know now. If it’s not in the book, Gonzalez had mentioned it at the big Smithsonian event 2 years ago.
The point being, is one could say it looks old, but assuming the Privileged Planet hypothesis (or at least a YEC variant of it), one could argue they looked optimized for scientific discovery at this very point in time. It may look old to some, but this could be an artifact of perception.
Though I sincerely accept the very valid concern of God not making things look old such that men are confused, let’s consider the phenomenon of a mirage in the desert which looks like water to a thirsty man. We reject the illusion because have alternative recourse to explain the phenomenon and thus reject the illusion of water.
It may well be the same with the supposed appearance of age. If we have convincing physical evidence to the contrary (and not just theology), then we can safely suppose this was mearly an illusion of perception like a mirage.
Matter would be ejected along the seems in the crust so it would send up a band of debris and the moon would have to bisect that band during its orbit, it would not require an improbable degree of luck.
The energy unleashed would vaporize all the oceans of the earth? I don’t believe that. I think it is a matter of how focused the energy is. Krakatoa threw up 25 cubic kilometers of rock, ash, and pumice up to a height of 80 kilometers. Imagine something with as much energy but with more focus.
You mean like comets?
It seems like there would be an initial eruption that had a tremendous amount of force and debris, and then continued eruption under less pressure with less velocity and less debris. The initial push would have escape velocity and then it would drop off.
You didn’t address how comets or geological activity on places like Enceladus fit in a billions year old paradigm.
Impact crater
“If the object weighs more than 1,000 tons, an atmosphere does not slow it down much, though smaller bodies can be substantially slowed by atmospheric drag, as they have a higher ratio of surface area to mass.”
Sorry that it’s from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_crater
So my question is (after unsuccessfully searching for lunar crater survey info), how many lunar impacts are estimated to be of objects larger than 1,000 tons? I have no idea. But if many of the lunar impacts are of objects of substantially less size, then (presuming a shower) the effects of such objects that encounter Earth would have been mollified by the atmosphere.
I was also thinking of this question posed by Dr. Cheesman:
“Then, consider that any ejecta would have had a range of velocities in some sort of Poisson distribution, ranging from zero, then with a majority having some large value, and with highest velocities for smaller fractions of the material…….Shouldn’t a lot of this stuff still be flying about in earth-crossing orbits endangering our lives every day?”
Presumably the faster ejection velocities at the center of the rupture line would also act to pull along peripheral materials, and I would think water too, if the fissure passed under an ocean. If so, I was wondering if some ejection velocities would have been substantial enough to haul up redwood trees and sharks, but without reducing them to complete mush. After all, astronauts have been put in orbit safely. Is it at all possible that a slushy comet will be discovered with a tree in it?
Here’s an interesting article about the possibility of ice on the moon.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1170
Best Regards
“If the craters on the far side are return ice meteors, or whatever, we should detect remnants of biotic material in the meteorite cores (should we be so lucky to retrieve them!).”
Of course you realize that if this happened, the spin would be that this is evidence of panspermia rather than YEC.
LOL! Well trees don’t grow where the fissure supposedly erupted, sharks on the other hand might get ejected. Finding a comet with a frozen shark inside would be hilarious.
Jehu wrote: “Matter would be ejected along the seems in the crust so it would send up a band of debris and the moon would have to bisect that band during its orbit, it would not require an improbable degree of luck.”
That’s a good point too. Also, to consider that the velocity of the ejected material would slow a bit as it left earth’s gravitational pull. Then the moon, rotating the earth every month, would have perhaps more opportunity to intercept expanding bands – especially if the debris velocities slowed significantly. If so, should this scenario then lead to a prediction that there would be more impacts on the approaching (leading) side of the moon vice the trailing side? or Would the craters be somewhat equally distributed – Where perhaps, the debris pass the range of the moon, and return to fall to the moon once the moon continues in orbit to positions where the ejected material is just beyond the range of the moon from the earth? [Keeping in mind that the moon still does revolve..though only once per month]
JGuy
Jehu: “That is one of the worst arguments for an old cosmos I have ever heard. The answer is that the solar system is designed. The moon and the stars (which includes the other planets) have been set in a path. They are not wobbling about trying to find their groove.”
I will ignore the somewhat patronizing tone of this response in an effort to maintain civil discourse. Careful reading of the post will make plain that resonant states are completely independent of, and completely unnecessary for, the stable and functional operation of a solar system. A designer has no need to put objects into such a state, and, indeed most planets, moons and asteroids do not exhibit resonances or tidal locking. There is no benefit to a tidal resonance (though you are welcome to suggest one). The three moons of Jupiter which currently are in such an orbit would quite happily and stabily orbit for a million (or a billion) years without such a lock. HOWEVER, it is both expected and required in an OEC framework for these things to form and exist, and, lo and behold, there they are.
Jehu: “Matter would be ejected along the seems in the crust so it would send up a band of debris and the moon would have to bisect that band during its orbit, it would not require an improbable degree of luck.”
The current rift system is pretty well evenly distributed both in latitude and longitude around the earth. Assuming projectiles left the earth from the rifts, they would not fly in perfect vertical trajectories but be spread in a cone from any given point in the earth, resulting in a pretty even distribution once you got as far as the moon. Their velocities, in order to get out of the earth’s orbit and make it as far as the moon, would be quite high in comparison to the moon’s orbital velocity (which is about 0.7 km/sec), so that any collisions would concentrated on the face of the moon pointing to earth, with only a small “forward-pointing” bias in the orbital direction, so the “sweeping” affect is miniscule. The debris would not just sit around waiting to be collided with. If it did, it would still be in orbit today, especially at the Lagrangian points (where there is, in fact a very tiny amount of material, but nowhere near, by orders of magntide what you would expect for the amount of material need to crater the moon 5000 years ago).
In other words, the odds remain the same, independent of the moon’s orbit, the targeting odds are equal to the gravitational influence region of the moon.
JGuy: “Consider the earth covered with about a 10,000 foot depth of water. I think that this depth around the flooded earth would have minimised any effects of tsunamis. This is reminds me of the tsunami that began off the coast of Indonesia a couple years ago… it was perhaps a foot or so at the point of origin, but traveled super fast..only until it approached shallow water did it actually have a massive size.”
When you are talking about large impactors, 10,000 feet, ,or even 10,000m is not really very large; in fact that is the scale of the meteor thought to have formed the Chicxulub impact crater in the Yucatan peninsula. Now, most of the craters on the moon are smaller than the one whose remains we can see in Mexico, but I expect the types of waves produced by meteor impacts would be much SHORTER wavelength than the tsunamis produced by earthquakes, because the initiating region is only on the km scale, not the hundreds of km scale found for large earthquakes. These waves would tend to be much higher, as the energy would be concentrated much more intensely due to the almost instantaneous nature of its initiation, and, because of the much greater energies involved. A pretty wild ride, if you could survive it.
JGuy: “That is definitely a good argument. Let me ask this, according to some writing by Dr Brown, I’ve become aware of a principle called the sphere of influence. As I understand this idea, an object will have an enormously larger range of gravitational influnce as it distances itself from more massive bodies in space. Such could be the case for ejected material leaving earth. Wouldn’t this further increase the target size of the moon?”
Yes, I gave a nod to this in my original post, with the factor of ten reduction. Some things to consider: in order for debris to make it to the moon, it needs to be ejected at a velocity more or less equal to, or greater than the earth’s escape velocity, and at that speed the travel time to the moon is only a day or two. Considering, also the spread-out nature of the rift system on earth, and the randomized distribution in terms on initial trajectories from any given location, there is essentially zero chance that any of the debris would have any affect at all on itself in order to “equalize” the distribution of velocities or motion. Gravity is just too weak.
Secondly, the attractive affect is dependent on the incoming debris velocity; obviously the faster it travels, the less time the moon’s gravity can affect it, and the degree to which it’s trajectory is changed in reduced. Perhaps someone with experience in the Apollo flights could shed some light on this.
Jehu: “The energy unleashed would vaporize all the oceans of the earth? I don’t believe that. I think it is a matter of how focused the energy is. Krakatoa threw up 25 cubic kilometers of rock, ash, and pumice up to a height of 80 kilometers. Imagine something with as much energy but with more focus.”
Time for some fun with math!
The estimated volume of the earth’s oceans is about 1.4 x 10^10 cubic km. That’s 1.4 x 10^22 litres. It takes about 315 J to boil one litre of water from 35C, so it would take about 4.4 x 10^24 J to vaporize all the oceans.
The estimated energy of the Chicxulub impactor is 5 x 10^23 J, so only ten of these would be required to boil the oceans. Assuming only 50% conversion into heat at the surface (allowing, perhaps for some orbital ejecta and heat distributed through the volume of the earth due to seismic energy), we need twenty or so. Most of the heat would remain at the point of impact in the form of piping hot molten rock, continuing to heat up the water flowing back into the void that has just been vaporized by direct impact of the meteor.
Now there are thousands of impacts on the moon. Most, of course, would be smaller than Chicxulub, but that doesn’t hurt the argument because they are much more spread out; in fact the complete coverage on the moon shows there is little “localization”; every square inch got hit and hit again. If that’s not enough, multiply in a factor of 1000 (or a hundred even, I’m generous) for the fact that moon is such a small target and the actual ejecta volume must have been enormous (including all the stuff with insufficient velocity to leave earth orbit). If anything, the affect on the earth HAS to be much greater than on the moon.
Back to Krakatoa, the estimated energy of the blast 1.5 x 10^17 J, which is less than one millionth as big as the Chicxulub impact. It’s hard to fathom the energy of large meteor impacts.
Here’s an interesting link with comparisons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)
Jehu: “You mean like comets?”
This is in reference to the return of debris launched from the earth. The important distinction from comets is that the debris would have ballistic trajectories with the earth as the origin. In the absence of an atmosphere, and the gravitational affect of the moon, I think it is a basic principle that non-escaping ballistic objects will re-impact the earth; it’s only because rockets carry their own fuel that they can even achieve an orbit. I believe objects grazing the moon (and I mean non-contact), could be put into permanent orbit with the earth.
Comets are completely different, both in total orbital energy, and in the orientations of their orbits, which are sun-centred.
One more reply for the day:
Salvador: “This is off topic, but it will help me understand your position a little more clearly, and I would like to represent your position accurately.
Is it fair to say you accept a global flood, or at least some sort of flood? The reason I ask this now is that if you do accept the global flood, I want readers to be aware of that.”
I would accept “some” kind of flood, probably more along the lines of Hugh Ross’s idea. I have read “The Genesis Flood” a number of times, and I found the whole idea quite exciting and fascinating. But you can’t really be OEC and hold to the global flood idea… it’s just too BIG to ignore! I’d be happy to toss in a few “challenges” on another thread, once things calm down a bit here.
Please Note:
ATTENTION! YOUNG COSMOS HAS MOVED!
Salvador