Posted on 08/07/2007 3:54:06 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Four Evidences of Cosmic Youth 08/04/2007
Astronomers and planetary scientists routinely talk in millions and billions of years. Three recent science news reports raise questions about how to fit apparently young objects into a vast timeline.
1) Lunar burps: The moon is passing gas, reported Science News). This explains the long history of observations of lunar transients, or bright flashes observed from Earth on certain parts of the moon. Arlin Crotts (Columbia U) believes the flashes come from the decay of uranium that escapes through cracks, but mentions the possibility that volcanism is still active.
2) Flinging rings: Saturn’s G-ring has been explained in an announcement from Jet Propulsion Lab (see also) Science Daily). A persistent ring arc in the outer bright rings, confined by the moon Mimas, gets swept by the magnetic field, flinging particles into the tenuous G-ring. (The G-ring lies between the thin F-ring and the broad E-ring fed by the Enceladus geysers; see 07/11/2006). The original paper in Science1 says, “The dust-sized particles that dominate this ring’s optical properties should erode quickly in Saturn’s magnetosphere, yet there was no direct evidence for larger source bodies that could replenish the dust and no clear explanation for the concentration of such bodies in this one region.” The article and original paper do not mention how long this has been going on, but presumably the material would have long been depleted well before millions of years, because collisions in the arc are steadily being ground to dust by collisions.
3) Bursting moons: Speaking of Enceladus, a recent paper in Icarus2 said that tidal flexing cannot explain the heat coming out of this small moon, either now or in the past:
"The heating in Enceladus in an equilibrium resonant configuration with other saturnian satellites can be estimated independently of the physical properties of Enceladus. We find that equilibrium tidal heating cannot account for the heat that is observed to be coming from Enceladus. Equilibrium heating in possible past resonances likewise cannot explain prior resurfacing events."
Meyer and Wisdom said that the neighboring moon Mimas, about the same size but closer to Saturn, experiences 11 times as much tidal heating but shows no sign of activity. In their conclusion, they wondered that both Io (at Jupiter) and Enceladus (at Saturn) are both so active:
"But it is curious that one has to appeal to nonequilibrium tidal oscillations or episodic activity to heat both Io and Enceladus (Ojakangas and Stevenson, 1986). If the fraction of time spent in an active state is, say, of order 20%, for each satellite, then the probability that both are found in an active state today is only 4%."
Cassini will fly by Enceladus at very close range on March 10 and even sample particles in the plume; see announcement in Space.com.
4) Veil unveilings: Portions of the wispy Veil Nebula in Cygnus have been photographed in detail by the Hubble Space Telescope. This highly-distended nebula is the remnant of a supernova explosion long thought to be tens of thousands of years old (see 02/16/2001). Now, a press release posted by Science Daily claims the explosion “could have been witnessed and recorded by ancient civilizations” as recently as 5,000 years ago.
Every once in awhile, it bears repeating: it is more empirically justifiable to infer young ages than old ages, because the observation-to-assumption ratio is much higher. You can take an observed phenomenon and extrapolate it backward from the present a bit – that is reasonable. But to start with an assumption of billions of years and then try to fit a short-lived phenomenon into it lowers the observation-to-assumption ratio by many orders of magnitude. Would it be reasonable to observe a sparkler for 5 seconds, and then claim it has been burning for 100 years? We think science should tether itself to the observations rather than run amok like a stray dog.
1 Matthew M. Hedman, Joseph A. Burns, Matthew S. Tiscareno, Carolyn C. Porco, Geraint H. Jones, Elias Roussos, Norbert Krupp, Chris Paranicas, and Sascha Kempf, “The Source of Saturn’s G Ring,” Science, 3 August 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5838, pp. 653-656, DOI: 10.1126/science.1143964.
2 Jennifer Meyer and Jack Wisdom, “Tidal Heating in Enceladus,” Icarus, Volume 188, Issue 2, June 2007, Pages 535-539.
I stick to science, and leave religious belief alone. I try to focus on statements that are clearly junk-science or pseudo-science, or which are just plain anti-science, and I try to use established science as the basis of my reply. Of course, there may be some collateral damage to those who rely on junk-science or pseudo-science to support their religious beliefs, but that's not my fault.
But sometimes I suspect that DUers post this sort of article so they can point to it and say Freepers are a bunch of imbeciles.
I think that used to be true in the past. Now, I wonder...
>>And here I thought you were going to start off with a hard one. OK, do you understand “Big Bang” cosmology and Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity as it relates to gravitational time dilation?<<
I can derive the time dilation equations.
The speed of light in a particular medium is a constant. So light from star a billion light years away travels a billion years to get here.
Since E=mc^2 , if the speed of light were not constant, energy and mass (which is really just captured energy) would no longer be conserved.
So the universe is clearly billions of years old.
==Why don’t you let scientists be the judge of what is and what is not science?
If we did that, Darwinists would no longer be allowed to judge what science is. LOL.
Come on, man, you gotta cut him a break. He got so excited imagining that barbecue sauce he thinks God’s going to let him slather on you while you turn on the spit, the right story just slipped his mind.
==Let’s see you math on this one. You must know something that went over Einstein’s head.
Not at all. Einstein posited gravitational time dilation, not me.
We’re not talking about the speed of light, we’re talking about gravitational time dilation.
yes, your point?
Maybe. Given a constant Church of Darwin with an a-Church of Darwinist delta, the Church of Darwin may be Church of Darwinized within a narrow Church of Darwindow of opportunity. We may be able to Church of Darwinate the semi-Church of Darwinites beyond the the normal Church of Darwindex of Church of Darwinism, leaving a theroetically Church of Darwinable Church of Darwin.
um, sure. You must be right and all the PhD’s are wrong. Enjoy your dim little life
I have a good estimate of my “opponent”
With respect to you as a person and a Christian, I have learned not to post to you about science as I have concluded you are not sincere on that topic.
Taken together (Big Bang + Gravitational Time Dilation), what happens to time when you change the Big Bang starting ASSUMPTIONS from a universe with no edge and no center to a universe with a center and an edge?
Does this mean that we won’t wrinkle so quickly?
>>ha ha ha, I hope you and the coyote are around when your preposterous myth of darwinism comes tumbling down like freudism and marxism and all the other ridiculous isms we have forgotten about.<<
Darwinism? There have not been Darwinists in many years. It was replaced by modern evolutionary theory in the 1930’s. if you see someone calling them self a Darwinist or referring to Darwinists as if they exist today you can be you are talking to someone without much science knowledge.
Fine by me. And given your refusal to entertain tough questions re: Darwin’s discredited ToE...Right back at you.
The example you are trying to make is silly because the time dilation effect is seen between two entities Relative to each other, it doesn't work to try to speed up the rate of expansion which Einstein's theory fixed at c
More to the point, this is just too tedious to deal with. I no longer have the energy to deal with what is, at best, your volitional ignorance
bfl
No it doesn’t...there is a lot of unsubstantiated speculation out there. And many recent observations are reversing long held theories, such as the Big Bang. Secular (i.e., non-religious) scientists are now doubting the Big Bang.
Darwinism depends on millions and millions of years. If it can be demonstrated that the universe is not, in fact, millions of years old, Darwinism will not have a leg to stand on.
I refer the gentleman to the answer in post #74.
With the caveat that if the earth were found to be only a few thousand years old that would change pretty much every branch of science since they all point to a very old earth.
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