Posted on 02/18/2015 1:11:46 PM PST by BenLurkin
Highlighted by astronomers at the University of Rochester and the European Southern Observatory, the star — nicknamed “Scholz’s star” — has a very low tangential velocity in the sky, but it has been clocked traveling at a breakneck speed away from us.
In other words, from our perspective, Scholz’s star is fleeing the scene of a collision with us.
“Most stars this nearby show much larger tangential motion,” said Eric Mamajek, of the University of Rochester. “The small tangential motion and proximity initially indicated that the star was most likely either moving towards a future close encounter with the solar system, or it had ‘recently’ come close to the solar system and was moving away. Sure enough, the radial velocity measurements were consistent with it running away from the Sun’s vicinity — and we realized it must have had a close flyby in the past.”
...
Using data from the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) and the Magellan telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, Mamajek and his collaborators were able to measure the star’s spectra and radial velocity. Through these observations they were able to deduce that Scholz’s star is a dim red dwarf approximately 20 light-years away. It is actually part of a binary system, with its partner being a small brown dwarf (or a ‘failed star’).
Taking these data, the researchers were able to model several different orbital possibilities and deduce that the star almost definitely (to a 98 percent certainty) came within 0.8 light years from the sun. Although this is still quite a margin, the star would have careened though the Oort Cloud — a hypothetical region filled with frozen cometary nuclei surrounding the solar system.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
Are you sure the speed of light is constant?
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov 1956
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
Excerpt: Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”
And there was light——
How accurate is that 70,000 years ago figure? Is it perhaps 70k + or - 5 years. Could this have been in any way related to the 74,000 years ago eruption of Toba which caused a major downturn in our already dropping Ice Age temperatures?
You read my mind
Wonder if there are any planets around it?
Thank you for the chuckle. Speaking as a high school teacher, it’s enough for a 16 year old to make the same claim...
:’)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3258944/posts?page=44#44
It’s more likely that impacts on the Earth took place as a consequence of the interloper having shaken loose debris of the outer Solar System. The link goes to an earlier post about Toba.
“The age of the universe is a point of dispute between the Bible and the opinion of the majority of astronomers today. The Bible implicitly teaches us about the age of the universe. In other words, it gives us sufficient information so that we can compute approximately how long ago God created the universe. The Bible teaches that the entire universe was created in six earth-rotation days (Exodus 20:11 ). Furthermore, the Bible provides the age differences between parents and descendants1 when listing certain genealogies. From these kinds of biblical references, we know that the elapsed time between Adam and the birth of Christ was roughly 4,000 years. From other historical records, we know that Christ was born roughly 2,000 years ago. Since Adam was created on the sixth day of the creation week, we can conclude that the earth, the entire universe, and everything in it were created approximately 6,000 years ago.” — Source: https://answersingenesis.org/answers/books/taking-back-astronomy/the-age-of-the-universe-part-1/
“First, notice that the distant starlight argument is based on the fallacious assumptions of naturalism and uniformitarianism. It assumes that the light got here entirely by natural means, and traveled at a constant rate, over a constant distance, with time also being constant. Of course, it is possible that God may indeed have used “natural means” to get the light here. It may also be that some of the things assumed to be constant in time (such as the speed of light) are indeed constant, but is there any logical reason why we would automatically know beforehand that these must be the case? Remember that God created the lights in the sky to give light upon the earth. This happened during the creation week where God was creating in a supernatural way.” — Source: https://answersingenesis.org/answers/books/taking-back-astronomy/the-age-of-the-universe-part-1/
70,000 years ago, or 68,000 B.C.E. ;')
So you are saying that God created a fake universe. One designed to appear much older than it is
Why would He do so?
It only “appears much older than it is” if you buy into the evolutionist/Big Bang interpretation of what you are looking at. It’s not “fake.” It looks the way it should look. You can believe that it looks the way it does because of flawed ideas. But the Bible is VERY clear about how all of it was created and why.
Amen.
You assume a god who created the stars could not create the light traveling as well. I think of God as an Author, who wrote the book AND created the backdrop of the book.
Simply not so!
The Bible says the Sun was STOPPED; not the Earth's rotation. Joshua stopped the Sun (Joshua 10:13).
Remember, the Bible says the Sun moves and can be stopped, and it WAS stopped; so if you believe otherwise, then you are of Satan.
OR...
The Bible is NOT a science book and God never intended it to be one...
And by the way, the concept of an earth-rotation day is a modern, not biblical one.
Tell me, when we see a supernova exploding in a distant galaxy, millions or even billions of light years away, did the star whose dying light we are seeing ever exist?
The Holy Bible is the bible was the BEST science book, the Best psychology book, the BEST history book and the BEST guide for morality EVER WRITTEN — because the author is ALMIGHTY GOD!
No, I don’t assume He couldn’t.
I assert he _wouldn’t_.
Initiating a universe “mid flight” as it were means you have to explain why He didn’t do exactly that 20 minutes ago.
Why would He create something of utterly astounding complexity just to make it all _look_ like it has been around much longer when it _wasn’t_? To wit: why would God lie?
I will also tell you candidly that the more one learns the Hebrew and the original context of Genesis 1-11, the less one is worried that an old universe contradicts the Bible. The Hebrew words for "day," "evening," and "morning," for example, have broader meanings and different connotations than one would expect from the English translation. Moreover, by the time we get to the end of verse 1, the earth already exists in some form, so there's no problem with the universe being around for billions of years before that.
Shalom
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