Monday 8 May 2017

New Secular Origin of Earth Hypothesis Fails

An artist's impression of a protoplanetary disk. Image courtesy of ESO/L. Calçada - ESO, Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0).





Joel Kontinen

Scientists who only invoke natural causes are having a hard time in trying to explain how Earth formed.

Researchers have often had to change their views, as they have not been supported by facts.

New Scientist acknowledges that most of these explanations “have troubling problems.” They rely on dust particles coming together, forming rocks and eventually planets.

The troubling part is that the four terrestrial planets of our solar system, i.e., Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are mostly built of rock and iron, which don’t stick together very well.

Thus, a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters tries a different approach. It relies on a “hyperactive young sun.”

Based on the assumption that some young stars get brighter (and obviously also bigger) as they age, it proposes that something similar might also have happened here.

There is no empirical evidence for this, but some researchers think it helps explain why Mars is so small.

A much more logical approach would be to stick with what Genesis clearly tells us: God created the planets; they never evolved from dust and space rocks.

Moreover, we know that Earth is unique. It cannot have come about through purely naturalistic processes.

Sources:

Croswell, Ken. 2017. Earth may have been born in a huge flare-up of the young sun. New Scientist (8 May).