TNRTB Archive - Retained for reference information
Astronomers have discovered another reason for why life’s origin occurred too rapidly for a naturalistic explanation to be possible. They determined that the Small Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring galaxy, experienced a single massive infall (of gas) event (involving 50% of the SMC’s gas mass) about 4 billion years ago when the Small Magellanic Cloud was close to the Milky Way Galaxy. The infall event would have resulted in a large number of core collapse supernovae, which would have showered Earth with sterilizing gamma-ray burst events. Since abundant complex life existed on Earth 3.8 billion years ago, the time window for life’s origin must be less than 200 million years, which is too brief for a naturalistic explanation.
Dennis Zaritsky and Jason Harris, “Quantifying the Drivers of Star Formation on Galactic Scales. I. The Small Magellanic Cloud,” Astrophysical Journal, 604 (2004), pp. 167-175.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/issues/ApJ/v604n1/58692/brief/58692.abstract.html
RTB articles: articles in Facts & Faith and Facts for Faith on the origin of life
RTB video: Journey Toward Creation, 2nd edition
RTB book: Origins of Life
