TNRTB Archive – Retained for reference information
A team of astronomers has uncovered more evidence that supports supernatural design of the solar system so that Earth could sustain life for billions of years. They generated the most complete modeling to date of the events surrounding the late heavy bombardment (approx. 3.9 to 3.8 billion years ago). Their model shows that as Jupiter and Saturn gravitationally interact with planetesimals they preferentially toss these planetesimals (small celestial bodies) into the inner solar system. The equal but opposite reaction of such hurling causes Jupiter and Saturn to migrate outwards. However, since Saturn is less than a third Jupiter’s mass it suffers much greater migration. Eventually, Saturn reaches an orbital distance where it circles the Sun once for every two orbits of Jupiter. This 1:2 resonance destabilizes the entire Kuiper Belt of asteroids and comets, resulting in an extremely heavy late bombardment of the inner solar system that lasts for 100 million years. Ongoing interaction between what’s left of the Kuiper Belt and the solar system’s four giant planets results in each of the giant planets attaining orbital distances, eccentricities, and inclinations that turn out to be amazingly fine-tuned to allow life to exist on Earth for the following 3.8 billion years. All of these highly fine-tuned outcomes argue for the supernatural design of the solar system. Also, the intensity of the late heavy bombardment of Earth coupled with extremely rapid appearance of life on Earth after the bombardment argues for a supernatural origin of life.
Richard A. Kerr, “Did Jupiter and Saturn Team Up to Pummel the Inner Solar System? Report from the November 8-12, 2004 Meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences at Louisville, Kentucky,” Science 306 (2004): 1676.
During the last several years and even weeks, astronomers and physicists have developed new tools that now place strong limits on the maximum possible...
