Rarely does The New York Times devote a precious page and a half to science, but that's what happened on June 12, 1995.(1) On that day John Hopkins University astronomers announced "the most important scientific discovery made by a space shuttle mission."(2)
In March of this year, riding aboard the space shuttle's Astro 2 Observatory, Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope sent back to Earth a rare view into very distant (and very ancient) intergalactic clouds.(3) If the universe did begin with a hot big bang event, researchers would be able to see in those clouds the results of an event that took place when the universe was just three minutes old.
Let me explain. According to the hot big bang model, these intergalactic clouds formed before any stars or galaxies formed. Therefore, since elements heavier than hydrogen can only be fused together at temperatures produced within stars and galaxies (several billion degrees), we would expect to find only hydrogen in these clouds-unless the heat of the big bang itself facilitated some fusion. But that heat, near infinite at the moment of creation, would have dissipated rapidly as the universe expanded and cooled. In fact, after three and a half minutes, the universe became too cool and will always remain too cool to generate any fusion of hydrogen into heavier elements. For only a few seconds, when the universe was between three and three and a half minutes old, would the temperature be right (neither too hot nor too cold) for fusion to occur.
Based on their studies of stars, hydrogen bombs, and particle physics, astronomers made predictions of how much fusion would occur in those few seconds. They determined that a hot big bang would transform 24 percent of the universe's hydrogen into helium and trace amounts of deuterium, lithium, boron, and beryllium.
What did the space shuttle's telescope reveal? It showed the spectral lines for neutral and ionized helium in amounts perfectly consistent with that 24 percent prediction. This finding ranks as one of the most direct and unambiguous proofs for the hot big bang creation event.
As an added bonus, the team found enough helium to conclude that most of the ordinary matter in the universe (matter composed of protons, neutrons, electrons, etc.) must reside not inside stars and galaxies, but outside, in intergalactic space. This finding confirms still more predictions about the composition of a hot big bang universe.(4) Researchers are ecstatic over such multiple confirmations of their origins model. We Christians have reason to be ecstatic, too, over one more indisputable affirmation of the creation event described in Genesis 1:1.
References:
| 1. | John Noble Wilford, "Primordial Helium, Created in Big Bang, Detected at Long Last," The New York Times, June 13, 1995, pp. C1 and C9. |
| 2. | Wilford, C9. |
| 3. | Ron Cowen, "Eyeing Evidence of Primordial Helium," Science News, 147 (1995), p. 372. |
| 4. | Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, 2nd ed. (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1995), pp. 36-47. |