Today’s New Reason To Believe

by Hugh Ross

Through a variety of means astronomers have determined that a black hole exists at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The latest and most definitive measurement puts the mass of that black hole at 3,600,000 times the mass of the Sun.¹

The Milky Way Galaxy’s central black hole by itself is not dangerous to life on Earth. It is too far away to pose a significant source of gravitational disturbance. What does pose a risk for Earth life, though, is the gas, dust, and stars that swirl into the maw of the black hole. As this material nears the event horizon of the black hole, the black hole’s intense gravity causes up to ten percent of the mass of this material to be converted into deadly radiation. Fortunately, for life on Earth, especially the more radiation-sensitive advanced life, the deadly radiation doesn’t prove lethal. The solar system maintains an orbit about the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (MWG) that keeps it within the plane of the Galaxy where a thin dust layer blocks out almost all the radiation emanating from the central black hole.

As enormous as the MWG’s central black hole measures to be, it is tiny by comparison with other comparably sized spiral galaxies. (For a number of reasons advanced life is possible only within a medium-sized spiral galaxy².) The MWG’s sister galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, possesses a central black hole that weighs in at 140,000,000 times the mass of the Sun.³ That’s 39 times the mass of the MWG’s central black hole!

The greater the mass of a galaxy’s central black hole the greater the amount of deadly radiation that will arise from material being sucked into it. In the case of the Andromeda Galaxy the radiation problem is compounded. Recent observations of the nucleus of the Andromeda Galaxy show that huge reservoirs of gas exist in the immediate vicinity of the central black hole.⁴ These reservoirs imply that far more material is spiraling into the event horizon of the Andromeda Galaxy’s central black hole than is the case for the MWG’s central black hole. So, not only does more deadly radiation arise from the Andromeda Galaxy’s central black hole because of its greater mass but also because of its greater supply of infalling material.

As noted in a previous edition of Today’s New Reason To Believe, for medium-sized spiral galaxies the Andromeda Galaxy is typical whereas the MWG is rare. The MWG has suffered no major merging events with other galaxies over the past ten billion years. Consequently, its central black hole is relatively tiny and the amount of gas available for feeding its central black hole remains small. The unique characteristics of the MWG’s central black hole provides yet one more set of scientific evidences for the supernatural, super-intelligent design of the Milky Way Galaxy for the benefit of advanced life.

1. F. Eisenhauer et al., “SINFONI in the Galactic Center: Young Stars and Infrared Flares in the Central Light-Month,” Astrophysical Journal 628 (July 20, 2005): 246-59.
2. Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, 3rd ed. (Colorado Springs, NavPress, 2001): 176-78.
3. Ralf Bender et al., “HST STIS Spectroscopy of the Triple Nucleus of M31: Two Nested Disks in Keplerian Rotation Around a Supermassive Black Hole,” Astrophysical Journal 631 (September 20, 2005): 280-300.
4. Philip Chang et al., “The Origin of the Young Stars in the Nucleus of M31,” Astrophysical Journal 668 (October 10, 2007): 236-44.

David H Rogstad, Ph.D.

The question of whether there’s water on Mars has, once again, come into public view. This time doubts are being cast on previous conclusions that water is a prevalent force on the surface of Mars, even in recent history.

In the December 8, 2006 issue of Science, a report was published suggesting that water had flowed on the surface of Mars in recent decades. A reexamination of the data led to the publishing of a new report in the September 21, 2007 issue of Science, claiming that most, if not all, of the evidences from the initial article could also be explained as dry gravel rather than water flows (see here for a discussion of this report).

Now, in a news release from the University of Arizona, Jon Pelletier and coauthor Alfred McEwen have reported on a further study of the surface-flow images that led to the original claim of water flow. Using new higher resolution images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), they have performed simulations of what the flows would look like if they were caused by water or by dry granular flow, such as sand or gravel. To their surprise, the dry flow better represented the image data than water flow. The team could not rule out mud flows, but felt that the simpler explanation was dry flow.

This report comes on the heels of another result discussed in a previous TNRTB, where researchers have concluded that if Mars did have surface water in its past, this water was probably so salty that only a few bacterial life-forms that exist here on Earth could survive in it.

In May of this year, NASA’s new spacecraft Phoenix will land on the north pole of Mars. The goal will be to examine the frozen material there and to dig down three feet below the surface in search of evidence for water and microorganisms.

The search for water and the possibility of life on Mars has not been straightforward or easy. Yet there’s a tremendous advantage in carrying out this search on the Red Planet because it is a relatively close neighbor and has a benign environment that enables us to examine many of its details. The search will be much harder for more distant Earthlike exoplanets, if such are discovered. Ultimately, RTB scholars expect that any life found on Mars will be identified as having originated on Earth.

Posted by Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana, Ph.D.
[Originally posted on November 01, 2007]
Microbes and DNA from 8-Million-Year-Old Ice Shed Light on Origin-of-Life Question

We have a chest freezer in our garage that stores all the food that won’t fit in our kitchen refrigerator’s freezer. When it’s time to get something from the freezer, it usually comes from the top. It’s just too much work to dig down into the chest to get to a package of frozen food. Eventually stuff at the top finds its way down toward the bottom as food gets moved around and new items are added. On the rare occasion when somebody works up the motivation to “drill down” to the freezer’s bottom, they usually encounter barely recognizable items covered with a thick coating of frost or meat with severe freezer burn. Either way, nobody wants to eat the food from the bottom of the deep freezer. The good stuff is found at the top.

A team of scientists on a quest for “good stuff” recently drilled down into Earth’s deep freezer in the Mullins and Upper Beacon Valleys of Antarctica. And good stuff they found. The researchers recovered viable microbes and DNA from ice samples dated between 100,000 and 8 million years in age. It was like finding a popsicle in the bottom of the freezer.

This remarkable discovery bears important implications for the origin of life, calling into question the likelihood of life originating in comets or being delivered to Earth by these icy vehicles. Scientists are interested in looking for microbial life in the ancient ice sheets of Antarctica because such a discovery provides insight into the limits of biological activity and the preservation of life. It also provides a record of ancient life forms and a window to Earth’s past.

Scanning electron microscopy revealed the existence of filaments in the ice samples, which are taken as evidence for the presence of microorganisms. The researchers confirmed this interpretation by demonstrating metabolic activity in the ice through the uptake of radiolabeled amino acids and nucleotides and the breakdown of radiotagged glucose.

Based on these results, they successfully attempted to cultivate microbes from the ice. The researchers noted that the best stuff was found near the top of the Antarctic deep freezer. They were able to recover more microbes and a greater diversity of bugs in the younger ice samples.

The team also searched for community DNA in the ice. To undertake this endeavor they applied genomics techniques to enable direct sequencing of DNA isolated from the ice, without isolating and culturing the individual species of microbes.

They detected, based on DNA, 30 different types of microbes in the ice. The researchers noted diminished diversity in the older ice samples (as was the case for the metabolic studies and cultivation work).

They also characterized the fragment size of DNA in the ice and, once again, noted a greater degree of fragmentation and smaller fragments in the older ice samples. Using this data, the scientists estimated the half-life of the fragmentation process to be about 1.1 million years. The rate of breakdown indicates that cosmic radiation impinging on the ice is the primary driver of DNA fragmentation.

The relative instability of DNA in the ice and the loss in the viability of the microbes over the span of 8 million years makes it unlikely that life could arise in comets or be transported through interstellar space in these frozen bodies. Comets consist of frozen water along with dust and rock. The ice in Antarctica serves as a good model for the preservation of life and durability of biomolecules in comets. In fact, the ice in Antarctica represents the best-case scenario for survivability. Even though this region of Earth receives the highest dosage of cosmic radiation, it is not nearly as harsh an environment as interstellar space.

The short half-life of DNA and the limited viability of microbes after 8 million years in the ice of Antarctica makes it difficult to envision how life could emerge in comets of survive a journey of any length between star systems or within a solar system.

Now, to defrost my freezer. I hope I don’t find any originating life in the ice.