Today’s New Reason To Believe

by Jeff Zweerink

Of all the planets in the solar system, Venus most closely resembles Earth. Venus’s mass and radius are only 20% and 5% smaller, respectively. In addition, it orbits about 30% closer to the sun than Earth. A hypothetical observer outside the solar system might expect Earth and Venus to share an abundance of qualities in common.

But they would be wrong.

Compared to Earth’s pleasant global temperature which permits abundant liquid water, Venus’s surface measures a hellishly hot 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Where Earth’s thin atmosphere consists primarily of nitrogen and oxygen, a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere surrounds Venus. Further, a day on Venus lasts 243 times longer than an Earth day. Consequently, Venus presents a completely inhospitable environment for life. What caused the marked difference between these sister planets?

A paper published in the Earth and Planetary Science Letters journal (and summarized in a Science Daily article) proposes one explanation. Just as a collision during Earth’s formation impacted Earth’s future development, Venus might have experienced a collision from another planetary embryo. A head-on collision would have totally melted (and even vaporized some of) both bodies. The water released from such a collision would rapidly react with the iron in the merged body. The hydrogen produced from these reactions either escapes to space or is sequestered in the core. Either way, no hydrogen remains available to form water as Venus cools.

Such a head-on collision explains the lack of water on Venus as well as the absence of a moon and its slow rotation rate. In contrast, the embryo that collided with Earth impacted with a more glancing blow, resulting in three important differences. First, the glancing blow did not melt Earth entirely, which significantly diminished the hydrogen-removing water/iron reactions. Second, the impact blasted more of Earth’s primordial atmosphere into space so that, subsequently, a much thinner atmosphere replaced the denser one. Third, Earth’s impactor formed a large moon which has stablized Earth’s rotation over billions of years.

While Venus and Earth might have exhibited a family resemblance for a few million years, the different impact events directed them toward divergent futures. Earth’s large moon, thin atmosphere, and relatively quick rotation rate became the initial steps in its transformation from a “formless and void” planet to one teeming with life. In contrast, the proposed impact event destroyed any possibility of Venus ever supporting life.

This research raises questions about reports in the media where scientists claim to have found life-supporting planets outside the solar system. Those reports are based on finding planets with masses, radii, and orbits analogous to Earth’s. However, a truly habitable planet requires a large number of additional fine-tuned transformations. That all these transformations occurred here on Earth comports well with the idea that a supernatural Creator fashioned Earth specifically as a habitat for humanity.

by Hugh Ross

Members of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn’s moons have published the first of their findings from the second close flyby by the planetary probe of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. They announced that they had found evidence that Titan might possess a liquid water ocean below several tens of kilometers of surface ice.¹ This discovery, combined with evidence that Titan possesses a panoply of “organics,” plus the possibility of volcanic activity, has spurred enthusiastic speculation that Titan might harbor life. The reasoning here is that all three of the fundamental requirements for life, namely liquid water, a supply of organic molecules, and an energy source, may all be present inside Titan.

The conclusion that Titan possesses a liquid water ocean is by no means certain. The Cassini-Huygens mission team drew their conclusion from their observations that Titan is not completely tidally locked to Saturn. Rather than Titan’s rotation period being identical to its period of revolution about Saturn, Titan spins 0.36 degrees faster than its revolutionary period. The team argued that this faster rotation could not exist if Titan’s crust were rigidly coupled to an internal solid core.

However, two other possible explanations for the faster spin exist: seasonal variations of wind directions near Titan’s surface and polar wobble, that is, periodic motion of Titan’s spin axis. The Cassini-Huygens team acknowledges these possibilities and recommends that the Cassini probe be returned for at least one more close flyby of Titan at a different seasonal epoch in Titan’s year to determine which of the three possibilities is correct.

Even if future measurements by the Cassini probe were to prove that Titan has a subterranean ocean, such a conclusion may not necessarily imply that life could possibly survive in that ocean. Just as deep ocean life on Earth requires the transport of oxidants from the surface to survive, so, too, any possible life inside Titan needs oxidants. Given how far Titan is from the Sun, oxidant production on its surface would be low, much lower than it is on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. An even more serious problem would be the implied thickness of Titan’s surface ice. At several tens of kilometers of thickness, Titan’s putative crust would not permit surface-produced oxidants to diffuse through the crust to the possible subterranean ocean–certainly not in the amounts required by life.

The proposed energy source for Titan’s possible life is not as viable as it may seem. While deep sea vents in Earth’s oceans do provide energy sources that help sustain the life that exists in their vicinities, their physical and chemical properties categorically rule out the possibility that life could ever originate there.²

Finally, the supply of organic molecules on Titan is not as helpful to life as some scientists suggest. While Titan’s upper atmosphere does reveal a diverse aggregate of hydrocarbon molecules, those hydrocarbons are temporary. During Titan’s seven-and-a-half year winter, no sunlight shines on its respective pole. The lack of sunlight means photolytic breakdown of hydrocarbons does not occur. Once sunlight reappears, the hydrocarbons disappear. Thus, the hydrocarbons produced in Titan’s upper atmosphere lack the locale, longevity, temperature, and abundance essential to foster the production of life molecules or even the simple building blocks of life molecules (amino acids, nucleotides, and five- and six-carbon sugars). Compounding the problem for Titan life enthusiasts is the fact that astronomers observe little or no oxygen, ammonia, or water either on Titan’s surface or in its atmosphere. Without high concentrations of these molecules, the hydrocarbons seen on Titan are irrelevant to both the origin or the sustenance of life.

Titan provides yet one more example of the notion that the more scientists learn about the solar system the more evidence they accumulate for the supernatural, super-intelligent design of Earth for the support of life. Research on Titan also strengthens the scientific case that life’s origin demands a supernatural explanation.

1. Christophe Sotin and Gabriel Tobie, “Planetary Science: Titan’s Hidden Ocean,” Science 319 (March 21, 2008): 1629-30; Ralph D. Lorenz et al., “Titan’s Rotation Reveals an Internal Ocean and Changing Zonal Winds,” Science 319 (March 21, 2008): 1649-51.
2. Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, Origins of Life (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2004): 102-03, 112-13, 149.

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.