Donna Mullenax's article argues that short-lived comets challenge the solar system's age, suggesting it must be under 10,000 years. However, this view ignores the evidence for the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt, which can readily explain ongoing comet replenishment.
Forget what you think you know about Earth—millions of years ago, it might have sported its own ring! Recent research reveals an astonishing concentration of impact craters positioned along the equator, suggesting a temporary ring of rocky debris from a celestial encounter. Here I present the evidence and consider the challenge this is for the young-earth model of earth's history.
The latest episode of "Critiquing Creationism" examines Earth's ancient history and a study revealing a surprising connection between Earth and Mars. The study's findings, backed by evidence from astronomy, sedimentary records, and radiometric dating, challenge the young Earth creationist framework and provide compelling support for an ancient Earth.
The evidence continues to accumulate: Mars used to be wet. It used to have a much more active hydrological cycle. The Mars Couriosity Rover has been revealing the complex geology of Mars including the deposition of sedimentary rocks (Curious Geology: Stunning Images Reveal a Complex Mars) but we have been able to study the watery... Continue Reading →
Ten years after launching, the European Space Agency Rosetta spacecraft caught up to its target: Comet 67P. In 2014, Rosetta, now 250 million miles from Earth, traveled along with the comet while it made its way around the Sun measuring its increased activity including classic comet tail formation as it approached the sun. At one... Continue Reading →
How should a movement dedicated to science denial warn its adherents against the evils of science denial? Young-earth creationism finds itself faced with just this problem as some of its followers slip toward the flat-earth fringe. Answers in Genesis, the leading young-earth apologetics ministry, has responded by critiquing the flat-earth movement in a series of... Continue Reading →
Phrenology, essential oils, homeopathy, reflexology, ESP, astrology, creation science, climate change denial, blood-type diet, vaccinations cause autism, quantum computing, smoking causes cancer, dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid impact, HIV causes AIDS, low-carb diet. Which of the above would you classify as the products of good scientific research and which would you classify as pseudoscience? ... Continue Reading →
The NASA rover Curiosity has been making its way across the floor of Gale crater on Mars since 2012. It has closely examined a wide range of rock types which reveal that this location on Mars has experienced a long history of variable climates. From water-infused bedrock, water-deposited conglomerates, wind-formed fossilized dunes to active sand... Continue Reading →
Our solar system comes with planets of all sorts of sizes and compositions. Not long ago, it was possible to debate if there were any other planets in the Universe other than those of our solar system. Now, there doesn’t seem to be any question that other planets, called exoplanets, do exist. The... Continue Reading →
There are spacecraft and rovers at work right this moment collecting data on planets, moons and other solar system bodies. These sophisticated instruments are beaming back data to Earth on a nearly daily basis. Much of that data would not be easy for most of us to interpret but the images they send back give... Continue Reading →
How different is the surface of Mars today compared to one thousand, a hundred thousand or a million years ago? The photo below was snapped by the Curiosity Rover which has spent several years trekking across an ancient lake-bed inside a large crater on Mars. It is a barren, forbidding but strangely familiar and beautiful... Continue Reading →
Ken Ham recently proclaimed that he thought it was highly unlikely that “plant life” would be found on other planets. I wonder what he thinks the word “life” means in this context? For example, does living mean that plants also experience death? If so, how can he say that animals and man were allowed to... Continue Reading →
You might think of the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars as a assortment of space junk floating randomly in space. There are millions of asteroids of which more than 100,000 have been measured and mapped by astronomers. But analysis of those asteroids has shown that there are groups of asteroids that are related to one another and are referred to family members
When I last updated you on the excursion that the Curiosity rover has been making across the floor of Gale Crater on Mars I noted that the images it has been beaming back had been getting rather routine. But the rover has slowly been moving downhill toward what seems more and more likely to have... Continue Reading →
Just how fast are some rocks on Mars eroding? A few months ago I asked a Martian rock that question (see: My Interview with a Martian: A Story of Origins) and I was not given a very satisfying answer. Well, that rock can be excused for being a bit confused about time given how boring... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 