8 He made the Pleiades and Orion; He turns the shadow of death into morning And makes the day dark as night; He calls for the waters of the sea And pours them out on the face of the earth; The Lord is His name.
God created the heavens and the earth - and we see that He has also created the inhabitants of the earth. He created you and me. And, when we gaze into the heavens, we can behold the handiwork of God. Our viewpoint can change as we begin to think about the vastness of what He has made. That can help us to think about His might and His majesty. But, this incredible God is not way out there, He is close to you and me, calling us to follow Him and to be in relationship with Him.
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In Psalm 8, we read verses that can cause us to think about the majesty of our great Creator God:
(1) O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens!
Then, in verses 3 and 4, we read:
3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?
It's pretty much disappeared from the news cycle now, but take a moment with me to think about the significant space adventure that is the New Horizons spacecraft, which launched 9 years ago, and through the incredible marvel of modern technology, was able to beam back pictures from the surface of the once-planeT known as Pluto, now known as a dwarf planet.
The website, IGN.com, which deals with entertainment, including science fiction, chose to deal with some real science by publishing a piece on the probe's findings. It quotes NASA’s associate administrator John Grunsfeld, from a prepared statement: “We knew that a mission to Pluto would bring some surprises, and now — 10 days after closest approach — we can say that our expectation has been more than surpassed,” adding “With flowing ices, exotic surface chemistry, mountain ranges, and vast haze, Pluto is showing a diversity of planetary geology that is truly thrilling."
The report states that the images also revealed hazes up to 80 miles above Pluto’s surface. and the atmosphere has two layers - one roughly 50 miles above the surface and the other at 30 miles. Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons, said, "My jaw was on the ground when I saw this first image of an alien atmosphere in the Kuiper Belt.” He said: “It reminds us that exploration brings us more than just incredible discoveries — it brings incredible beauty.” Co-investigator Michael Summers is quoted as saying: "The hazes detected in this image are a key element in creating the complex hydrocarbon compounds that give Pluto’s surface its reddish hue."
There was also some activity on the planet's surface that was unexpected. According to BBC.com, mission scientist John Spencer said that the first close-up image of Pluto's surface showed a terrain that had been resurfaced by some geological process - such as volcanism - within, as he said, the last 100 million years. And, there are no impact craters, pointing to a "young surface," as he said. He added that this active geology needs some source of heat. Previously, such activity has only been seen on icy moons, where it can be explained by "tidal heating" caused by gravitational interactions with a large host planet.
Alan Stern, the mission's chief scientist, commented: "We now have an isolated, small planet that's showing activity after 4.5 billion years." He said the discovery would "send a lot of geophysicists back to the drawing boards".
The Answers in Genesis website proclaims that "Pluto's Surface is Young!" Dr. Danny Faulkner who wrote the article, cited the surprise that so few craters exist on Pluto. He writes that not only is the crater density lower than expected, but that "Pluto is located in a particularly crowded part of the solar system." He states that, "Pluto ought to be undergoing impacts today at a higher rate than most other objects in other portions of the solar system."
He also says that while planetary scientists are at a loss to explain the lack of craters, "...the situation is even bleaker for them. Pluto has a tenuous nitrogen atmosphere. This nitrogen is leaking away from Pluto’s atmosphere, so it must be continually replaced. One can claim that the unknown mechanism driving the geological activity on Pluto also is bringing nitrogen from Pluto’s interior to the surface where it is outgassed. But Pluto is a small body, and it has only a finite amount of nitrogen. It is possible that after billions of years that all of its nitrogen should have been depleted long ago."
He also says that:
One is that believers in creation can run toward science, not away from it, and see that scientific explanations, or the lack thereof, can provide encouragement that the Biblical account of creation is actually true. Evolutionists believe in unproveable, random occurrences, but, we can see that scientific data and discovery does not necessarily disprove and can actually support the words we find in the pages of the Scriptures. Conventional, evolutionary wisdom would dictate that Pluto would be devoid of activity and full of craters as the result of collision throughout the years - but, the actual photos are telling a different story, showing an active planet (or dwarf planet) where there is activity occurring, a planet that could be replenishing itself.
I also want to focus on words by two scientists: beauty and complex. The beauty of the universe, the majesty of the stars and planets, can cause us to think about the incredible nature and presence of a Creator God. These scientists have been wowed at what New Horizons showed them. We, as Christians, should be in awe of such an awesome God that created these beings and set them into motion. Then there was the reference to the complex hydrocarbons on and around Pluto - think about the complexity of not only celestial beings, but human beings. There is order in the universe, there is life, there is activity, and it is being orchestrated by an Almighty God whose purposes are beyond what we can imagine. And, when we recognize how we are designed and the way that our bodies and minds work, can we honestly say that we as a species arrived by random chance processes? We are the work of a caring designer, who has formed us and wants to interact with us.
3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?
It's pretty much disappeared from the news cycle now, but take a moment with me to think about the significant space adventure that is the New Horizons spacecraft, which launched 9 years ago, and through the incredible marvel of modern technology, was able to beam back pictures from the surface of the once-planeT known as Pluto, now known as a dwarf planet.
The website, IGN.com, which deals with entertainment, including science fiction, chose to deal with some real science by publishing a piece on the probe's findings. It quotes NASA’s associate administrator John Grunsfeld, from a prepared statement: “We knew that a mission to Pluto would bring some surprises, and now — 10 days after closest approach — we can say that our expectation has been more than surpassed,” adding “With flowing ices, exotic surface chemistry, mountain ranges, and vast haze, Pluto is showing a diversity of planetary geology that is truly thrilling."
The report states that the images also revealed hazes up to 80 miles above Pluto’s surface. and the atmosphere has two layers - one roughly 50 miles above the surface and the other at 30 miles. Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons, said, "My jaw was on the ground when I saw this first image of an alien atmosphere in the Kuiper Belt.” He said: “It reminds us that exploration brings us more than just incredible discoveries — it brings incredible beauty.” Co-investigator Michael Summers is quoted as saying: "The hazes detected in this image are a key element in creating the complex hydrocarbon compounds that give Pluto’s surface its reddish hue."
There was also some activity on the planet's surface that was unexpected. According to BBC.com, mission scientist John Spencer said that the first close-up image of Pluto's surface showed a terrain that had been resurfaced by some geological process - such as volcanism - within, as he said, the last 100 million years. And, there are no impact craters, pointing to a "young surface," as he said. He added that this active geology needs some source of heat. Previously, such activity has only been seen on icy moons, where it can be explained by "tidal heating" caused by gravitational interactions with a large host planet.
Alan Stern, the mission's chief scientist, commented: "We now have an isolated, small planet that's showing activity after 4.5 billion years." He said the discovery would "send a lot of geophysicists back to the drawing boards".
The Answers in Genesis website proclaims that "Pluto's Surface is Young!" Dr. Danny Faulkner who wrote the article, cited the surprise that so few craters exist on Pluto. He writes that not only is the crater density lower than expected, but that "Pluto is located in a particularly crowded part of the solar system." He states that, "Pluto ought to be undergoing impacts today at a higher rate than most other objects in other portions of the solar system."
He also says that while planetary scientists are at a loss to explain the lack of craters, "...the situation is even bleaker for them. Pluto has a tenuous nitrogen atmosphere. This nitrogen is leaking away from Pluto’s atmosphere, so it must be continually replaced. One can claim that the unknown mechanism driving the geological activity on Pluto also is bringing nitrogen from Pluto’s interior to the surface where it is outgassed. But Pluto is a small body, and it has only a finite amount of nitrogen. It is possible that after billions of years that all of its nitrogen should have been depleted long ago."
He also says that:
Being far from the sun, Pluto ought to be very cold and hence not have experienced recent volcanism. Any primordial heat would have long ago dissipated, if the solar system were 4.5 billion years old. The density of Pluto is very small, 2.0 gm/cc, which is consistent with a roughly half-and-half rock/ice composition. This density will not allow for long-lived radioactive elements, which allegedly are the source of Earth’s internal heat to provide for the continuous geological activity during Earth’s supposed 4.5-billion-year history. Nor is Pluto near any other large bodies that could raise tides within Pluto to heat its interior and thus drive surface geological activity as supposedly is the case with Jupiter’s large satellites. Hence, there ought not to be any significant geological activity sufficient to remove craters on Pluto’s surface.He concludes by saying:
It is very clear that Pluto is young, far younger than the billions of years generally assumed. While this is unexpected and hence unexplainable for evolutionists, this is something that we might expect if the universe is only thousands of years old as the Bible indicates. The preliminary results from the New Horizons space probe are good news indeed for the recent creation model.There's a lot of scientific stuff in this Answers in Genesis article, as well as other material that I have read. I think we can think about several elements in light of this space probe:
One is that believers in creation can run toward science, not away from it, and see that scientific explanations, or the lack thereof, can provide encouragement that the Biblical account of creation is actually true. Evolutionists believe in unproveable, random occurrences, but, we can see that scientific data and discovery does not necessarily disprove and can actually support the words we find in the pages of the Scriptures. Conventional, evolutionary wisdom would dictate that Pluto would be devoid of activity and full of craters as the result of collision throughout the years - but, the actual photos are telling a different story, showing an active planet (or dwarf planet) where there is activity occurring, a planet that could be replenishing itself.
I also want to focus on words by two scientists: beauty and complex. The beauty of the universe, the majesty of the stars and planets, can cause us to think about the incredible nature and presence of a Creator God. These scientists have been wowed at what New Horizons showed them. We, as Christians, should be in awe of such an awesome God that created these beings and set them into motion. Then there was the reference to the complex hydrocarbons on and around Pluto - think about the complexity of not only celestial beings, but human beings. There is order in the universe, there is life, there is activity, and it is being orchestrated by an Almighty God whose purposes are beyond what we can imagine. And, when we recognize how we are designed and the way that our bodies and minds work, can we honestly say that we as a species arrived by random chance processes? We are the work of a caring designer, who has formed us and wants to interact with us.
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