Baby Stars and Earth
June 2024
The history of the Earth is detailed and exact for both life forms and geology. Scientific discovery sometimes requires counting individual atoms in a sample. While microfossils record the growth and demise of whole ecosystems. Progress is easy, given the variety of evidence and the fossils beneath our feet.
Astronomy is handicapped in comparison. All Astronomers have is light and its spectrum given off by various materials in deep space. Yet when it comes to the origin of the solar system there are both visible examples and tangible evidence.
The ancients thought that the creator put the planets in motion by creating independent crystal spheres. Fortunately, nature is not confined by human mythologies or aesthetics, and it reveals its true past in the evidence.
Why do all of the planets in our solar system revolve on a single flat plane around the sun? If they were produced individually there is no reason why they should not have different orientations. If they each had a seperate plane of rotation, their orbits would be very stable.
As it is, their gravity constantly disrupts the asteroids. These are leftovers from the solar systems early years. In the past, planets orbits have shifted, creating chaos. One example is the region between Mars and Jupiter. Without random changes of this kind, puny Mars would have been Earth sized or larger and prehaps supported life.
We may learn a lot about our own history by studying the formation and death of other solar systems. Other solar systems show the conditions of our own in its early years and the distant future. The evidence exists in the earliest grains of ice and dust found in comets. In the gasses that created giant planets, the rocks and water of Earth. The solar system's history is rich and complicated. Our suns matter and the planets are about 100 generations away from the first stars in our universe. Since each generation of stars changes the composition of the matter it inherits. So there are immense issues to be addressed. That complexity is evident even on our own moon. It has a far side that is very different from the side we view every night. Our moon hides secrets from the early solar system that science has uncovered.
Astronomers observe new stars forming, exploding and reforming wherever they turn their telescopes throughout our universe. Each star is somewhere in its lifecycle from a collapsing nebular of dust and gas to dim old age. The content of recent stars including our own, show their material came from earlier generations of stars. The history of our solar system is also consistent with other planets we can observe around distant stars.
The balance of elements in a star comes from these natural galaxy wide cycles. Carbon is formed in stars as part of the second-level fusion process after hydrogen is fused together. Magnesium, is producted by the third stage fusion of carbon with helium. Heavier elements like iron are the final result of many atomic mergers. Early in our universes history, first-generation stars exploded as high-powered supernovae, but some exploded with much lower energy. These low-energy supernovae added elements such as carbon and magnesium to deep space, but not much iron. The balance of elements in a star reveals its ancestors, its age and sometimes its birth location within a galaxy. It also shows the development of the universe as a whole.
Conservative Christians are committed to an ancient Bible interpretation that ignores this evidence. They might accept astronomy is correct, for other stars. However they prefer to think Genesis Chapter One describes something different for our own star. There is no need for that assumption. Hardly anything in our universe remains intact from Gods original balanced creation. The evidence shows that our own star and solar system are exactly the same as all the others found.
Our creation is vastly different from God’s undamaged creations. This creation is truly dying, from creatures up to solar systems, in time, everything falls into decay and ruin. Our sun has the same deep history as all other stars in this fallen universe. The fall trigged many changes, that altered the laws of the universe. We should not be surprised that it explains the history of the stars and solar system. That history is complex, chaotic and flawed. It's foolish to distort science. To either try to fit the traditional intepretation of Genesis or to reject it. We should accept the details of history. Nature shows an incomplete and sin affected universe, the only one flawed among God’s many creations.
Human technology began with the wheel. Long before that, nature made our solar system from a vast wheel of gas and fragments of rock. Like a potter shaping clay, the beginning was an irregular blob of gas and dust set spinning in deep space. Although visible from far away these clouds are still mostly empty. Only about one percent solid. So really more like a fog than the regular matter we are used to. Still there are vast amount of material in these structures. Even more material is attracted to the disk by gravity. Once it forms from the interstellar medium. At first it doesn't have any star to light its centre. The forces of gravity and rotation form a vast wheel. Its size is larger than we can easily imagine. Most of its material is destined to fall into the central star that will grow at it’s heart. However there will be plenty left over. That will make planets and many smaller objects. Below are just some well known examples for comparison, some seen edge on and others facing towards Earth.
Protoplanetary disks.
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), S. Andrews et al.; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello
These planetary disks are a familiar sight to astronomers. Just about every new born star has one. Some of them are long lived. They can last for a substantial part of a stars infancy. They also have with dramatic jets of matter. These are fired like a laser beam from the poles of a baby star. These disks are an essential stage of development. The gaps that appear in the disk identify planets. Astronomers have detected giant planets around nearly every new born star discovered. You can see a giant Jupiter like planet in the example below. It is visible to the right of the central material that is building up a new star.
Planets can form without a star or be ejected from their birth solar system. They are then doomed to wander through deep space. However they usually form around a star and from the same materials. They remain in the same plane of rotation as their parent disc. The photos of these planetary disks show how our own solar system once formed. As well as the planets and stars being made within them. Astronomy is one path to understanding how our universe functions. Also the ways in which it is different to God’s original plan for a balanced creation.
This evidence is all addressed in my book. It confirms the accuracy and value of the Bible. Not just as a guide to salvation but as a true history. Genesis can be understood by looking beyond the walls of Eden to the surrounding universe.
