November 6, 2019 | David F. Coppedge

Secular Astronomy Fails, I: Solar System

From planets to stars to galaxies, objects don’t fit the expectations of materialists who work as astronomers.

Here are cases where secular astronomers have to rewrite textbooks again, because what they’ve been teaching is wrong. This entry looks at solar system fails. A follow-up entry will deal with stars, galaxies and cosmology.

Impact bombardment chronology of the terrestrial planets from 4.5 Ga to 3.5 Ga (Icarus). Evolutionists pretend their theories of the solar system all work out just fine, but then real planets and other bodies come swooping in, disrupting the models. This paper shows that the consensus chronology of impacts in the inner solar system is wrong (again). For some strange reason, incoming impactors seem to have had a preference for the Moon and Mercury, but not for the Earth and Mars. The nice, neat timelines of impacts are going to get more complicated now. The puzzle pieces don’t fit the desired puzzle picture. Wade through the jargon to see this:

The lunar timeline obtained from these dynamical simulations using nominal values for the masses of each contributing reservoir is at odds with both the calibrated Neukum (Neukum et al., 2001) and Werner (Werner et al., 2014; Werner, 2019) chronologies. For Mars, the match with its calibrated Werner chronology is no better; by increasing the mass of the E-belt by a factor of four the dynamical lunar and martian chronologies are in line with that of Werner (2019) and match constraints from the current population of Hungaria asteroids. Yet, neither of our dynamical timelines fit well with that of Neukum. The dynamical lunar and martian chronologies are also different from each other. Consequently, the usual extrapolation of such chronologies from one planetary body to the other is technically inappropriate.

Dust and Snow Cover on Saturn’s Icy Moons (Geophysical Research Letters). Count the instances of “young” and “youth” in this paper. The scientists are reluctantly having to conclude that Saturn’s moons are being coated with white ice particles from the Enceladus geysers, and that the surfaces are young. The “brightness” of radar echoes confirms “youth rather than maturity”—

Based on the intervariations and intravariations of radar albedos in the Saturn’s system, youth rather than maturity seems to guarantee high radar brightness, which could bring another argument for the theory that the middle‐sized satellites of Saturn are younger than previously thought (e.g., Canup & Ward, 2006). Indeed, recent Cassini results on the incoming flux of meteoroid‐dust near Saturn suggests that the rings and the suite of inner moons that likely emerged from them (Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea; Charnoz et al., 2011) could be as young as 100–200 Myr (Cuzzi, 2018; Kempf et al., 2017). This scenario relies on the very same idea that the rings would not be so bright (i.e., clean) if they were older and is supported by the new determination of Saturn’s effective tidal dissipation (Lainey et al., 2017).

Remember that 100 million years represents only 1/45th the assumed age of the solar system. That’s not enough time for Darwinian evolution, if the rings and moons of Saturn have to fit within that upper limit.

The composition and structure of Enceladus’ plume from the complete set of Cassini UVIS occultation observations (Icarus, open access). Basically, this paper shows that the geysers are still erupting at supersonic speeds (Mach 5 to 8), with no sign of slowing down. How long has this been going on? They call it a “geologically youthful surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus” and say that Cassini’s measurements are “leading to the conclusion that over the years of Cassini’s observations Enceladus has been erupting more-or-less steadily” during 11 years of observations, varying by no more than 15%. The bulk of the plumes consist of water ice particles that are spray-painting the nearby moons, and creating the broad E-ring around Saturn. That’s a huge amount of mass this little Iowa-sized moon is putting out. It could not last for 100 million years, let alone 4.5 billion— and probably far less.

Mars Soil Is Very Weird, the Mole’s Struggles Show (Space.com). JPL’s Martians are still trying to get their Insight Lander’s mole digging tool through the soil. It worked on Earth; why not on Mars? After all, Marsquakes have been measured, and should loosen up the soil, but the mole hits a hard layer just a foot down.

“Where did the soil go?” he said. “Basically, it got pounded back into the ground, so it seems like it’s very cohesive, even though it’s very dusty.

And this is a weird combination of characteristics, strongly suggesting that Mars dirt is alien in more ways than one.

“The soil properties are very different than anything we’ve ever seen on Earth, which is already a very interesting result,” Hoffman said.

To avoid embarrassment at being wrong, scientists love to call results “interesting” or “exciting.” Here’s a suggestion. Earthworms churn up our planet’s soil. Maybe JPL needs to evolve some Marsworms.

 

 

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