A Lesson from the Past

For more than a century, Mars has fascinated both scientists and laypeople as a place where life exists now or sometime in the past. For instance, around the turn of the last century, the astronomer Percival Lowell saw many things on Mars through his telescope that convinced him that Mars hosted an advanced civilization. Lowell popularized his ideas by giving lectures, publishing descriptions in lay publications, and writing several books, also targeting lay audiences. Many other scientists of the day were not impressed with Lowell’s claims, but much of the public was convinced.

This optimistic assessment radically changed when the Mariner 4 spacecraft flew past Mars and took photos of about 10% of the Martian surface. Those photos revealed a heavily cratered terrain, similar to the moon. With a lunar-like surface, it didn’t seem likely that Mars currently had life. Later missions surveyed much more of the Martian surface, and it turned out that Mariner 4 had simply sampled some of the most cratered surface of Mars—other parts of Mars are far less cratered. The atmosphere of Mars is very thin—the surface pressure of Mars is less than 1% of the earth’s surface pressure. The earth’s much more substantial atmosphere blocks most of the harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Lacking this protection, it is unlikely that life could exist on Mars today. Another problem is that Mars’ surface pressure and temperature are far too low for liquid water, an essential ingredient for life, to exist.

In the 1970s, spacecraft photographed erosion channels on Mars, as well as features obviously caused by deposition of eroded material. For water to have flowed on Mars in the past, the planet then must have had a much more substantial, warmer atmosphere. This discovery reignited hope that there once was life on Mars, even if life can no longer exist there. This is important to evolutionary scientists because if life evolved on Mars, that would be construed as evidence that life usually develops naturally wherever the conditions can permit life. Consequently, finding evidence of past life on Mars has been one of the central objectives of sending spacecraft to Mars.

The Latest Round

Recent news accounts have discussed a study published in Nature that claims that the Perseverance rover has found possible evidence that life once existed on Mars. While exploring Neretva Vallis, a river channel, Perseverance found a rock with curious small light spots, similar to leopard spots. The rock is in a mudstone rich in oxidized iron, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as carbon. The spots are rich in ferrous iron phosphate and iron sulfide. The former may be in the form of vivianite, and the latter may be in the form of greigite. These two minerals usually form in water at low temperature. Furthermore, these minerals can be produced by living organisms in a watery environment. If true, then this could be evidence for life. Or maybe not. While these minerals can form organically, they can also form inorganically.

Perseverance Finds a Rock With 'Leopard Spots' via NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Of course, identification of the minerals in this rock is not confirmed. That would require a chemical analysis. Perseverance collected and stored a sample of the rock, something that the rover has previously done at a few locations that it has visited. The hope is that a future manned or unmanned mission to Mars will retrieve the stored samples and return them to earth for full analysis. However, there are no planned missions to do this yet, and they may never happen. So for now, there is no confirmed evidence for the claim of past life on Mars.

Another Lesson from the Past

When I first heard about this, my immediate reaction was to remember Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001). Most people have forgotten about this, but I haven’t. ALH84001 was a meteorite found on the glacier in the Allan Hills region of Antarctica. Since Antarctica is a desert, little snow falls over much of the continent, and what little does fall mostly sublimes, so there is no net increase in ice thickness. Consequently, any meteorite that falls on the glacier remains exposed on the surface for a very long time, so meteorites are easy to find there. Later chemical analysis revealed that ALH84001 likely was blasted from the Martian surface, eventually to end up on earth. In 1996, a team of researchers found four microscopic structures inside part of ALH84001 that they said were consistent with an organic origin. This news was huge, even prompting then President Clinton to comment on it. After three decades, I still occasionally hear people mention that scientists have proven that life once existed on Mars. Except they didn’t. There were hundreds of papers after publication of this study that disputed that study’s conclusion. If not in the mind of the public, at least among scientists, there is not much support for this conclusion from AHL84001.

So I am confident that the same thing will happen with this latest study. There probably will be many other papers contradicting this conclusion, but you won’t hear about them. Why? Because “life on Mars” is a huge story; “no life on Mars” is not. It’s the same sort of contrast between “man bites dog” and “dog bites man.” And we really won’t know for sure if the claimed minerals are truly present in the rock until the sample is returned to earth. With no plans to do this, it is doubtful that this will ever happen.

Conclusion

The great interest in finding life elsewhere in the universe is driven by the desire to “prove” that life is not special, and hence, there must not be a Creator.

My belief is that there never was life on Mars, and I am confident that my belief will be upheld. Why do I hold this position? It comes down to design and purpose of life. To atheists, design and purpose of life is a silly notion because there is no design or purpose in the (totally) natural world. But to the Christian, it is clear from Scripture that God took great care to create the earth that we live on. Man is the center of God’s attention. The other living things on earth directly or indirectly benefit man. Though the Bible does not address whether God created ETs, beings similar to us, on other planets, we can make a strong inference from the Bible that we are alone in the universe (and the scientific evidence so far backs this up). If there are no ETs, then “simple” organisms on other planets such as Mars would serve no purpose. The great interest in finding life elsewhere in the universe is driven by the desire to “prove” that life is not special, and hence, there must not be a Creator. Make no mistake—this agenda is driven by atheism. Our differing expectations on whether life exists elsewhere is just one the many differences Christians and atheists have.

I have often said that there has not been a documented natural arch collapse in Kentucky. I now stand corrected.

Sad News

As I’ve discussed before, Bill Patrick has produced a wonderful DVD series titled “The Arches of the Red River Gorge Kentucky.” Volume 13 recently came out, which has 100 newly documented arches in Red River Gorge. Well, it’s actually 99. You see, Bill included 100 reported arches, but unfortunately, one of the arches collapsed between its discovery and its confirmation, but Bill decided to include it in Volume 13 anyway, with an asterisk. The photograph shows Moose Head Arch, taken by Matt Hemsath, who discovered this small arch. The arch was a flat section of rock that protruded from a cliff, connected to the cliff wall on either end, with a longer section in its middle. From the photo, you can see the moose head in the middle, with the tips of the antlers attached to the rock wall.

Photo Credit: Matt Hemsath

But when the woman who attempted to confirm the arch visited its location, all she could see were flat pieces of rock on the ground from the shattered arch and the lighter-colored spots on the wall where the antlers once adorned the rock face. It’s a pity that this arch is lost because it looks so interesting, and I regret not seeing it before its demise. It makes me want to redouble my efforts to see as many arches in the gorge as God gives me strength to do it, and I hope we don’t lose any more arches.

What happened to Moose Head Arch? From the tree debris accompanying the fragments of Moose Head Arch, it was obvious that debris falling from above smashed into this fragile arch, bringing it down.

My discussion of no arches collapsing in Red River Gorge was in comparison to the many arches in Utah. There have been several documented arches in Utah that have collapsed. I attribute that to the differences in the sandstone in Utah and Red River Gorge. Apparently, the Corbin Sandstone in Kentucky is much more resistant to collapse than the sandstones that have arches in Utah.

But then, the collapse of Moose Head Arch was different from the collapse of Utah arches. Utah’s arches collapse under their own weight, but Moose Head Arch was knocked down by tree debris falling in a storm. This may have happened when Hurricane Helene passed through in late September. There were high winds that blew down many trees in the gorge, initially blocking roads and trails until crews were able to clear the way. It even canceled my planned plunge off Jump Rock to celebrate my 70th birthday. I guess I’ll have to wait four more years to do this because doing it on my 71st birthday this year just doesn’t have the same cachet.

How Many Arches Are in Red River Gorge?

In preparing this blog post, I exchanged some emails with Bill. I asked him if he had a count of arches in Red River Gorge. He said that he’d have to get back to me. When he did, he reported that he had a list of 1,175 arches and that he had solid leads on another couple hundred arches that almost certainly will be confirmed. Bill’s list includes any arch within 20 miles of Slade, a small community in the middle of the gorge. I’m a bit of a purist—my list of arches that I have visited in the gorge is restricted to just those in the Red River watershed. I keep a separate list of arches that are close but just over the divide into other watersheds, such as the Licking River watershed. But the geology doesn’t necessarily change when you cross a divide—it’s the same rocks and the same processes that formed the rugged canyons on the other side.

My “pure” list stands at just over 400. I have a dozen or so arches outside the watershed that Bill includes. Therefore, I have seen about one-third of the arches in the gorge. Bill is working on Volume 14. It probably will have 100 new arches. So just to keep up, I’ll have to visit at least 30 new (to me) arches before Volume 14 comes out. Fifty years or so ago, I read one place that there were “more than 80 arches in Red River Gorge.” Another source said “more than 100.” I should have started earlier when there weren’t so many known arches.

Arch hunting in Red River probably became a thing during the 1980s. This was long before GPS, so it wasn’t easy telling where one was. The advent of GPS changed all that, and the pace of arch discoveries in the gorge has picked up, with some new enthusiasts scouring cliff lines looking for not-yet-documented arches. It is amazing to learn that there are large sections of the gorge that have not yet been searched. My hiking buddies and I have found a few new arches, and we’ve confirmed a few too. We don’t specifically look for new arches, but we do stumble upon them from time to time in places where people have already searched for arches. With the rugged landscape and dense vegetation, it is difficult to spot many arches, even when very close to them.

Red River is recognized as having the second-greatest number of arches in the United States.

How many arches are there in Red River Gorge? Probably well over 2,000. That is significant because Red River is recognized as having the second-greatest number of arches in the United States. Only Arches National Park has more arches, about 2,000. But at the rate Utah is losing arches and Kentuckians are finding arches, it is only a matter of time before Red River Gorge takes the crown. I hope that I live long enough to see that.

Popular agnostic/atheist YouTuber Alex O’Connor recently interviewed Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper, who discussed their recently published book, Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins. Afshordi is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo, while Halper is a science communicator, mostly on YouTube. The title of this podcast is “What Came Before the Big Bang?—The Latest Evidence.” (Note, all three men approached this topic from a secular perspective, interpreting the evidence without reference to God’s Word.)

Before the big bang? When I was at university, I taught my astronomy students about the big bang model. I usually raised this question, and I pointed out that the question makes no sense, sort of like asking what is north of the North Pole. You see, within the big bang model, the big bang is the beginning of time, so there can’t be a “before the big bang.” Well, the situation now is a bit nuanced, which is a polite way of saying that the situation is murky. Now cosmologists regularly talk about what preceded the big bang, with the big bang just being the latest phase that the universe has passed into. You see, the big bang is not a single model, but rather it is a basic model of which there are many variants. And those variants seem to continually spawn. Therefore, it is a good idea for someone to periodically sort through these changes and clarify misconceptions, which is what Afshordi and Halper have done in their lay-friendly book.

Clarifying Current Big Bang Thinking

The big bang model is often confused with a singularity. A singularity is something that is mathematically undefined. Things that are mathematically undefined cause problems. The best example of a singularity is division by zero. See the example in the appendix for how introducing a singularity can cause problems. The singularity associated with the big bang is the breakdown of our physical theories when pushed to the earliest times in the big bang model. At some point in the past, the mathematics underlying the big bang model results in a singularity, which makes it impossible to probe any earlier. That essentially puts up a barrier—we cannot go any further back into time with our current theories. I remember when the big bang was equated with a singularity, but as Afshordi pointed out in the interview, the thinking now is that the big bang is the sudden appearance of the universe, but the singularity preceded the big bang. So there must be some time prior to the big bang, but we can’t probe that with current theories. Remember all those quotes saying that the big bang was the beginning of everything? Well, according to Afshordi, the big bang is not the beginning of everything because there was a singularity that caused the big bang.

Well, according to Afshordi, the big bang is not the beginning of everything because there was a singularity that caused the big bang.

Another problem that Afshordi pointed out is that close to the big bang, general relativity and quantum mechanics become very strong, but we don’t have a unifying theory of these twin pillars of modern physics. Physicists believe that all fundamental forces of nature can be described by a single, all-encompassing theory. Unification of some of the fundamental forces has already occurred, but the unification of general relativity with all the other fundamental forces may be far off into the future. Only if this “theory of everything” is developed can cosmologists hope to resolve what happened in the early big bang universe when general relativity and quantum mechanics were comparable in scale and amount.

Cosmic inflation was concocted four decades ago to solve two thorny problems with the big bang model (the horizon and flatness problems). Inflation is almost universally accepted, even though there is no evidence that inflation occurred—and no known mechanism to start or stop the process. It was refreshing to hear Afshordi express skepticism about inflation. He said that on some days he likes inflation, while on other days he does not. He did state that if inflation were real, then inflation predates the universe. That is, inflation did not arise once the universe came about, but rather, inflation may have caused the universe to arise. Afshordi opined that inflation may be past eternal. That is, inflation may have always existed. (However, even many secular cosmologists acknowledge that “past-eternal” inflation faces significant problems and is not supported by the evidence.) From the big bang’s inception, and for years after its widespread existence, the mantra had been that the universe was the true beginning in time. That contrasts with the steady-state model of cosmology that was widely believed before the big bang became established in the 1960s. The steady-state model posits that the universe has always existed and always will exist. But for at least a couple of decades, I have noticed that among those who accept the big bang model, there is a return to thinking something is eternal. This something may not be the universe, but cosmologists increasingly think that something physical preceded the universe, and that something may even be eternal. The Bible says that something eternal preceded the universe, though that something is more properly expressed as someone.

Genesis

Rather early in the interview, the question of Genesis came up. Georges Lemaître, the man who first formulated what would become the big bang model (the “primeval atom” idea), was a theoretical physicist and a Roman Catholic priest. Pope Pius XII obviously was proud of that. In 1951, Pope Pius XII gave an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in which he suggested that Lemaître’s model was compatible with the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching about creation. This concerned Lemaître, and an audience with the pope was arranged. Lemaître emphasized that science and faith ought to be kept separate, and hence the big bang ought not be viewed as proof of God’s existence. Apparently, Pope Pius heeded Lemaître’s advice, for when the pope addressed the meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Rome the next year, he noted scientific advancement, but he did not tie it directly to creation.

Halper noted that Genesis begins with sky and earth, so it isn’t talking about the origin of the universe, but of the earth, arguing that this parallels the Babylonian creation myth. (Of course, from a straightforward reading of Genesis 1, we understand it to mean the creation of the entire physical universe, not merely our planet.) This fits well with the notion that the Pentateuch was written at the time of the Babylonian captivity or shortly thereafter. This liberal view of Scripture insists that the first eleven chapters of Genesis copied legends and myths picked up in Babylon. O’Connor agreed that Genesis talks about the beginning of the earth, not the universe, and he stated that he did a recent show on this. This was in reaction to many people saying that Genesis talks about the creation of the universe and the big bang proves it. This is an interesting development, for there are many professing Christians who emphasize that much of the beginning of Genesis is not literal history. Many of these people probably accept the notion of the late writing of the Pentateuch and that it contains myths and legends picked up in Babylon. But some of these same people also argue that the big bang is evidence of the Genesis creation. But they can’t have it both ways—if the first eleven chapters of Genesis are just stories picked up in Babylon, then how could it possibly reflect the big bang? (Note the inconsistency!)

Conclusion

It is impossible for a direct reading of Genesis 1 to end up with a big bang origin for the universe.

Of course, we at Answers in Genesis understand that all the Bible, including Genesis, is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), meaning that it is without error and authoritative in every area. There is no indication that the creation account of Genesis 1 is anything other than history. It is impossible for a direct reading of Genesis 1 to end up with a big bang origin for the universe. God’s Word plainly teaches that the heavens, earth, and everything they contain were created in six literal days, about six thousand years ago. That is why Answers in Genesis has always opposed interpreting the Bible in a way that reads the big bang model into it—because doing so replaces God’s clear eyewitness account with man’s ever-changing opinions.

Appendix

Let x = 1. We can square either side of this equation to get

x² = 1.

Since x = 1 and x² = 1, then

x² = x.

Subtracting one from either side, we get

x² − 1 = x − 1.

Notice that the left side of the equation is the difference of two squares, so we can factor it:

(x − 1)(x + 1) = (x − 1).

There is a common term on either side, so we can cancel the common terms:

(x + 1) = 1.

But x = 1, so

1 + 1 = 1,

or

2 = 1.

Obviously, there is a problem here. If you go back through each step substituting 1 for x, you will find that everything was fine until I cavalierly canceled the common term on either side. We do this so often in algebra that we forget that this process involves dividing either side by the same term. The problem is that since x = 1, this step involved dividing by zero. But division by zero is undefined, which fits the definition of a singularity. Proving that 2 = 1 is an example of the nasty sort of things that happen when singularities are involved.

Many recent creationists are aware that the earth’s rotation is gradually slowing, which calls for the necessity of adding leap seconds into our time standards from time to time. Why are many recent creationists aware of this? Because it is intimately related to evidence that the moon cannot be 4.5 billion years old, as most scientists believe.

A complex tidal action of the moon on the earth slows the earth’s rotation. We call this tidal braking. Since the earth and moon represent a closed system in this interaction, by Newton’s third law of motion, the earth pulls back on the moon, accelerating its orbital motion around the earth. This causes the moon’s orbit to increase in size, so the moon is slowly spiraling away from the earth. The current rate of lunar recession is measured as nearly four centimeters per year. That is less than two inches per year, so that may not seem like much, but over time, it can add up.

How can we measure this rate of lunar recession so accurately? As I pointed out in a recent article, Apollo astronauts left special reflectors on the moon. Frequently, astronomers use large telescopes to bounce brief laser light pulses off those reflectors and record the reflected beams. The difference in time between the transmitted and received beams gives a very accurate distance to the moon.

Apollo 14’s laser ranging retro reflector (LR3). Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Where this gets interesting is that we know the physics of this interaction very well, and the math reveals that the rate of lunar recession is not constant. Rather, the closer the earth and moon are to one another, the faster the rate of lunar recession is. Since the moon is getting farther away, in the past, the moon must have been moving away faster than the four centimeters per year that we measure today.

The maximum age that the earth-moon system can have is less than one-third of the 4.5 billion years.

Proper modeling allows us to trace the moon’s distance from the earth as a function of time in the past, using the four centimeters per year as our starting point. Over a few thousand years, the earth-moon distance would not have changed much. But what about over 4.5 billion years that most scientists think is the age of the earth-moon system? The maximum age that the earth-moon system can have is less than one-third of the 4.5 billion years. Of course, that does not automatically mean that the system is only 6,000 years old, but it does seem to eliminate any age greater than 1.5 billion years.

Have We Seen the Last of Leap Seconds?

Many creationists are aware that the related phenomenon of the earth’s rotation slowing is the need of leap seconds from time to time, and so many creationists confidently point to those occasional leap seconds as evidence that the earth and moon are young. Consequently, many recent creationists are probably confused by recent press statements that we may have to start subtracting seconds rather than adding seconds. It’s as if the earth has started increasing its speed of rotation, making the day slightly shorter rather than longer. If so, then has the moon stopped receding from earth?

No, the moon is still receding from earth, even though the earth’s rotation is speeding up, as it has been for half a century. What? Then what are all those leap seconds all about? I have a more technical discussion of what is going on in an upcoming Answers Research Journal article, but here, I’ll give a very brief description of what is going on.

One fundamental purpose of astronomy is for timekeeping (Genesis 1:14). Time of day is based upon the sun’s location in the sky and hence is tied to the earth’s rate of rotation. For nearly two centuries after Newton, physicists and astronomers assumed that the earth’s rotation rate was fixed. That seemed reasonable, and it was consistent with what we observed. However, by the latter nineteenth century, technology of time measurement had greatly improved, and it was obvious that the earth’s rotation was slowing. This caused a problem because this meant our time standard was changing, but dynamic processes, such as gravity keeping planets in orbit, do not depend upon varying time. This called for a new time standard that is not varying. This non-varying time standard is called ephemeris time. Meanwhile, the slowly varying time standard that we use in everyday life is based upon Universal Time, which is closely related to Greenwich Mean Time.

Tourists at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in line to take pictures with the Prime Meridian monument. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

More than a century ago, astronomers decided to define the second (in terms of ephemeris time) as a precise fraction of the year in 1901. Since this was based upon a dynamic process (the earth’s orbit around the sun), this was a good standard for ephemeris time. Even then astronomers noted the drift between the second as defined by observing the sun’s position in the sky from the second defined by dynamic processes.

Over the years, advancements in technology allowed measuring these quantities with greater accuracy, which required some tweaks in how we define time. In 1967, time was redefined in terms of the speed of light. Atomic clocks became very accurate, so in 1972, the time standard was once again refined, with Universal Time now fixed by atomic clocks, not by where the sun is in the sky. This introduced a problem because this new definition of Universal Time would slowly lead to a deviation from time as told by where the sun is in the sky. The solution agreed upon then was to add or delete seconds as needed to bring Universal Time back into close agreement with time as we have always expressed it in terms of where the sun is in the sky.

As it turns out, there are effects other than tidal braking that change the earth’s rotation rate. Some of these effects act over the short term of a few years, some effects are on the midterm of a few decades, while others are on the long term of a century or more. Some of these factors slow the earth’s rotation, while others increase the earth’s rotation. These other effects are cyclical, going from slowing the earth’s rotation to speeding the earth’s rotation. Only tidal braking is always slowing the earth’s rotation, which places an upper limit in the age of their creation.

Remember that the original standard for the second was tied to the earth’s rotation in the year 1901? That year happened to be near the peak of the fastest rotation of the earth over the past two centuries. As the standard for time measurement changed over the years since, astronomers kept that original definition of ephemeris time by renormalizing each new definition to the original definition. Between 1901 and 1972 when atomic clocks became involved, the earth’s rotation sped up but then slowed down to what its rate was early in the twentieth century.

The first successful atomic clock, built in England in 1955. Image via Science Museum Group, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Since dynamic time was fixed to a shorter second than what we have experienced since 1972, leap seconds were added, not because the earth’s rotation was slowing that much but because the standard second was too short. Indeed, in the five decades since 1972, there has been an increase in the earth’s rotation rate, which is why leap seconds were required. It’s very counterintuitive that leap seconds were required because the earth’s rotation has been speeding up, when all along most of us assumed that it was because the earth’s rotation was slowing.

Indeed, in the five decades since 1972, there has been an increase in the earth’s rotation rate, which is why leap seconds were required.

But the rate that we have added leap seconds has decreased in recent years. That is because the rate of the earth’s rotation is nearly back to what it was in 1901. If and when the earth’s rotation reaches and exceeds the 1901 rotation rate, then we will have to subtract seconds rather than add them. There is discussion to scrap the addition and subtraction of seconds. If that happens, Universal Time and ephemeris time will drift. Also, our time standard for everyday use will slowly drift from the time as told by the sun. I don’t like that.

In case you are wondering what is responsible for the earth’s rotation rate to be decreasing now, it appears to be due to motions in the molten part of the earth’s core. That process is not known well at all. The best we can do is observe the variations in the earth’s rotation, account for all the known causes, and infer that the remainder of the change is due to changes in the earth’s core. On a related front, the earth’s magnetic poles field has been moving very quickly in recent years. Since the earth’s magnetic field is due to motion in the core, this indicates some unusual things transpiring in the earth’s core.

Conclusion

So is the moon receding at a rate that demonstrates that the earth-moon system cannot be any older than 1.5 billion years? Yes. Is the addition of leap seconds evidence that supports that argument? Until recently, I would have said yes, but now I don’t think so. This whole issue of time measurement is very tricky. If my brief description here has left your mind in a muddle, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger—this had me banging my head against the wall for a while too. Welcome to the club.

Did humans and dinosaurs ever live at the same time? Dinosaurs were land animals. From the Genesis 1 creation account, we know that God made land animals on day six of the creation week, so God must have made dinosaurs on day six. Genesis 1 also tells us that God made man on day six, so man and dinosaurs must have lived at the same time, at least for a while. Since all we know about dinosaurs is from their fossils left in sedimentary rocks that we think were deposited during the flood, it stands to reason that both humans and dinosaurs lived on earth at least until the flood. That is why in the Creation Museum we depict people and dinosaurs together before the flood. Since the purpose of the ark was to preserve flying and land animals (Genesis 6:19–20), there must have been dinosaurs aboard the ark.

If dinosaurs were aboard the ark, then why don’t we see dinosaurs today? Perhaps the environment after the flood was not as conducive for dinosaurs as it was before the flood, making dinosaurs less successful after the flood so they eventually went extinct. Even so, humans and dinosaurs would overlap some after the flood, so then might there be archaeological or historical evidence of this? Displays along the entrance of the Creation Museum present some of the evidence some creationists have claimed for dinosaurs and people coexisting after the flood. But not all the evidence. One piece of evidence missing from our exhibits is the Kachina Bridge sauropod petroglyph. And the only other mention of this interesting petroglyph on the Answers in Genesis website is an article by Andy McIntosh two decades ago, in which he described his trip to Utah in 2006.

My Photograph of the Petroglyph

I reported on my recent research trip to Utah. The purpose of that trip was to examine the three large arches of Natural Bridges National Monument that formed from the cutoffs of gooseneck meanders. I have proposed a similar formation mechanism for Rock Bridge in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, so the trip was an extension of my work on Rock Bridge. In planning the trip, I realized that the sauropod petroglyph is under Kachina Bridge, one of the natural bridges of national monument. Therefore, a secondary goal of my trip to Utah was to obtain some good photographs of the sauropod petroglyph. Once I arrived under Kachina Bridge and found the petroglyph, I realized that getting a good photograph of the petroglyph was not going to be easy. It’s not just a matter of lighting—most of the petroglyphs are faint and hence difficult to make out. But once you see a particular petroglyph, such as the sauropod, it is difficult to unsee.

Fortunately, details in photographs can be enhanced, and we have employees at Answers in Genesis who are adept at doing this. Note that this process does not add anything to photographs; it merely brings out detail that is already there. I show here an unedited original photograph of the sauropod petroglyph and the enhanced version. If you don’t readily see the sauropod in the original photo, viewing the enhanced version makes it very easy to pick it out in the original photo. As I said, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

The petroglyph certainly resembles a sauropod, with its long tail, long neck, and four legs.

The petroglyph certainly resembles a sauropod, with its long tail, long neck, and four legs. Admittedly, the drawing is a bit out of scale, with the thickness of the tail and its length exaggerated. And the head looks too large. Or are the legs just too small? Perhaps the artist took some liberty with the details. For instance, to the upper left is what appears to be a person, though it resembles a person less than this sauropod drawing resembles a sauropod.

Sauropod or Pareidolia?

Or are we seeing in this petroglyph what we want to see? Nate Loper, the director of Canyon Ministries, thinks that some creationists have misinterpreted this petroglyph. Nate has studied many petroglyphs in the Southwest. For instance, on our Grand Canyon raft trips, Nate has shown me some petroglyphs that indicate the direction to sunrise and sunset on the December solstice and hence probably were used to mark the passage of time. The Native Americans who lived there a millennium ago spent winters farming at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and spent summers on the rim hunting and gathering. They had to keep track of time to know when to migrate twice a year.

From his studies at and around Kachina Natural Bridge, Nate has reached a very different conclusion about what this sauropod petroglyph is. What has Nate concluded? Nate has submitted an abstract to present his findings at the meeting of the Creation Research Society on July 24–26 in St. Louis. What is Nate going to say? I’m not at liberty to tell you before the meeting (hint: it’s not a sauropod). Why don’t you go to this meeting to find out what Nate has to say? You can sign up here.

Flat-earthers like to use memes for their arguments. Unfortunately, flat-earthers rarely apply critical thinking to the memes they use. Rather, flat-earthers uncritically repost memes that other flat-earthers use, trusting other flat-earthers would not make or use memes that are fake, false, or simply misleading.

The meme reproduced here is an example of a fake meme that I’ve seen flat-earthers post many times. The top part of the meme shows a supposed photograph of the crescent moon and an overexposed sun. The conventional explanation for lunar phases is that the lit portion of the moon must face the sun. Notice the two tips of the crescent moon. Those tips are called cusps. If you connect the cusps with a straight line, then the direction to the sun should be a line perpendicular to the line connecting the cusps and passing through the lit portion of the moon. The lower part of the meme employs this information to analyze the top photo, with the straight purple line to the sun and the turquoise line and arrow showing the direction the sun must be if the conventional explanation for lunar phases is correct. The protractor shows that the two directions differ by 45 degrees, which the meme implies disproves the conventional explanation of lunar phases. However, proper critical analysis reveals that this image is fake.

The Analysis

When the moon is as close to the sun as shown in this photograph, it is impossible to see the moon, let alone photograph it.

First, as a person who has spent more than half a century watching the moon, I know that when the moon is as close to the sun as shown in this photograph, it is impossible to see the moon, let alone photograph it. A crescent moon this close to the sun is very thin and dim (though the crescent in the meme is neither). If this were a true photograph, for the moon to be visible at all, the sun would have to be far more overexposed than it is.

It is not difficult to quantify some of my conclusions. I printed the meme, and I made some measurements on the printing. I used a precision ruler to measure the diameter of the moon, the separation of the sun and moon, and the thickness of the lunar crescent. The diameter of the moon in the meme was 0.48 inches, and the separation between the centers of the sun and moon on the meme was 4.66 inches. As the moon orbits the earth, its angular size varies, but the moon’s average angular diameter is 1,896 arc seconds = 0.53 degrees. This allows setting up a ratio to find the angular separation, φ, between the moon and sun:

With respect to the sun, the moon moves about 12.2 degrees per day, or 0.51 degrees per hour. Thus, if the angular distance between the moon and sun is 5.1 degrees, then the moon is only 10 hours from new moon. I did a search for the record of young lunar phase observations. One report was the sighting of a young moon without optical aid 15 hours after new moon. A few later reports shaved this time by mere minutes. The record for observing a thin crescent after new moon with optical aid is nearly 12 hours, though someone may have slightly improved upon this since this report. Keep in mind that these observations were done under very favorable conditions, both astronomical and meteorological. It is doubtful that a flat-earther could even match these observations, let alone improve upon them. Thus, it probably is not possible for this claimed photograph to be authentic.

Second, how much illumination would one expect for a moon that appears only 5.1 degrees from the sun? The drawing illustrates the situation.

The circle of radius R represents a top view of the spherical moon, with the direction of the earth to the left indicated. The semicircle BEF represents the lit portion of the moon, so the direction to the sun is indicated by the ray CE. As seen from the earth, the point D will be visible on the moon’s limb (edge) where the lit crescent of the moon appears thickest, and the point B will be the other side of the thickest part of the crescent. The angle θ is how much the terminator (the division between light and dark on the moon) has rotated since new moon. Since that angle was zero at new moon, then that angle must be 5.1 degrees. Therefore, the thickest part of the crescent will be the distance d:

But

so

Since the moon’s diameter in the meme is 0.48 inches, then the moon’s radius in the meme must be 0.24 inches. Substituting 0.24 inches for R and 5.1 degrees for θ, we get d = 0.001 inches. That is one thousandth of an inch, far too small to measure with any ruler, yet I easily measured the thickness of the crescent in the photo to be 0.06 inches, 60 times larger! Therefore, if the moon were only 5.1 degrees from the sun as is the case in the meme, then the crescent is 60 times thicker than it ought to be. I have often seen the crescent moon much farther than 5.1 degrees from the moon, and the crescent was much thinner than in this meme.

How far from the sun must the crescent appear to be as thick as it appears in the meme? Rearranging the last equation results in

Placing d = 0.06 inches and R = 0.24 inches into this equation, we get θ = 41 degrees, eight times larger than the measured angular separation of the sun and moon in the meme. Therefore, either the crescent is too thick for the angular separation of the sun and moon depicted in the meme, or the thickness of the crescent is correct but the angular separation of the sun and moon in the meme is incorrect. Since these sizes are out of proportion, it is likely that the orientation of the crescent moon has been altered to create a false meme.

Conclusion

There are several reasons why this meme is obviously fake.

1. The brightness of the sun and moon do not match reality.
2. The moon is not visible when it is as close to the sun as displayed in this meme.
3. For the crescent to be as thick as it appears in the meme, the angular separation between the moon and the sun must be much greater than depicted in the meme.

Some flat-earthers may object that I have assumed the conventional explanation for lunar phases in my refutation. This is true. However, what this meme depicts contradicts more than a half century of experience watching the moon. I knew immediately when I first saw this meme that if the crescent were as thick as shown in this meme, then the moon would have to be much farther from the sun than the distance depicted in the meme. Anyone who begs to differ with my assessment simply has not spent the requisite amount of time looking at the moon for themselves to properly evaluate this meme, choosing to place blind faith in a false meme.

How was this meme created? It is likely a combination of two photographs, one photograph of the moon and the other photograph of the sun. The creator of this meme probably chose an orientation of the lunar crescent to create a problem that does not exist. A more important question is who created this meme. I can think of two possibilities. One possibility is that a flat-earther created this meme, but that raises the question of why that person chose to be dishonest in creating the meme. Flat-earthers pride themselves in being truth seekers, but one cannot employ falsehoods in the pursuit of truth. The other possibility is that a non-flat-earther created this meme to hoodwink flat-earthers into using a false meme. This sort of behavior ought to anger flat-earthers.

This is just one example of the many false flat-earther memes in circulation. Flat-earthers could save themselves much embarrassment if they exercised true critical thinking in evaluating arguments flat-earthers use. Flat-earthers are extremely skeptical of anything that contradicts their belief that the earth is flat. If flat-earthers employed even a smidgen of that skepticism to flat-earth claims and memes, they would not be so easily taken in by false arguments.

For more than four decades, the standard model of the origin of the moon has been that an object about the size of Mars had a grazing collision with the still-forming earth. Much of the matter of the interloper was sprayed into orbit around the earth, along with some of the early earth’s surface and near-surface material. This mix of matter soon coalesced into the moon, which gradually spiraled out to the moon’s current distance from the earth.

An important part of this model is that many of the heavier elements originally on the earth had already sunk to the earth’s core, robbing the moon of the heavier elements that the earth has. Both the earth and moon supposedly were volcanically active at first, but since the moon is much smaller than the earth and lacked many of the heavier radioactive elements, the moon’s volcanism concluded two billion years ago.

But according to a report in Physics Today, a recent study may upend this timeline.1 China’s Chang´e 5 mission returned lunar samples to the earth. In the sample were more than 3,000 tiny glass beads, most of which formed from impacts on the moon. However, the researchers identified three beads as having a volcanic origin. Comparison of the amount of uranium-238 to its decay product, lead-206, yielded a radiometric age of only 180 million years. That is just 3% of the supposed 4.5-billion-year age of the moon.

This upsets the supposed evolution of the moon over the past 4.5 billion years.

This result is sure to be questioned because this upsets the supposed evolution of the moon over the past 4.5 billion years. Since the moon is so small, most of the moon’s initial internal heat ought to have escaped a long time ago. The earth ought to have lost its primordial heat too, but radioactive elements inside the earth probably are sufficient to keep the earth’s interior hot. However, unlike the earth, the moon is thought to lack sufficient radioactive elements to keep the lunar interior hot enough to produce magma. How revolutionary is this result? Fattaruso quoted Stephen Elardo, a specialist in thermal evolution models of the moon, “If there’s young volcanism on the Moon, we really need to rethink models about how planets cool off with time. . . . And that isn’t just the Moon, that goes for any planetary bodies.”2

Of course, if the moon is only thousands of years old as the Bible strongly implies, then a hot lunar interior is not a problem.

In a recent blog post, I discussed my fascination (obsession?) with natural arches. In that blog post, I also discussed my theory of how Rock Bridge, my favorite arch, formed. I mentioned that I would soon travel to Utah to examine the three natural bridges of Natural Bridges National Monument that formed by the same mechanism that I propose for Rock Bridge. I am back from my trip, so I happily report on that trip in this blog post.

The Outbound Trip

I was accompanied on the trip by Eric Glover, who works in housekeeping at the Creation Museum and has been my usual hiking buddy in Red River Gorge for nearly six years. We left Northern Kentucky early Tuesday morning, March 25. Late in the afternoon, we stopped in western Kansas to see two arches in Monument Rocks. Monument Rocks are two groups of small buttes of chalk. The rest of the chalk layer has eroded away, leaving these solitary stones that resemble monuments. Monument Rocks has some protection of a cap of harder rock, but the chalk is eroding quickly. I don’t know if these arches have names; I’ll just call them Monument Rocks Arch and Monument Rocks Window . Given the fragility of the chalk, these two arches could collapse at any time. I’ve now seen arches in sandstone, limestone, basalt, and chalk.

We drove almost 1,100 miles that first day, spending the night in a hotel in Limon, Colorado. It made for a long day, but we had left well before dawn, and we were traveling with the sun, which gave us an extra hour or more of the sun. Driving so long on the first day allowed us to travel more leisurely the additional 450 miles or so the next day through the Rocky Mountains to Moab, Utah. We were scheduled to meet Nate Loper and Nathan Mogk at Natural Bridges National Monument Friday, so we were far ahead of schedule.

Since we arrived in Moab by midafternoon Wednesday, we entered Arches National Park and hiked a bit to see arches near the park’s campground. Some of the notable arches there are Sand Dune Arch, Diamond Arch, Broken Arch, and Skyline Arch (every time I looked at that arch, I had craving for chili). Next, we hiked up to Delicate Arch . I had been to Delicate Arch on a previous trip, but Eric had not seen this iconic arch yet. Late in the day, we found a hotel room in Moab, but we returned to the park early on Thursday to explore the Devil’s Garden. We began our hike 40 minutes before sunrise, so for a while, we had the place to ourselves. First up was Landscape Arch, the largest arch in the United States. It is impressive, but it is also fragile—people have observed at least one piece falling off. Other outstanding arches that we saw included Partition Arch, Navajo Arch, Double O Arch, Private Arch, and Box Arch. There were many other arches, some apparently without names, that were too numerous to mention. Late in the day, we left the park and headed south, spending the night at a hotel in Monticello.

Since we didn’t have to meet Nate and Nathan until Friday afternoon, we took our time driving to Natural Bridges National Monument. Along the way, Eric spotted an arch complex next to the highway, so I turned around so that we could measure its location and take some photos. For nearly six years, I have been recording the latitude, longitude, and elevation of each arch that I visit. I plot these on a map so that I have a good sense of where the arches I have visited are.

Natural Bridges National Monument

We arrived at Natural Bridges National Monument a few hours before Nate and Nathan, so Eric and I spent some time at the visitor center, and then we set up the campsite that Nate had reserved for Friday evening. Once Nate and Nathan arrived, the four of us went to Owachomo Bridge, one of the three natural bridges in the national monument. For the record, a natural bridge is an arch that has a stream flowing through it. Therefore, many arches that are called bridges are not true bridges. For instance, Natural Bridge and Sky Bridge in Red River Gorge are not true bridges because there is no stream underneath them. However, Virginia’s Natural Bridge is a true bridge, for there is a small stream flowing through it. And Rock Bridge is a true bridge because Swift Camp Creek flows through it. Given that distinction between a true bridge and an arch, I must object to calling the three large arches on Natural Bridges National Monument bridges because usually there is no water flowing under them. I guess that people in the very dry Southwest have a different definition of what a stream is.

Since the canyons in the Southwest are here, it is obvious that there once was a considerable flow of water to form those canyons.

Since the canyons in the Southwest are here, it is obvious that there once was a considerable flow of water to form those canyons. Each of the three large arches of Natural Bridges National Monument formed when a gooseneck meander was shortened by water cutting through the rock wall of the meander. Further erosion lowered the bed of the flow, leaving the now unused meander at a higher level than the bottom of the canyon today. I propose a similar mechanism for the formation of Rock Bridge because there is a U-shaped channel to one side of Rock Bridge that is higher than the creek passing through Rock Bridge. The purpose of my trip was to investigate how the three arches in Natural Bridges National Monument formed so that I could better understand how Rock Bridge formed. I invited Nate and Nathan along to help me with my understanding of geology, and they were happy to oblige me since they had their own research that they wanted to conduct. Eric? He was there for the ride, and what a ride it was! (We saw more than 50 arches on our trip.)

I think Nathan wanted to visit Owachomo Bridge first because it is the most difficult of the three arches to understand. We spent a lot of time examining the area of Owachomo Bridge. Owachomo Bridge is just downstream from where Tuwa Canyon joins Armstrong Canyon. There is an abandoned channel north and high above the current canyon bottom. Owachomo Bridge is through an isolated ridge between the channel and the current canyon. If the abandoned channel were the original course of the drainage of Armstrong Canyon, then the part of the canyon south and to the west of the ridge in which Owachomo Bridge is did not yet exist when the bridge formed. The best solution to this problem is that Armstrong Canyon always drained to the south of the isolated ridge, and the abandoned channel is the original end of Tuwa Canyon. The flow in Tuwa Canyon cut through the ridge to join Armstrong Canyon upstream, forming Owachomo Bridge in the process. But Tuwa Canyon probably breached the ridge a second time farther upstream. A second arch that may have formed with that second breach subsequently collapsed, leaving behind the current end of Tuwa Canyon where it joins Armstrong Canyon. Satisfied with this explanation, we returned to our campsite for the evening.

The next morning, Nate went to Kachina Bridge to investigate some archaeology around that arch. Meanwhile, Nathan, Eric, and I returned to Owachomo Bridge. There is a trail at the bottom of the canyons that connects all three bridges. After descending once again to below Owachomo Bridge, we followed the trail downstream in Armstrong Canyon as it extends to the northwest to join White Canyon. Kachina Bridge is at the confluence of Armstrong Canyon and White Canyon. Unlike Owachomo Bridge, there is no mystery about the formation of Kachina Bridge—there is an abandoned channel east of the current flow in White Canyon. The abandoned channel is a meander that was cut off when Kachina Bridge formed in a ridge extending from the west side of White Canyon. We met Nate there, and he showed us some ruins and petroglyphs. Nate hopes to share his conclusions about one of the petroglyphs at the Creation Research Society meeting in St. Louis this summer.

After lunch, Nate continued his work at Kachina Bridge as the three of us hiked up White Canyon toward the northeast. Downstream, White Canyon makes its way to the northwest, where it eventually flows into Lake Powell. Later I noticed on a map that shortly downstream from where we left White Canyon, White Canyon passes through a deep, broad water gap. To me, that suggests two impulsive events, one to form the water gap, and the other to scour the canyon within the water gap.

Between Kachina Bridge and Sipapu Bridge, we saw several archaeological sites, such as some pueblo and a granary. We also spotted several arches, most of which probably don’t have names. Finally, we reached Sipapu Bridge, followed by the climb out of the canyon. According to the topographic maps, the elevation change coming out was only 550 feet, but it seemed more than that. Perhaps it was the elevation above sea level. All our hiking in Utah had been over a mile high, so we got winded very easily. From the photos , you can see that the hike out is not for everyone. In the view from above, you can see light passing through Sipapu Bridge, and the abandoned channel going around the arch.

While we had taken the hike down to Owachomo Bridge twice and hiked up from Sipapu Bridge once, we had not taken the hike down to or up from Kachina Arch. We had the latitude and longitude of Kachina Trail Arch, and we knew it was along that last trail we had not hiked, so we drove to the parking area for Kachina Bridge in search of this last arch. Almost immediately, we saw this small arch along the trail. At first, we thought that this was Kachina Trail Arch, but the position was not right, so we went down the trail farther. Almost to where we had been earlier in the day, we found Kachina Trail Arch. That is a nice little arch.

We couldn’t camp at the Natural Bridges National Monument campground Saturday night, so Nate helped us find a campsite on Bureau of Land Management land before driving back to Flagstaff. There was no charge to camp, but there were no facilities either. After dark, it snowed briefly.

In Search of Neville’s Arch

Sunday morning, we went in search of arches southwest of Natural Bridges National Monument. After one false start, we decided on hiking to Neville’s Arch, an impressive arch in Owl Creek Canyon. Alas, by early afternoon, we realized that we didn’t have time to reach Neville’s Arch and get out of the canyon before sunset, so we made the tough decision to turn around. The trip was not without value, for we saw some Indian ruins and spotted some smaller arches. However, we did have to ascend 1,100 feet to get out of the canyon. Furthermore, all the way the trail was a bit sketchy, with some steep drop-offs and some rough terrain.

The Inbound Trip

Since Wednesday, Eric and I had hiked 45 miles, some of it a bit challenging, and we were tired and sore. Therefore, we made the decision to start heading home. We drove a couple of hours to Durango, Colorado, where we spent the night in a hotel. I slept a full eight hours that night, something that I rarely do. In the morning, I was refreshed, and I easily could have hiked some more, but we had made our decision. Along the way on Monday, we drove over Wolf Creek Pass at nearly 11,000 feet elevation. I have driven I-70 through the Rockies a few times, but I liked this southern route through Colorado much better. Later in the day, we stopped briefly at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Reserve . Afterward, we drove onto Hays, Kansas, where we spent the night. On Tuesday, we arrived home in time for dinner.

What Did I Learn on This Trip?

The primary objective of my trip was to investigate arches that formed by the same mechanism that I think formed Rock Bridge. Having seen those other arches, I am even more convinced of my theory of how Rock Bridge formed.

Having seen those other arches, I am even more convinced of my theory of how Rock Bridge formed.

But I learned far more about arches on this trip. For instance, I’ve noticed a systematic difference between Kentucky’s arches and Utah’s arches. It is obvious that Utah has some very large arches, far larger than any arch in Kentucky (though Natural Arch in McCreary County rivals some of Utah’s arches). Early in our arch hunting in Red River Gorge, Eric and I developed a five-point scale for rating arches, with one being the lowest score and five being the greatest score. Size is the primary criterion that we consider, with aesthetics playing a minor role. Our rating system is subjective, and we didn’t intend it to have any scientific value. Rather, we merely wanted a way for other people to decide which arches they wanted to visit. However, with nearly 400 Red River Gorge arches evaluated with our scale, our system gives a qualitative measure of arch sizes, and the distribution of the sizes in our system shows that at least in Red River Gorge, the number of arches increases with decreasing arch size. We observe the minimum criterion for an arch being an opening of at least 36 inches in at least one direction. Therefore, we do not note the position of windows that fail to meet the minimum size, nor do we rate them. It has been our observation that very small openings increase in number even down to openings only an inch or so across. That is, there is a nearly exponential increase in the number of openings with decreasing size. On our trip, I was struck by the lack of small openings in Utah. This means that the distribution of arch sizes in Utah is very different from Red River Gorge. This probably is due to differences between the Corbin Sandstone and the sandstone of Utah’s arches, but it may also be related to differences in how the arches formed.

I now question the number of arches in Arches National Park. It is often claimed that Arches National Park has more than 2,000 arches, giving the park the crown as the greatest number of arches in the United States. Meanwhile, Red River Gorge is often credited as having the second greatest number of arches in the United States. In vain, I searched online for a list or a count of the number of arches in Arches National Park. On this trip, Nate told me that he has asked park staff about a list or count of arches, but they told him that the National Park Service has neither a list nor a count. Arches National Park contains nearly 77,000 acres of land. If there are 2,000 arches in the park, that works out to an average of 0.026 arches per acre. But the arches in Arches National Park are found only within large sandstone outcroppings, particularly among the fins. Much of the park is rolling scrubland where there are no arches. Examining detailed maps of the park, I estimate that, at best, 10% of the land in the park is arch-dense territory. Therefore, for there to be 2,000 arches in the park, the portions of the park rich in arches would have to have 0.26 arches per acre, or about one arch for every four acres. Having now hiked in five parts of the park where some of the more memorable arches are found, is the arch density that great? I am doubtful. It is possible that the arch density is greater than this in parts of the park that I have not visited, such as Fiery Furnace. I will attempt to determine an arch density from the 40 arches that I have seen in Arches National Park, recognizing that I undoubtedly missed a few. So where did the count of 2,000 arches come from? With no real documentation of the number of arches, I suspect that someone estimated that figure, and other people merely repeated that number, eventually giving that number an air of authenticity.

Meanwhile, how many arches are in Red River Gorge? Fortunately, someone has been assembling a list. More than 20 years ago, Bill Patrick produced a video, The Arches of the Red River Gorge. I’m not sure if Bill knew what he was getting into, for he ended up producing additional volumes: Volume 13 is in the works. I have a copy of each volume, from which I have extracted the names and locations of the arches. We use compiled information to guide us to arches that we have not yet seen. I haven’t bothered to count the arches on this list, but it probably is a thousand. And people are regularly finding previously unknown arches in the gorge. On our treks in the gorge, my hiking buddies and I have found some arches. How have arches escaped discovery in Red River? I’m sure that the rugged topography and lush vegetation hide many of them. It is difficult to conceal from view arches in the arid Southwestern United States, but it is easy to walk very close to arches in Red River and not notice them. Many of us are beginning to think that Red River may have more arches than Arches National Park.

It is difficult to conceal from view arches in the arid Southwestern United States, but it is easy to walk very close to arches in Red River and not notice them

Last year, I commented on the collapse of Double Arch in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. In that article, I used the figure of 43 arches collapsing over the previous 49 years to comment on the ages of arches. Nathan asked me earlier about the source of the claim of 43 arches collapsing over 49 years, and we discussed this further on our trip. Nathan had dug deeper than I had, but he wasn’t able to find the original source on this claim. Nathan had concluded that there had been three recently documented arch collapses and that this precise figure had been added to the less precise 40 arches supposedly lost since 1971. But where did that count of 40 come from? It is likely that, like the number of arches in Arches National Park, the 40 arch collapses were an estimate. Adding the precise number three to the imprecise number 40 results in a precise sounding 43. That is, the 43 arch collapses over 49 years may have been an overestimation. I probably ought to revisit my publication from last year.

Conclusion

I shall continue my recreational search for arches in Red River Gorge. However, I now see opportunities to turn my leisure pursuit into science. Stay tuned. And what better way to stay tuned than to join me for an arch adventure in Red River Gorge? The next Creation Museum field trip to the gorge will be October 24. This will be during leaf season. The leaf colors during last October’s field trip were spectacular! You can sign up here.

Exoplanet K2-18b is in the news again. I say that this exoplanet is in the news again because more than five years ago, I responded to a related news story about K2-18b. The news then was that astronomers had detected water vapor in the atmosphere of this exoplanet. Of course, the presence of water vapor suggests the possibility of liquid water on a planet’s surface, which we all know is a necessary ingredient for life. However, the study reported back then didn’t emphasize that much. They modeled the atmosphere, and the model indicated that the atmosphere was very cloudy. Furthermore, the model suggested that the atmosphere was dominated by hydrogen helium, not nitrogen as the earth’s atmosphere is. A nitrogen-based atmosphere is the gold standard for the possibility of life. The astronomers also noted the exoplanet’s low density, indicating that heavier elements also essential for life were probably lacking on K2-18b. Then there is K2-18b’s eccentric orbit around its star. The eccentric orbit causes a 27% change in distance from its red dwarf star, with a stunning 62% change in heating radiation over its 33-day orbit. Overall, K2-18b is not a good candidate for hosting life.

So what changed? Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the newest study on K2-18b announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide, a compound claimed can come only from living things (bacteria on earth) and hence is a biosignature. The researchers speculated much about K2-18b, suggesting that it may have a vast ocean that is teaming with life. However, this is a preliminary result, which awaits verification. That is, the detection of dimethyl sulfide may be a false signal. And even though dimethyl sulfide is confirmed in the atmosphere of K2-18b, it isn’t true that it is necessarily a biosignature. Last year, a study reported detection of dimethyl sulfide in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Comets hardly are places where life might exist. Furthermore, another study last year discounted dimethyl sulfide as a biosignature. A study published last year suggests that K2-18b may be a gas-rich mini-Neptune (not a super-earth) that lacks any habitable surface. Things are not looking good for life on K2-18b. So what do I think about the detection of dimethyl sulfide on K2-18b? I think that it stinks.

At least one person has written Answers in Genesis, asking how the JWST could detect a gas in the atmosphere of a planet 124 light-years away. Keep in mind that the JWST is a very large telescope—its mirror is 6.5 meters across. Just 40 years ago, that would have been the largest optical telescope in the world. The JWST operates deeply in the infrared, at wavelengths that are mostly or entirely blocked by the earth’s atmosphere. Like most exoplanets so far discovered, K2-18b transits, or passes in front of, its star once each orbit. As K2-18b transits the star, light from the star passes through the planet’s atmosphere, and the gases in the atmosphere absorb light at certain wavelengths that happen to be in the infrared. Therefore, in the spectrum of the star taken during the transit of K2-18b, astronomers can pick out absorption features of different gases. It isn’t easy to do this, but the large aperture and infrared sensitivity of the JWST make this possible.

There is a long chain of assumptions to get only “simple” life on this exoplanet.

There is a long chain of assumptions to get only “simple” life on this exoplanet. Break any link in the chain, and there is no chance for life on K2-18b. I think that this claim will be contested and probably will be walked back. The reason this sort of thing is rushed to print is that if anyone is the first to detect life, any life, elsewhere in the universe, a Nobel Prize likely will follow. Nobel Prizes rarely go to runners-up, so it is easy to understand the motivation to be the first to report evidence for life on another planet, regardless of how flimsy the evidence may be. Nor is this motivation new. Many of us remember the 1996 report that the Mars rock ALH84001 contained signs of life on Mars. That caused quite a stir in the news three decades ago. Somehow, the hundreds of later papers contesting that conclusion didn’t get as much news coverage. While the idea that ALH84001 indicated that life on Mars has faded, there are still some people who think scientists proved the existence of life on Mars three decades ago. I suspect that the authors of the original paper on this were thinking of a Nobel Prize too.

While the Bible does not address the question whether life exists on other planets, we at Answers in Genesis think that life on other planets is inconsistent with what the Bible teaches us. We are special creations, made in God’s image and in his likeness, to fulfill God’s purposes. So far, astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets. If 30 years ago we had asked scientists once we had discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets how many earthlike planets would be among them, most scientists would have opined that the number would be in the hundreds. So far, no planets even remotely resembling earth have been found, confirming our conviction that we are alone in the universe.

Williamstown, Kentucky

It looks like a frightening new exhibit at the Ark Encounter will open on April 1. While it may seem counterintuitive for a Christian theme park to highlight, the new exhibit features both werewolves and vampires.

“One of the most frequently asked questions at the Ark Encounter is how did werewolves and vampires survive the flood,” said Ken Ham, Founder CEO of Answers in Genesis. “Because of their part-time animal status, there is some understandable confusion. Obviously, they couldn’t have boarded in their human state,” continued Ham, “as the only humans recorded to have come onto the ark were Noah and his wife, his sons, and their wives.”

As the Answers in Genesis astronomer, Ken asked for my help. This is what I told him: “It is obvious that werewolves must be their own kind, as they cannot breed with anything but themselves. So we knew that there had to be a male and female werewolf that boarded the ark. But because their animal forms are tied into the phases of the moon, we know that they could only board near the time of a full moon.” (I went on to explain that werewolves could assume animal form on the night before or after a full moon of their own free will but were compelled to be werewolves on the night of the full moon, but I don’t think that they are going to use that in this exhibit.)

I did some more work. I checked the phase of the moon for December 7, 2349 BC, which Archbishop Ussher had determined was the day Noah’s flood started, and I found that that very night was a full moon, and not just any full moon but a blood moon. I mean how could it be more clear? Remember that the animals boarded the ark up to the day of the flood’s commencement, so the werewolves must have changed themselves to wolf form the day before (keeping their fur, just like their hair—perfect), and then Noah locked them up in cages so they wouldn’t eat the animals during the blood moon as the flood started.

But that still leaves the question of vampires unanswered, and even their status as the “undead” makes it hard to classify them. But Ken Ham had an answer readily available: “Vampires obviously came onto the ark as vampire bats. And this also explains why there are more vampires than werewolves today. Because vampire bats are winged creatures, 14 (seven pairs) came onto the ark, compared to only two werewolves.”

The exhibit will run from April through October.

Flat-earthers believe that the sun, moon, and stars move in circles above the flat plane of the earth. Therefore, in the flat-earth model, it is obvious that the earth can never come between the sun and earth, so the earth’s shadow cannot fall onto the moon. Consequently, flat-earthers must reject the conventional explanation for lunar eclipses. What do flat-earthers think causes lunar eclipses? They don’t know, nor do many flat-earthers spend much time thinking about that question. Instead, flat-earthers spend much more time trying to poke holes in the conventional explanation for lunar eclipses. In their attempts to refute the conventional explanation for lunar eclipses, flat-earthers often make two false claims. One claim is that the shadow on the moon moves the wrong direction, from left to right as opposed to right to left (this orientation is for those in the Northern Hemisphere—directions are reversed for those in the Southern Hemisphere). The other claim is that the shadow moving on the moon changes direction during the eclipse. For instance, here is a flat-earther’s video showing this apparent change in direction. Sure enough, in this video, the shadow seems to move in from the lower left, but the shadow seems to depart to the lower right. Can looks be deceiving? Yes, indeed.

The Evidence to Be Examined

The video that I referenced above appears to be one made during the March 13–14, 2025, total lunar eclipse, visible over much of the Western Hemisphere. That night, I led an eclipse watch party at the Johnson Observatory at the Creation Museum. During the watch party, I photographed the eclipse with cameras attached to two telescopes. For instance, here are some photographs I took with the observatory’s 3.5-inch Questar telescope.

I also took 922 photographs with the observatory’s 127 mm (5-inch) Televue refracting telescope. I removed the lens from my Nikon D5400 camera and, using an adaptor, attached the camera to the telescope, making the telescope lens the camera lens. I programmed the camera to take photographs about every 15 seconds, starting shortly before the partial phase of the eclipse began and ending shortly after the partial phase ended. The field of view of the Televue is about twice that of the Questar, so the moon appears around half as large in the photographs taken with the Televue than with the Questar. After polar aligning the mount of the Televue, I set the drive on the mount to the solar rate so that the telescope would track the earth’s umbra, the shadow of the earth, rather than tracking the moon (I could have used that option). I made this time-lapse video of the 922 photographs.

I should explain a few things about this video. You may wonder about the gaps in the video. Though the sky was clear most of the time, some clouds occasionally passed through. A few thin clouds will dim the images, but opaque clouds will not allow any moonlight through. There was a time prior to totality and again at the start of totality that I stopped taking photographs for a few minutes as I waited for clouds to pass through.

You also may notice that the earth’s umbra on the moon appears to jump ahead a few times before totality and retreat a few times after totality. That is because I changed the ISO settings and exposure times on the camera during the eclipse. That is necessary because the light level of the moon changed tremendously throughout a lunar eclipse, much more than from the impression one gets from watching an eclipse. I began and ended my sequence with exposure times of 1/2000 seconds and an ISO setting of 200. During totality, I often used exposure times of six seconds and an ISO setting of 800. That means that the sensitivity of the camera changed by (800/200) x (6)(2000) = 48,000. If I had kept the same camera settings throughout the eclipse that I began with, then the photographs during totality would have been blank (dark). If I had used the camera settings throughout the eclipse that I used during totality, then the lit part of the moon would have been grossly overexposed in the partial phases. Those not familiar with the details of photography may have difficulty understanding this because our eyes seem to capture the entire eclipse effortlessly. Our eyes respond to light logarithmically, which compresses large differences in brightness. However, cameras respond to light linearly. Consequently, the camera does not record exactly what the eye sees.

The earth’s umbra is surrounded by the earth’s penumbra, or partial shadow. The portion of the moon in the penumbra is still lit by sunlight, but not as much as it would be if no eclipse were occurring. Since our eyes compress light differences, penumbral shading appears very subtle to our eyes, and penumbral shading is apparent just before the partial phase and shortly after the partial phase ends. On the other hand, because cameras respond to light linearly, penumbral shading can show up well in photographs. The edge of the earth’s umbra is a little fuzzy because the earth’s atmosphere refracts light into the umbra. Because cameras respond to light linearly, depending upon the camera settings, the edge of the umbra in photographs may be less distinct than it is to the eye. As I increased the sensitivity of the camera (such as by increasing the exposure time), the edge of the earth’s shadow appeared to jump ahead before totality. The reverse happened after totality as I decreased the sensitivity of the camera. If you carefully watch the flat-earther’s video linked above, you will see the same effects in that video as you see in mine, due to the same causes.

Examining the Evidence

Wrong Direction?

Why do flat-earthers think that the earth’s shadow moves the wrong direction during a lunar eclipse? The eclipse spanned a few hours. Everyone knows that during the day the sun moves east to west across the sky. In north temperate latitudes, we look southward to look at the sun, so the sun moves left to right across the sky (in south temperate latitudes, those directions are reversed). Most of us understand that this east-to-west motion of the sun each day is due to the earth’s rotation. However, flat-earthers reject that explanation and insist that it is the sun that moves east to west across the sky. To avoid endorsing either explanation, let us simply call the observed east-to-west motion of the sun its daily motion. Less known to the public is that all celestial objects, such as the moon and stars, share in this daily motion. Therefore, during March’s lunar eclipse, the moon moved east to west (left to right) across the sky. But if that is the case, wouldn’t one expect that as the moon moved left to right across the sky that the right side of the moon would enter the earth’s shadow first, causing the earth’s shadow to move across the moon from right to left? But the earth’s shadow appeared to move left to right across the moon. To see this, look again at the flat-earther’s video. In this video, you see the shadow move left to right across the moon.

Are the flat-earthers on to something here? No. Flat-earthers are unaware of another motion that is going on during a lunar eclipse. Each month, the moon moves around the sky. I would attribute that motion to the moon’s orbit around the earth. But flat-earthers don’t think the moon orbits the earth (nothing can orbit the earth in their view). Again, to avoid endorsing one of these positions, then let’s simply call this motion the moon’s monthly motion. Every 24 hours, the sun’s daily motion takes the sun through 360 degrees, so the sun’s daily motion is at the rate of 15 degrees per hour. Meanwhile, the moon’s monthly motion takes 29.5 days with respect to the sun. Note that the moon’s monthly motion is opposite the daily motion, west to east (right to left in north temperate latitudes). Since the moon’s monthly motion takes 29.5 days with respect to the sun, then each day the moon moves an average of 360/29.5 = 12.2 degrees. Dividing by 24 hours, the moon’s monthly motion is at the rate of 0.51 degrees per hour. That is, as the sun moves eastward 15 degrees per hour at the daily rate, the moon shares in the daily rate, but the moon also moves 0.51 degrees westward at the same time. Consequently, the moon’s daily rate is slowed to about 14.49 degrees westward, a little slower than the sun’s daily motion. If you have watched a solar eclipse, you have seen the moon move 0.51 degrees per hour west to east (right to left) across the sun.

Since the earth’s shadow is opposite the sun, then the earth’s shadow (umbra) must move with the daily rate of 15 degrees per hour as the sun does. Though we don’t normally see the earth’s umbra at night, it moves at the daily rate. Therefore, both the moon and the earth’s umbra move east to west (left to right) at the rate of 15 degrees per hour. However, the moon is simultaneously moving the opposite direction (right to left) at its monthly rate of 0.51 degrees per hour, so the moon’s net motion again is 14.49 degrees per hour. Therefore, during a lunar eclipse, the moon moves into the umbra from the right side of the umbra, causing the earth’s umbra to appear to move in on the left side of the moon. When looking at videos of a lunar eclipse with moon’s position fixed (as with the flat-earther’s video linked above), the earth’s umbra appears to move left to right onto the moon. However, when the earth’s umbra remains in a fixed position, as in my video, we see that it is the moon that is moving into the earth’s umbra, not the other way around. Hence, the observed left to right apparent motion is what is expected in the conventional explanation for lunar eclipses , and flat-earthers are wrong when they claim the earth’s shadow moves in the wrong direction during a lunar eclipse.

Hence, the observed left to right apparent motion is what is expected in the conventional explanation for lunar eclipses.

Changing Direction?

What about the second flat-earther claim that the earth’s shadow changes direction during a lunar eclipse? Looking at time-lapse videos of lunar eclipses with the moon’s position fixed (as in the flat-earthers’ video), one certainly gets the impression that the earth’s umbra changed directions. However, if one looks at a time-lapse video of a lunar eclipse with the earth’s umbra remaining stationary, as in my video, one does not get the impression of a changed direction. Remember that it is the moon that is moving to cause a lunar eclipse, not the earth’s umbra that is moving. In my video, the moon’s motion remained in the same direction throughout the eclipse. The fact that the earth’s round umbra is nearly 2 ½ times larger than the moon and that the moon usually does not pass centrally through the earth’s umbra helps give the impression that the motion changes direction. Only during a relatively rare central eclipse does one not get the impression of a changing direction of motion.

This figure shows the circumstances of the March 13–14, 2025, total lunar eclipse. The red circle represents the earth’s umbra, and the gray circle represents the earth’s penumbra. The seven moon images show the motion of the moon through the earth’s shadows, moving from west to east (right to left). The first moon image shows where the moon was at the beginning of the penumbral phase. The second moon image shows the moon’s position at the beginning of the partial phase. The third moon image shows the location of the moon at the beginning of the total phase. The fourth moon image shows the moon’s location at the middle of the eclipse. The remaining three moon images show the moon’s position at the end of the total phase, the end of the partial phase, and the end of the penumbral phase. Notice where the partial phase ended and began on the moon. With the orientation of the moon in this figure, the partial phase began around the 7:30 position on the moon, while the partial phase ended around the 3:00 position on the moon. These two points are not diametrically opposite, which gives the impression of a changing direction in a moon-centered view of the eclipse.

On July 5–6, 1982, I watched a nearly central lunar eclipse. This figure shows the circumstances of that eclipse. Notice that the partial phase began and ended on the moon at nearly diametrically opposite sides of the moon. Even with a moon-fixed view of this eclipse, one would not get the impression of the motion if the umbra’s changing direction.

Conclusion

The photographs that I made of the recent total lunar eclipse disprove two claims that flat-earthers often make about eclipses, that the shadow on the moon moves the wrong way and that the shadow shifted direction during the eclipse. The illusion behind these two claims stem from not realizing that it is the moon moving into the earth’s umbra and by looking at time-lapse videos that tracked the moon as it moved. Once one realizes that the moon is moving to cause lunar eclipses and one records a time-lapse video while tracking the earth’s umbra does one free oneself of the false impressions behind these two false claims.

By the way, I recently blogged about this eclipse a few days before it happened. I noted that this eclipse was three saros cycles after I saw a similar eclipse 54 years ago. It was nice to complete this cycle on this eclipse. It was also nice that the temperature the night of this eclipse was 50 degrees warmer than it was that chilly night in February 1971.

Join Me in Red River on April 11!

Why Do I Like Arches So Much?

People sometimes ask why I like arches so much. From the first time I saw an arch nearly 60 years ago (Kentucky’s Natural Bridge ), I was amazed by its beauty, and I wondered how it might have formed. In the autumn of 1973, my parents moved back to Menifee County, Kentucky, where they had grown up. My parents expected the Waltons, but they ended up in Hooterville, but that’s another story. I was a sophomore at Bob Jones University at the time, so I didn’t participate in the move. However, I did spend the summer of 1974 living with my parents in Menifee County. I had heard about the nearby Red River Gorge, but I had not spent any time there. So one day that summer, I drove the pickup truck to the gorge. As I drove through the gorge, I took advantage of every sign for an arch that I encountered. When I saw Rock Bridge , I was hooked.

Kentucky's Natural Bridge.

Rock Bridge.

That summer, I spent several more days exploring the gorge, and on subsequent trips to visit my parents over the next decade, I would sometimes spend a day in Red River. There are 11 arches in the gorge that have marked trails that lead you to them (three in Natural Bridge State Resort Park and eight in the Red River Gorge Geological Area, run by the National Forest Service). During that decade, I visited most of those arches. During that decade, I read in a couple of places the number of arches known in the gorge. One source said that there were more than 80 arches in the gorge, and the other source said that there were more than 100 arches in the gorge. I thought at the time that I would like to visit all the arches in the gorge, but with no signs, trails, and documentation, where was I supposed to learn where those other arches were?

Circumstances changed, and over the next three decades, I visited the gorge only twice. Once I got settled here in Northern Kentucky a decade ago, I began to visit Red River again (the gorge is only a two-hour drive). I made these occasional trips to the gorge with several different people from Answers in Genesis, but my activity in Red River ramped up six years ago when I teamed up with my hiking buddy, Eric Glover, who is a coworker here at Answers in Genesis. Eric searched online for information about those 80–100 other arches in the gorge, and he soon found a series of DVDs “The Arches of the Red River Gorge Kentucky” that Bill Patrick began producing nearly 25 years ago. I ordered the entire 10-volume set of DVDs, and later, I obtained the subsequent volumes 11 and 12 (volume 13 is in the works). The first DVD discussed many of the better-known Red River Gorge arches circa the turn of the century. When Bill made that first DVD, he probably didn’t plan to make more DVDs, but as Bill gained the confidence of other arch enthusiasts, they began to share their arch discoveries, some going back decades. The discussion of each arch in the DVDs includes photographs, a map, and most importantly, the latitude and longitude of each arch. This wasn’t possible before the advent of GPS. I watched the DVDs and transcribed the location of each arch. I handed that list off to Eric, who entered the data into his computer. I purchased a GPS device, into which Eric uploaded the data. We always take the GPS device on our treks in the gorge as we search out arches that we haven’t seen before. Over the past six years, I’ve managed to visit 375 arches in the gorge. So much for 80–100 arches in Red River.

You may wonder how many arches are in the gorge. No one knows, partly because we keep finding new arches. Those in the know agree that likely there are more than a thousand arches in the gorge, making Red River Gorge the place in the United States with the second greatest number of arches. With 2,000 arches, Utah’s Arches National Park has the greatest number of arches. But hold on—at the rate we are discovering previously unknown arches, it is possible that Red River might have the greatest number of arches. How could so many arches escape discovery? The rugged terrain and dense vegetation make it difficult to spot arches from any distance. This is very different from arches out West, which often can be spotted from considerable distances. In the Red River Gorge, it is possible to walk right past an arch without noticing it. Furthermore, I suspect that some people in the past may have seen some arches but were not impressed enough to mention them to anyone (not everyone is as thrilled by arches as I am).

When Is an Arch an Arch?

There is more to discovering an arch than just spotting it.

My hiking buddies and I have discovered several arches, but there is more to discovering an arch than just spotting it. First, one must ensure that the arch meets the minimum size requirement to be considered an arch. That criterion is that an opening must be at least three feet across in at least one direction, so I carry a tape measure with me. I’ve found several windows (a term for an opening that is too small to be an arch) that were just a few inches short of the minimum size (I need to carry a hammer and chisel with me). Second, to be a true arch, the opening must be eroded away from a single rock. A false arch is a rock that has fallen onto another rock to leave an opening. Most false arches are easy to identify, but some false arches are difficult to tell. Third, one must be certain that an arch that one has found has not been previously discovered. Several times my hiking buddies and I think that we have found an arch, but we later find that someone else has found the arch already. A case in point is the small arch in this photograph . I spotted this arch on my most recent trip to Red River, only to learn that this arch was recently discovered and probably will be featured in the upcoming Volume 13 DVD. Fourth, an arch must be confirmed, typically by another party locating the arch to verify its existence, confirming it meets the minimum size, and recording the same latitude and longitude originally reported. There are many arches reported decades ago (before GPS) that were located using compasses and topographical maps that still lack confirmation, largely because of the uncertainty in their locations. Confirmation is an important part of the process, as important as initial discovery. Several times, I have notified Bill Patrick of arches that my hiking buddies and I have found, only to learn that someone else had previously reported them. Bill was always thankful for the confirmation.

Small arch.

Arch rally group.

With the number of new arch discoveries reported to Bill, he regularly organizes arch rallies in the gorge. I attended my first rally a year ago, and I attended the most recent rally on March 1. Nearly 30 people showed up (in the photograph, I’m in the green sweatshirt just left of center). On rally days, people are paired in teams, with each drawing a slip of paper with an assignment to check out an arch, its location, and a small photograph. However, this year, Bill asked me if I would be willing to take on the challenge of confirming six arches relatively close together in Natural Bridge State Resort Park. Of course, I agreed, and that morning Bill paired me with veteran arch hunter Steve King (he’s to the right of me in the photograph). Many people say that I walk very fast in the gorge, leaving people behind. I don’t think I walk that fast, and after spending a day in the gorge with Steve, I know that I don’t. Steve left me in the dust. We were not able to find two of the assigned six arches, but we found the other four. I was familiar with the area, and on previous trips there, my hiking buddies and I had spotted two arches in the general area, one two years ago and the other just a few weeks earlier. We confirmed the locations of both of those arches. Confirmation of six arches in one day is not bad.

Why Isn’t Archaeology the Science of Arches?

I’m not a geologist, but I’ve gained appreciation for the Corbin Sandstone, the rock layer in which most Red River Gorge arches are found. I have found the Corbin Sandstone to be quite variable in its properties. I frequently have been surprised by what I find in that sandstone. For instance, earlier this year, I saw a lens, a patch of very different rock inserted into the sandstone. The name comes from the different material tapering out on either end, resembling a lens in shape. The rock in the lens I saw was a very crumbly shale, identical to shale found below, but not in contact with, the Corbin Sandstone. I had never seen a lens in the Corbin Sandstone, so that is something to watch for in the future.

But my growing interest in the geology of Red River has taken a more scientific turn of late. My favorite arch is Rock Bridge, a true bridge in that a stream flows under it. For 70 years, the formation theory for Rock Bridge is that it is the remnant of a retreating waterfall. According to this theory, a vertical joint just upstream from the waterfall allowed water to reach the undercut of the waterfall, diverting all the flow and eroding a new channel. After this, the new waterfall retreated upstream, leaving Rock Bridge behind. I disagree with this theory. The stream flows northward here, but it makes an abrupt right-angle turn to the east once it passes through the arch. Rock Bridge appears to be part of a wall that crosses the stream and continues to the west side of the stream, with a drainage on either side of the wall. Two to three years ago, I noticed that the wall extends about 100 yards to the west so that the two drainages are connected, forming a U-shaped channel, with the north branch of the U continuing downstream. I think that it is clear how Rock Bridge formed—the original flow followed a gooseneck meander around the wall before the flow punched through the wall, forming the arch and leaving the U-shaped channel without flow.

Rock Bridge.

Rock Bridge is the second stop on the Answers in Genesis field trip to Red River that I lead (I’ll say more about the field trip later). I point this feature out on the field trip, and I discuss my theory of how Rock Bridge formed. I point out to the guests that I needed a detailed survey of the area around Rock Bridge to support my theory. Alan More of Dallas was on the field trip a year and a half ago, and when I pointed out my need for a survey, Alan said that he could do that. So last May, Alan made a trip to the gorge with me along with a couple of his employees to survey the area around Rock Bridge. Last July, I gave my first presentation of my theory of how Rock Bridge formed at the meeting of the Creation Research Society at the Answers Center at the Ark Encounter.1 I shared the survey results as a key part of my presentation.

I have since learned that the three namesake arches of Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah are believed to have formed by the same mechanism. Therefore, at the end of March, I plan to visit the national monument to see for myself the evidence of this mechanism. I will drive there with my hiking buddy, Eric, but we will be joined by Canyon Ministries Director Nate Loper as well as Nathan Mogk, both from Arizona. While neither one is a professional geologist, both Nate and Nathan know much geology, so I hope to learn quite a bit from them while there.

But there are some added bonuses for being there. Natural Bridges National Monument has many petroglyphs, including a famous one that resembles a sauropod. Some creationists cite this petroglyph as evidence that humans and dinosaurs coexisted. I hope to visit that site and others to see the petroglyphs for myself and collect photographs. But wait—there’s more! This part of the country is more than a mile above sea level, very arid, and it is far from any large city. Therefore, the skies are excellent for stargazing. I planned the trip to coincide with dark moon so that I can photograph the sky. In a future blog, I’ll share the photographs of rocks and stars that I might take. Our main target is the national monument, but if time allows, Eric and I hope to visit Arches National Park to take in some more arches. I briefly visited the national park a few years ago, but there is much more there I want to see.

Why Don’t You Join Me in Red River Gorge?

Earlier I mentioned Explore Arches, an Answers in Genesis field trip that I lead in Red River Gorge (what I unofficially call “Arch Encounter”). There is still room for you to join us on our next excursion on April 11. You can see the evidence of the rapid formation of Rock Bridge for yourself. Sign up here. Did I mention that I will bring a bottle of Cheerwine for you to drink with your lunch that day?

There will be a total lunar eclipse overnight Thursday–Friday, March 13–14, 2025. How long will this eclipse be? There will be approximately 65 minutes of totality. Who will see this eclipse? People in the Americas will be able to view the entire eclipse (it will be daylight on Friday for most of the rest of the world). This will make a great family activity, especially for homeschoolers. However, the eclipse may be a bit inconvenient (especially for young children), given that it doesn’t start until after midnight, at least in the eastern United States. On March 14, the first partial phase will begin at 1:09 a.m. EDT. Totality will be between 2:26 a.m. and 3:31 a.m. EDT. The second partial phase will end at 4:48 a.m. EDT. The eclipse will be preceded and followed by the penumbral phases of the eclipse, when the moon passes through earth’s outer shadow (penumbra), but to most people, the full moon will appear as bright as usual during the penumbral phases.

I plan to go to bed very early that evening and wake up well before midnight to be prepared, weather permitting. You see, in addition to leading a group in viewing the eclipse that night, I plan to take photographs with two telescopes. It will take some time to set up all the telescopes we’ll need. A telescope is not necessary, but it does enhance the view, even if you have a cheap telescope. And binoculars work well too. If you wish to take photographs, you will need a strong zoom lens on your camera, and you must have a sturdy tripod for your camera. Try various exposure times and ISO settings to bracket the photos. Keep in mind that mid-March is late winter, so it is likely to be cold that night, so dress warmly (of course, conditions will vary depending on location). However, it certainly won’t be as cold as when I saw the previous member of this saros series of lunar eclipses visible from the United States. You see, I’ve sort of seen this eclipse before.

How to Plan

What do I mean? About six months before the 2024 total solar eclipse, I blogged about the requirements for an eclipse and the fact that 18 years, 11 1/3 days after an eclipse occurs, nearly the same conditions repeat. We call this period the saros cycle. Since the saros cycle involves one-third of a day, each successive eclipse in a saros series is displaced about one-third the way around the earth (i.e., shifts about 120° in longitude due to the extra eight-hour displacement). Therefore, it takes three saros cycles (54 years, 34 days) for a similar eclipse to be seen in roughly the same part of the world. There are numerous saros series of related eclipses going on simultaneously, with one saros cycle between each member of each saros series. Currently, there are 40 active saros series of solar eclipses and 41 active saros series of lunar eclipses. For instance, the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, was number 30 of saros series 139. In a blog post six months after the 2024 total solar eclipse, I commented on the fact that on March 7, 1970, (three saros cycles earlier), I had watched a similar eclipse (number 27 of saros series 139), although the eclipse was not total where I was. In my blog post, I even shared some photographs of the partial solar eclipse I had taken 54 years before. It was nice to complete the cycle between my first and latest solar eclipse, with both being members of the same saros series.

The March 13–14 total lunar eclipse is number 53 of saros series 123 (there are 19 more lunar eclipses in this saros series until it ends late in the twenty-fourth century, with the final eclipse occurring in 2367). On February 10, 1971, I watched the even longer total lunar eclipse (82 minutes), number 50 of the same saros series 123. It’s hard to believe it’s been 54 years since then. At that time, in 1971, I lived in Fairborn, Ohio, and the temperature was below zero degrees Fahrenheit that night. I stayed up much of the night watching the eclipse with a friend, though we often came into the house to warm up. That was unusually cold even for February, but I doubt it is likely to be that cold a bit farther south of Fairborn in mid-March. I hope the sky is clear for this eclipse so that I can get closure on this saros series (I’m not likely to make the next one, number 56 in the saros series 123, occurring in 2079).1

For families, this may be a good opportunity to build memories and to teach your children about God and his amazing creation (Deuteronomy 6:7). When I watched that lunar eclipse in 1971 (my second lunar eclipse), I didn’t give any thought to the possibility of seeing a related eclipse 54 years later, but here I am. If you introduce your children to this lunar eclipse, they may be able to hand down the memory to their grandchildren (your great-grandchildren). It reminds me of Psalm 89:37:

Like the moon it shall be established forever, a faithful witness in the skies.

Happy viewing!

How is this blog post like the Seinfeld television show? They both are about nothing. A recent extensive search for alien radio transmissions resulted in nothing. That is, there were no detections.

Frank Drake launched the first SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program in 1960. Drake realized that humans had been broadcasting radio transmissions for a few decades. Hence, if astronomers existed on alien worlds in nearby star systems, within a few tens of lights years away, then they could detect humanity’s existence by intercepting radio broadcasts from earth. Drake turned this around by attempting to eavesdrop on alien civilizations.1 Drake began using large radio telescopes (which were new technology at that time in 1960) to look for possible radio transmissions from civilizations like ours that might be on planets orbiting stars. With advancements in technology, this research has blossomed. But as I’ve previously reported, there are no positive results.

While SETI’s search has advanced significantly since Drake’s time, the results remain the same—nothing! A recent news item reported on the latest venture into SETI. The Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster (COSMIC) is a computer and software system that piggybacks onto research being done with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) of radio telescopes in New Mexico. This system rapidly pores through the vast data looking for any signs of intelligent signals. This was not possible just a few years ago. The program has completed its scan of nearly one million individual pointings of the telescopes, and it found zero indications of intelligent signals.2

What does this mean? It’s not good news for secular scientists who are convinced that life arose naturally on earth from more primitive life-forms. They rely on the existence of extraterrestrial life to support and somehow justify their belief in a naturalistic origin of life and man, a process that we usually call evolution. The null result from COSMIC means that with increasing confidence we know that we are alone in the universe. Well, we aren’t exactly alone—there is God. Due to man’s special place in God’s creation, we at Answers in Genesis are not surprised by this null result in the search for other civilizations. That is, starting our thinking with the Bible, we don’t expect alien life to exist on other planets in the universe, and so these findings (or I should say lack of findings) are consistent with a biblical worldview.3 God fashioned earth as a special habitat for humanity, and then God uniquely placed man here to fulfill God’s pleasure (e.g., Isaiah 45:18). People may be surprised to learn that we at Answers in Genesis encourage the kind of work done by COSMIC, for it continually demonstrates man’s unique place in creation.

What About This Asteroid?

Many people have asked me about the news reports of an asteroid possibly hitting the earth in seven years. This asteroid was discovered in late December by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). ATLAS uses four 0.5-meter robotic telescopes to search for near earth objects (NEOs), which include both asteroids and comets. NEOs are objects that orbit the sun close to the earth and hence could collide with us. Such a collision might have a devastating impact on civilization, so discovering NEOs with that potential would be desirable, though it’s not clear what effective response we might have to such a threat.

The asteroid in question received the designation 2024YR₄. This prosaic name reflects when it was discovered. 2024YR₄ was discovered on December 27, two days after it passed a little over half a million miles from the earth, slightly more than twice the moon’s distance from earth. Its orbital period is 3.991 years, and its distance from the sun varies between 0.8515 AU and 4.181 AU. The AU is the astronomical unit, defined as the average distance of the earth from the sun, about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers. As 2024YR₄ sped away from earth, measurements of its position allowed computation of 2024YR₄’s orbit. Soon 2024YR₄ was too far from earth and hence too faint to be observed, but there will be future opportunities to reobserve 2024YR₄ to refine our understanding of its orbit.

The preliminary orbit indicated that 2024YR₄ will pass within 110,000 miles of the earth on December 22, 2032. That is less than half the distance to the moon. However, the uncertainty in the distance of closest approach is greater than the earth-moon distance, so there is potential of a collision with earth. How likely is that possibility? Right now, it is calculated to be 2%. How large is 2024YR₄? That too is uncertain, but preliminary estimates place it in the range of 40–90 meters. Ninety meters is nearly the length of a football field. Given its size and a 2% probability of a collision with earth in late 2032, on January 29 this year, the International Asteroid Warning Network issued a warning.

The preliminary orbit indicated that 2024YR₄ will pass within 110,000 miles of the earth on December 22, 2032.

Why the uncertainty about 2024YR₄’s size and a possible collision? All measurements are subject to error. With repeated measurements, the effects of those errors diminish, especially in computing orbits. The recent measurements of 2024YR₄’s position spanned only 45 days. There will be opportunities in the future when 2024YR₄ is closer to earth than it is now to measure its position and hence refine its orbit calculation. This will be particularly true in December 2028 when 2024YR₄ will pass within five million miles of earth. That much larger baseline (four years versus 45 days) will allow a very precise orbit calculation, so in a few years, we’ll know with more certainty whether a collision will happen in 2032. As for 2024YR₄’s size, infrared observations are valuable in measuring that. Fortunately, over the next few months, 2024YR₄ will be within the grasp of the James Webb Space Telescope, which is an infrared telescope. Therefore, in a few months, we will have a better understanding of 2024YR₄’s size.

What Does This Mean to Believers?

What does this mean to Christians? Given that this possible collision could be catastrophic, and it is seven years away, some Christians will see apocalyptic significance. But this sort of thing is not new. For instance, five years ago, I wrote about a book discussing the possible collision of asteroid 99942 Apophis in 2029 and how that might fulfill biblical prophecy. While that asteroid initially posed a threat, later refinement of its orbit showed otherwise—it isn’t going to collide with earth in 2029, but its close pass that year could set up a collision in 2036. I expect that some books will quickly go to press about 2024YR₄ and what some people think it means prophetically. I suggest that you save your money and do not buy these books because later observations likely will reduce the threat of 2024YR₄ to zero.

There have been other supposedly apocalyptic things in the heavens. We can’t forget the excitement eight years ago about the supposed fulfillment of Revelation 12:1–2 in the sky on September 23, 2017. Obviously, that date passed without incident. Nor should we forget about the “blood moons” of 2014–2015 that spawned several books and a movie a dozen years ago. Those eclipses did not usher the return of Jesus to earth either. In 2017, I recalled similar prophetic fulfillment claims throughout my lifetime, and I concluded that I had survived the end of the world 10 times since reaching adulthood. Such wild speculation ultimately brings disrepute upon the cause of Christ.

The central point of our anticipation of the blessed hope of the Lord’s return is that we be ready (1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11; Titus 2:11–14).

What is the proper biblical response to these apocalyptic claims of some Christians? By setting dates and working out timetables for the end times, we miss the central point. We know that Jesus will return, but with Jesus’ warning that no one knows the time of his return (Matthew 24:36), we ought to avoid speculations about the time of Jesus’ return. The central point of our anticipation of the blessed hope of the Lord’s return is that we be ready (1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11; Titus 2:11–14). To be ready, how should we conduct ourselves? The Apostle Peter stated it well:

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 2 Peter 3:11–14

Are you living your life this way?

Before previewing what will be in the sky this year, let me briefly review the year that just passed.

2024 in Review

2024 was a banner year for astronomy. The main event was the total solar eclipse in April. I wrote a short blog post about the eclipse the next day, and I followed it up with a more detailed report later. The latter blog post included a connection to my first solar eclipse (albeit a partial eclipse) 54 years earlier and a time-lapse video of this eclipse. It will be two decades before we in the United States will be treated to another total solar eclipse.

Eclipses are predicted far in advance, but in astronomy, we sometimes have unexpected things arise. Just a month after the eclipse, the largest solar flare in two decades occurred. Situated at the center of the sun’s visible disk, the charged particles the solar flare spewed headed straight for earth, and the next night the sky was lit up with an aurora seen across the United States. Unfortunately for me, it was mostly cloudy in Northern Kentucky that evening. I saw the aurora between the clouds for perhaps 15 minutes before the sky became completely overcast. Five months later, another solar flare occurred. Though not as powerful as the flare in May, an alert went out to be on the watch for auroral activity. I happened to be with a few friends at the Johnson Observatory behind the Creation Museum on the evening of October 10. I kept an eye out, but I didn’t see anything until a bit past 9:30 p.m., about the time my guests were thinking of going home. Suddenly, an aurora put on quite a display for about a half hour. Solar flares occur around sunspots, and sunspot cycle 25 peaked in 2024. The sunspot activity will remain high throughout 2025, so there likely will be some solar flares this year. Therefore, be on the watch for more aurorae this year.

Also in early October, there were predictions of the naked-eye visibility of Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, a recently discovered comet. Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS turned out to be the brightest comet in years. Cloudy weather prevented me from seeing the comet on its peak nights, but I first spotted it on October 17. I took photographs several evenings, with my best photographs taken under the dark skies of Red River Gorge on October 21. Have I ever mentioned my obsession with Red River Gorge? I lead field trips there. You can find out more and sign up for an excursion to Red River Gorge here.

Will There Be Big Things in 2025?

As for predicted things, no. There are no total solar eclipses this year, but there will be two total lunar eclipses, one on the night of March 13–14 and one on the night of September 7–8. The September lunar eclipse will be visible in Australia, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The United States will have a ringside seat for the March eclipse. We will have an eclipse watch party at the Johnson Observatory at the Creation Museum. You can sign up here but be advised that this free event is in the middle of the night—in late winter. So, if you join us, be sure to dress warmly.

As I’ve already mentioned, there ought to be plenty of sunspots every day in 2025. Be aware that if you visit the Creation Museum this summer, you may see me out front with a telescope and filter for safely viewing the sun. We call this program Sunspotting. We do Sunpotting 10:00–11:00 a.m., Monday–Friday, on clear summer days when I’m available. Sunspots are way cool! (7,000–8,000ºF as compared to 10,000ºF for the rest of the sun’s surface!) So why don’t you come by and take a look?

Will there be another bright comet this year? Again, we can’t predict these things. I consider it unlikely, but you never know. Stay tuned for announcements of any new bright comet discoveries.

Before reviewing the things that we know will happen this year, let me revisit some unfinished business from 2024. In March, I blogged about T Coronae Borealis, a recurrent nova that erupts about every 80 years. T CrB normally is far too faint to be seen with the naked eye, but when it erupts, T CrB is about as bright as the North Star for a night or two. There were some indications that 2024 was going to be the year T CrB would erupt (the last time was in 1946), with the eruption most likely happening by September 2024. Well, it didn’t happen. That makes it more likely that T CrB will brighten in 2025. Or maybe not. I’ve been checking on T CrB every clear evening and/or morning since early March. I even took some “before” photographs to compare to an “after” photograph. T CrB will brighten only for a night or two before it slips below naked-eye visibility again. I just hope T CrB erupts on a clear night so that I can take the second photograph. I’d hate to wait until I’m 150 years old to finish this project.

As the year begins, four of the five naked-eye planets will be visible in the evening sky.

What Will Happen in the 2025 Skies?

As the year begins, four of the five naked-eye planets will be visible in the evening sky. The brightest planet is Venus. Look for it as a very bright star in the southwestern sky in the evening twilight. If you have even a small telescope, the first two-and-a-half months of 2025 will provide a great opportunity for an observing project, particularly for homeschoolers. Throughout 2024, Venus was not impressive when viewed through a telescope. This was because Venus was on the far side of the sun at midyear (an event we call superior conjunction), with Venus approaching that position in the first half of 2024 and leaving that position in the second half of 2024. Consequently, Venus appeared small and nearly fully lit during much of 2024. However, as 2025 begins, Venus is rapidly approaching the earth. When viewed through a telescope in January, Venus will be half lit, and its apparent size will noticeably increase each week. By February, Venus will assume a crescent shape, and Venus’ apparent size will increase each week. In early March, the crescent will thin and increase in size. In mid-March, Venus will plunge toward the sun, passing between us and the sun (an event we call inferior conjunction), and will not be visible for a couple of weeks.

Venus

Venus will reappear in the morning sky by late March, appearing as a bright star low in the eastern sky during morning twilight. Viewed through a telescope, Venus will go through the changes it showed in the first part of the year but in reverse order. At first, Venus will be a large, thin crescent, but each week the crescent will thicken, and Venus will appear smaller. By June, Venus will appear half lit. After that, Venus will continue to shrink and approach being fully lit. By the end of 2025, Venus will pass through superior conjunction, departing the morning sky and shifting back to the evening sky early in 2026. As I said, when viewed through a telescope, Venus will put on quite a show for the first half of 2025, when it is near inferior conjunction. The synodic period is the time over which the visibility of a planet repeats. The synodic period of Venus is 584 days, a little more than 19 months. So, if you miss this opportunity to watch Venus in 2025, you will have to wait until late summer and autumn of 2026.

Saturn

Saturn begins the year in the evening sky, but, like Venus, it will soon leave the evening sky. At the beginning of the year, Saturn will be a moderately bright star east (in the Northern Hemisphere, left) of Venus. However, the separation of Venus and Saturn will diminish quickly, with the two planets being about two degrees apart on the evening of January 18. After that, Saturn passes to the right of Venus and will approach conjunction with the sun in early March. By the end of February, Saturn will be difficult to see in the evening twilight. Look for Saturn to reappear in the eastern morning sky by mid-April. Saturn will remain in the morning sky until September 20, when it reaches opposition to the sun and once again becomes an evening object. Actually, you will be able to see Saturn in the evening a bit before this, if you wait for it to rise.

Nearly everyone knows that Saturn has majestic rings. A less well-known fact is that even a small telescope will reveal Saturn’s rings. Except in 2025. Saturn and its rings are tilted 26.7 degrees to its orbital axis. Saturn takes 29.5 years to orbit the sun. As Saturn orbits the sun, the apparent tilt of Saturn’s rings changes. The rings are most impressive when the tilt we see is near maximum. However, twice each Saturnian orbital period, the earth passes through the plane of Saturn’s rings. Saturn’s rings are very thin (at most a few hundred feet), and Saturn is nearly a billion miles away. Therefore, when we pass through the ring’s plane, Saturn’s rings entirely disappear, even when viewed through the largest telescopes. In 2025, we pass through the ring plane twice, once in March and again in November. March would be the better opportunity to see a ringless Saturn, but Saturn will be in conjunction with the sun then, rendering it at best very difficult to see Saturn (though orbiting telescopes probably will photograph it). Between March and November, the rings will be barely visible through very large telescopes. If you want to see Saturn’s rings at their worst, this is the year. Or you can wait another 15 years.

Jupiter

Jupiter reached opposition to the sun in early December 2024, so it will be the dominant planet in the evening sky throughout the first half of 2025. At the beginning of the year, Jupiter will be the bright star low in the eastern sky. Each successive evening, Jupiter will move slightly to the west, disappearing in the western sky in the evening twilight by mid-June. Look for Jupiter to reappear in the eastern morning sky by mid-July. Through even a small telescope, the disk of Jupiter will be visible, as well as Jupiter’s four Galilean satellites. We call these the Galilean satellites because Galileo discovered these natural satellites, or moons, with his telescope four centuries ago. The Galilean satellites have obvious changes in position from one night to the next. Observing and plotting the positions of the Galilean satellites each evening is a fun and educational project.

Mars

Mars reaches opposition to the sun on January 15, so Mars will be visible in the evening sky throughout 2025. Opposition is when a planet is opposite the sun in the sky, rising at sunset and setting at sunrise. For superior planets (planets orbiting farther from the sun than the earth), opposition is when they are closest to earth. Since the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn are so large, their relative distances from the earth don’t change much, so it doesn’t matter if we observe them at opposition or some other time. However, since Mars orbits the sun just beyond the earth, its relative distance changes dramatically. And Mars is a small planet (it’s only half the earth’s size). Consequently, Mars usually appears very small when viewed through a telescope. Mars appears largest through a telescope when Mars is near opposition. So, as the new year begins, Mars is well-placed for viewing, but you better act quickly because the distance between the earth and Mars steadily increases throughout 2025. On average, Mars comes to opposition with the sun once every 26 months. If you miss this opportunity to see Mars at its best, you’ll have to wait until early 2027 to see it this well again.

Speaking of Mars, on the night of January 13–14, the moon will occult (pass in front of) Mars for those in the United States. To find the times of disappearance and reappearance of Mars, consult this website. I have it set for Cincinnati, but you can change it for your location. The moon will be nearly full, so it will be difficult to see Mars as it passes behind and then reappears. To see this occultation, you will probably need a pair of binoculars or a small telescope. The moon also will occult the Pleiades star cluster on the night of February 5–6, but this event will be best viewed by people in the western United States.

Mercury

What about Mercury? Being so close to the sun, Mercury is difficult to see. It is best seen for a week or two when it is at its greatest elongation from the sun. Mercury is at greatest eastern elongation from the sun on March 7, July 3, and October 29. Look for Mercury low in the west in evening twilight for a few days on either side of these dates. I expect that early March will be the best opportunity. Mercury’s greatest western elongation from the sun occurs on April 21, August 19, and December 7. Look for Mercury low in the eastern sky in morning twilight for several days around these dates. I think August and December will be better than April for doing this.

Meteor Showers

The Perseid meteor shower will peak on the morning of August 12, but the meteor shower will be good over a few nights on either side of the peak. While this is a reliable meteor shower, the peak is only a few days after the full moon, with the bright waning gibbous moon rising about the end of twilight on August 9. Therefore, moonlight will interfere with all but the brightest Perseid meteors, diminishing the number of meteors that you will see. Much better will be the Geminid meteor shower, which will peak on the morning of December 14, with good numbers over several nights. The waning crescent moon will rise in the early morning hours, but its light should not interfere with the meteors much. With both meteor showers, you will see more meteors after local midnight than before local midnight.

Get out and enjoy the sky that God gave us!

Keep in mind that an unanticipated astronomical event may arise in 2025. If so, I’ll try to inform you in future blog posts. Meanwhile, get out and enjoy the sky that God gave us (Psalm 19:1)!

I’m sure that many of you have heard about Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS that graced the evening sky earlier this month. I managed to spot the comet on the evening of October 17. I took some photographs of the comet that evening, but the light of the rising full moon (hunter’s moon) interfered. And the lights of suburban Cincinnati didn’t help. I took photographs of the comet on October 19 and 20 too. The moonlight wasn’t as bad on those evenings, but city lights were still a problem. I longed to be in a dark site to see and photograph the comet under much better conditions.

Fortunately, I had planned to spend October 21–22 in Red River Gorge, a wilderness area in eastern Kentucky a two-hour drive from the Creation Museum and a place that I’ve blogged about before. So, on Monday evening, October 21, I took photographs of the comet from Chimney Top, a hoodoo in the gorge, and one of the best places in the gorge where one can see most of the sky (at most locations in the gorge, one can’t see the sky because of the trees).

Comet (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is the brightest comet in several years, but it is fading rapidly as it departs the sun.

Here I’m sharing one of those photographs. Thanks to Jim Bonser, who did some post-exposure production to make this photograph pop! Jim contributed some of his astrophotos for my book, The Heavens: A Different View, so he is experienced in improving astrophotos such as this. You can clearly see the comet with its long tail on the right and the Milky Way on the left. Venus is the bright star above the horizon slightly to the right of the center. In the lower part of the horizon, there is Pinch-Em Tight Gap in Pinch-Em Tight Ridge. The light below the horizon on the left is a light from a camper half a mile away at Hanson’s Point at the southernmost part of Pinch-Em Tight Ridge visible from Chimney Top. The “star” slightly above the horizon on the far left is a red light on a cell phone tower. I took this photograph with my Nikon D5600 camera with a 14 mm f/2.8 lens. The ISO was 6400, and exposure time was six seconds.

I’ll have more to say about this comet in an article that I am writing.

In early May, there was an intense solar flare on the center of the sun’s visible disk. It was the most intense solar flare in two decades. Being at the center of the sun’s disk meant that the burst of charged particles from the flare was directed toward the earth. When particles from solar flares reach the earth about a day later, they can interact with the earth’s magnetic field to produce an aurora borealis (aurora australis in the Southern Hemisphere), or northern lights. Sure enough, that evening I spotted some green and red arcs from my front yard, albeit through breaks in the clouds. I excitedly alerted my neighbors who happened to be outside, as well as my wife and some houseguests we had. But by the time I set up my camera, the clouds thickened, and soon, the entire sky was socked in for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, much of the United States was treated to the best auroral display in decades.

We are in the solar maximum of the 11-year sunspot cycle, so I had some confidence that I might yet see an aurora this year. I didn’t have to wait long. On Thursday, October 10, there was a solar flare, and alerts went out for possible auroral activity the next night or two. As it so happened, I had planned to take a few friends to the Johnson Observatory on the grounds of the Creation Museum on Thursday evening. I told my guests of the possibility of seeing an aurora, but as the sky darkened, we didn’t see anything unusual in the sky. The moon was at first quarter, so everyone was delighted to see the moon up close through one of our telescopes. We used two other telescopes to look at the globular cluster M13, the Ring Nebula (M57), and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). Saturn is my favorite thing to look at through the telescopes, and I never get tired of seeing it. And Saturn did not disappoint. Saturn usually is the showstopper, but on Thursday evening, it was eclipsed by something better.

A little past 9:30 p.m., my guests were getting ready to leave when I thought the sky to the north looked a little brighter than usual. I thought, “Could that be an aurora?” With proper settings, the camera can capture things too faint for the eye to see, so I quickly set up one of my cameras on a tripod and began taking photographs. Jim Bonser, an Iowa pastor and amateur astronomer was with us, and he thought the same thing, so he began taking photographs with his cell phone.

We saw red and green light in the sky for about a half hour, and then it was over.

About the same time, our first photographs revealed that an aurora was underway. Others began to take photos with their cell phones, and we kept looking at our photos while keeping an eye on the sky. After a few minutes, I drew attention to a red pillar of light that I could faintly see. It rapidly brightened, and soon other pillars appeared, and then they began to move. I eventually began taking photos to make a time-lapse video of the motion of the auroral arcs. We saw red and green light in the sky for about a half hour, and then it was over.

I’m sharing here one of my better photographs, as well as a time-lapse video that I made from 331 two-second photos I took between 10:04 p.m. and 10:31 p.m. The latter shows the rapid changes in the aurora. An aurora is an amazing display of God’s glory (Psalm 19:1). We can probably expect a few more nights like this over the next year, so stay tuned. I’ll share any new photos that I take and videos that I make.

Note: As I mentioned, Jim Bonser, who attended the Answers for Pastors and Leaders conference at the Answers Center with his wife, was at the observatory. Jim is an accomplished astrophotographer, and he supplied many of the photographs that made my coffee-table book, The Heavens: A Different View, so beautiful.

It’s hard to believe that the total solar eclipse was six months ago. Since then, I’ve watched the sun pass through full phase back to new phase (the only time a solar eclipse can happen) six times. There was a shallow partial lunar eclipse on the evening of September 18. I had hoped to photograph that eclipse to make a time-lapse video of the event. We even planned an eclipse watch party at the Creation Museum that evening. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy that night, so we stayed in the planetarium. However, as we left the building about the time of mid-eclipse, the clouds thinned enough that we could see the partially eclipsed moon. The day after April’s total solar eclipse, I blogged about the eclipse party that we had, and I shared a few photographs. In that blogpost, I promised some follow-up. I had intended to do so earlier, but I’ve been distracted by other things. So now I’m catching up a little bit.

Photographing the Eclipse

I wanted to capture the solar eclipse photographically. At the 2017 total solar eclipse and again at last October’s annular eclipse, I took the Johnson Observatory’s 3.5-inch Questar telescope to which I attached one of my digital SLR cameras. I previously shared some photographs that I took at the 2017 eclipse and the 2023 eclipse. The Questar has superb optics, and being so portable, it travels very well (it fits in the overhead bins of airliners). A decade ago, we purchased the Questar primarily to use on my “geology by day, astronomy by night” Grand Canyon raft trips. However, the Questar is versatile, making it my preferred telescope to take on trips, as well as a part of our on-site Stargazer programs here at the Creation Museum. Therefore, there was no question of my photographing April’s eclipse with the Questar.

One drawback of the Questar is that when I take photographs, its field of view is only slightly larger than the sun. This is fine for the partial phases of a total solar eclipse, but during totality it can capture only the innermost part of the sun’s corona. Since where we viewed the eclipse was only a two-hour drive from the Creation Museum, I drove my car, so I was also able to take the bulkier 126-mm (5-inch) Televue refractor. This telescope has half the focal length of the Questar, which means it has twice the field of view of the Questar. Thus, the Televue is perfect for capturing the solar corona.

Furthermore, I wanted to make a time-lapse video of April’s total solar eclipse. When adjusting a camera attached to the Questar, the Questar tends to move a little bit. Thus, a consistent centering of the Questar is problematic. I included a 16-frame time-lapse video of the annular eclipse in my blogpost about the annular eclipse. Jim Bonser, who often does some clean-up work of my astrophotographs, was kind enough to recenter the 16 photographs so that I could make that video. However, I wanted to make a much smoother time-lapse video of April’s eclipse, capturing more than 3 ½ hours from before the partial phases through the ending partial phases. That would have required recentering many hundreds of photographs, a tedious operation at best. Thankfully, the heavy-duty mount of the Televue isn’t jostled so easily when adjusting the camera.

Fortunately, I have two Nikon cameras that I can attach to the telescopes, a D3200 and D5600. I already had a camera adapter for the Questar, but I had to buy a camera adapter for the Televue.

Additionally, the Questar comes with a solar filter, but I had to purchase a solar filter for the Televue. I attached the D5600 camera to the Televue and the D3200 camera to the Questar. The D5600 is programmable, so I set it up to record an image every 15-seconds, at least during the partial phases. Such uniformity is desirable for making a time-lapse video. Since I wasn’t going to make a time-lapse video from the Questar photographs, such uniformity was not necessary on the Questar. After a little experimentation, I settled on 1/4000 second exposures at ISO 100 on the Televue and 1/640 second exposures at ISO 100 on the Questar. We ended up taking more than 850 photographs with the Televue telescope, but we took only 88 photographs with the Questar.

Throughout the eclipse, the sun’s position in the sky changed.

Throughout the eclipse, the sun’s position in the sky changed. The mount of either telescope has a clock drive that turns the telescope at the rate of one rotation per day. This keeps the sun centered in the field of view, but this works only if the mount is oriented precisely parallel to the earth’s rotation axis. This polar alignment is best done at night when Polaris is visible. When I arrived at the location of the eclipse party the night before the eclipse, it was already dark, but there was light rain. That caused me concern. The forecast was for clearing skies the next morning, but would it clear in time for me to get a good polar alignment on the two telescopes? After much prayer, I was relieved to see a few stars between the clouds when I awoke at 4:00 a.m.

The first step was to level the telescope mounts. I was amazed when I was able to level the mounts faster than I ever had. By the time I leveled the mounts, the sky to the north was mostly clear, and so Polaris was readily visible. The Televue mount has a small telescope that fits into its polar axis. A reticle in the small telescope when lit with a red light shows the location of the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia, along with the location of Polaris to get a perfect polar alignment. All I needed to do was adjust the altitude and azimuth of the mount to center Polaris as seen through the small telescope. I’ve done this before, but never was it so critical to get this right. A look through the main Televue gave me the orientation with respect to Polaris necessary to get an excellent alignment for the Questar. All I needed to do was achieve the same position of Polaris through the eyepiece of the Questar that I had in the Televue. I was very thankful to get this critical step completed in the dark because it made tracking the sun very good that afternoon. Praise the Lord!

We expected a large crowd, so we spray painted a perimeter around these two telescopes, and we placed some stakes and strings along this perimeter as well. This was a “no-go” zone because we didn’t want anyone tripping over the power cords or bumping the tripod legs that would interfere with the perfect centering that we had. We buried a long extension cord that brought power to the two telescopes from a power outlet in a nearby barn.

The Other Telescopes

Lest you be concerned that we didn’t let people look through telescopes, a short distance from the “no-go” zone, we set up several other telescopes for public viewing of the partial phases of the eclipse (a telescope is not necessary during totality). I took two telescopes along for this (yes, I packed up four telescopes for the trip—the trunk and backseat of my car were full). One of the telescopes was an 8-inch Dobsonian that had belonged to David Durham, who worked in the bookstore at the Creation Museum. Unfortunately, David died three years ago (we all miss him very much). Shortly after his death, David’s widow donated his telescope to Answers in Genesis, where it has joined Johnson Observatory’s fine collection of telescopes. Since David’s telescope is relatively portable, I thought it suitable for viewing the eclipse. I tried the observatory’s 8-inch solar filter, but it didn’t fit, so I ordered a solar filter for David’s telescope. Once I set it up, I dragooned Eric Glover, my Red River Gorge hiking buddy and member of the Creation Museum’s housekeeping staff, to man David’s telescope. I chose well, because Eric did a superb job keeping the telescope centered on the sun.

I also brought along my 60-mm refractor that I’ve had for nearly 55 years. This was particularly memorable for me because it has a connection to my first solar eclipse on March 7, 1970, albeit only a 70% partial eclipse. As I previously explained, the April 8 eclipse was three saros cycles after the earlier eclipse. Therefore, this year’s eclipse is in the same Saros family as the 1970 eclipse. My refractor doesn’t have a good solar filter, so for both eclipses I projected the partial phase of the eclipse onto a solar projection screen (those seem to be a thing of the past, but they are excellent for group viewing). In 1970, I used a 126-instamatic camera (does anyone else remember that format?) to take some B&W photographs of the earlier eclipse. I used my cell phone to take some color photographs of the recent eclipse. I’ve included here two images for comparison. So, my trusty old telescope and I have gone full circle on this eclipse.

Early in totality, the slightly larger-appearing-than-normal moon blocked the view of this large prominence, but as totality progressed, more and more of it was exposed.

Several people brought along their telescopes to fill out the collection that day. Of note is Glen Fountain. He and his family drove up from Georgia for the eclipse, and Glen brought two telescopes with him. Glen and the previously mentioned Jim Bonser were the two amateur astronomers whose astrophotographs made my recent picture book The Heavens: A Different View possible. One of Jim’s telescopes was equipped with an H-alpha filter. An H-alpha filter allows viewing of solar prominences. Prominences normally are visible during totality. The view of prominences with an H-alpha filter is not nearly as good as the view during totality. Before the partial phase of the eclipse began, we noticed a large prominence on the sun’s limb (edge). I said then that that prominence would be the showstopper, and indeed it was, but not until near the end of totality. Early in totality, the slightly larger-appearing-than-normal moon blocked the view of this large prominence, but as totality progressed, more and more of it was exposed.

Totally Total!

Speaking of Glen, I had given much thought to how I would operate two cameras during the four minutes of totality. Since Glen is an accomplished astrophotographer, I asked him to operate one of the cameras during totality, and he graciously agreed to step into the “no-go” zone and help me. During totality, it’s important to change the exposure times to capture different things, such as the corona and prominences. Since I was familiar with the Questar’s tendency to move a bit while adjusting the camera settings and releasing the shutter, I thought it best for Glen to operate the camera on the more solidly mounted Televue. Glen did an excellent job of quickly taking photographs while bracketing the exposure times. He took more than 200 photographs during and around totality. I had made a check list for us to follow with respect to exposure times and ISO settings. We reviewed the check list several times as we approached totality. I had left one thing off the check list – removing the solar filters! In all the excitement, I forgot about this, but fortunately Glen had a clearer head, and he reminded me. Thank you, Glen!

After totality, I put the solar filters back on the two telescopes, and I resumed taking photographs throughout the rest of the partial phases of the eclipse. As I expected, people began to leave after totality. By the time the partial phases ended, there were few people left on the farm. It took some time to pack up, so I left more than two hours after totality. That was good because much of the heavy traffic had cleared by the time I left.

Once home, it took some time to go through the photographs. I used all the partial phase photographs before and after totality to make a time-lapse video, but what was I to do with the photographs taken during totality? They had varying exposure times and ISO settings. I experimented with several totality photographs. I finally settled on duplicating one good corona photograph 15 times. When I make time-lapse videos, I normally use a speed of 16 frames per second. Since the partial phase photographs were taken at the rate of four per minute, each second in a time-lapse video would correspond to four minutes of real time. Since we had nearly four minutes of totality, the 16 frames of the corona would match the real time expressed in the time-lapse video. I also selected a few diamond ring photographs on either side of totality to simulate the brief appearance of the diamond ring. I’m sharing the finished product here.

Conclusion

Totality is the most incredible natural phenomenon that I have experienced. It shows God’s creativity and artistry.

Over the past six months, I’ve had many discussions with people who saw the total solar eclipse. All the newbies agreed that it greatly exceeded their expectations. Totality is the most incredible natural phenomenon that I have experienced. It shows God’s creativity and artistry. As Psalm 19:1 states, the heavens declare God’s glory.

Where do we go from here? Well, there is a deep total lunar eclipse in less than six months, on the night of March 13–14, 2025. It will be visible in the Americas, though the time may be a bit inconvenient for some people: the time of mid-eclipse is close to 3:00 a.m. in the Eastern Standard Time zone. This is a deep eclipse, with totality lasting a little more than an hour. I previously mentioned the saros cycle and how an eclipse is repeated in roughly the same part of the world after three saros cycles. The second lunar eclipse that I saw was on the night of February 9-10, 1971, and it was in the same saros family as the 2025 lunar eclipse. So, I hope that I can see this eclipse too and go full circle on the 1971 eclipse. I remember that night well. It was very cold, with temperatures near zero degrees Fahrenheit. Perhaps this time I’ll be able to make that time-lapse video of a lunar eclipse. I hope that it won’t be nearly as cold as last time. Why don’t you join me that night? We have scheduled an eclipse party (weather permitting). You can register for this free event here.

The next total solar eclipse is on August 12, 2026. The path of totality sweeps past Greenland, a part of Iceland, and the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula. I’d like to go to Spain to see this one. After that, the next total solar eclipse is on August 2, 2027. This one is visible in north Africa, with greatest eclipse in Egypt. This one is significant because with 6 ½ minutes of totality, it will be the longest totality until the next century. And with Egypt’s dry climate, the probability of good weather is nearly 100%. I’d like to see this eclipse too. Finally, there is another total eclipse on July 22, 2028. The path of totality passes over Sydney, Australia, where there will be 3 ½ minutes of totality. With an Answers in Genesis office in Australia, I hope that we can arrange an event there for this eclipse. I could go on to 2030 and years beyond, but that is more than five years into the future. I’ll say more about those eclipses as we get closer.

In a blog post last year, I reported on a new flat-earth argument, this one about time zones. It seems that a flat-earther noticed that there appear to be fewer time zones in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. In his thinking, this wouldn’t work on a spherical earth but would make sense if the earth were flat. This claim quickly spread within the flat-earth movement, so I thought this claim required examination. The supposed discrepancy is a consequence of dramatically shifting the boundaries of time zones around for various reasons. For instance, due to its large size and sparse population, much of Alaska is in one time zone, though it ought to have several time zones. Similarly, there is a time zone “missing” in Siberia. These accounted for the supposedly missing time zones in the Northern Hemisphere. Despite the early rapid growth of this false claim among flat-earthers that prompted my response, this argument soon faded, so much so that one rarely hears it anymore.

Another Time Zone Argument

However, there is another time zone claim among flat-earthers that comes up from time to time. Credit for this one goes to a man named Brian who posts videos on the YouTube channel Brian’s Logic. Brian also is an associate of Nathan Oakley and John Stunja, two flat-earthers that I have discussed before, and so Brian is a frequent member of the panels on Nathan’s and John’s channels. In a recent program on John’s channel, Brian spoke about this other time zone argument. To hear this argument, listen for two minutes starting at 1:53:15.

I will summarize Brian’s argument. Charleston, South Carolina, and Long Beach, California, are near the 32° north parallel of latitude, while New Castle, New South Wales, and Perth, Western Australia, are near the 32° south parallel of latitude. Brian noted that the distance between either pair of cities is about the same, with only a 108-mile difference. Brian pointed out that the time difference between Charleston and Long Beach is three hours, while the time difference between New Castle and Perth is only two hours. Brian reasoned that if the earth were a globe, then the distance between longitude lines ought to increase from the North Pole to the equator but then decrease between the equator and the South Pole. That way, if one measured the linear distances between two meridians of longitude measured along parallels of the same latitude but one parallel north of the equator and the other parallel south of the equator, then the two distances ought to be the same. On the other hand, if the earth were flat, the distance between longitude lines ought to continually increase with increasing distance from the North Pole. Brian concluded that since the time difference between the two Australian cities is less than the time difference between the two American cities, even though the linear distance between the pairs of cities is about the same, the earth must be flat and not a globe.

Critical Analysis of This Claim

I can ask two quick questions about Brian’s argument. First, how does Brian know the distance between the two pairs of cities? As Brian argued, longitude lines on a flat earth ought to continually increase with increasing distance from the North Pole. Flat-earthers generally believe that the center of the flat earth is the North Pole, so an azimuthal equidistant map ought to capture flat-earthers’ understanding of the earth (See Figure). Indeed, many flat-earthers endorse this sort of map of the earth without endorsing any particular map. Notice on this map how much wider east to west Australia is than the United States. This is a consequence of longitude lines diverging from the North Pole on such a projection, or on a flat earth. If the longitude difference between the two Australian cities is comparable to the longitude difference between the two US cities, then this stretching on a flat earth is unavoidable, and the linear distance between the two pairs of cities cannot be comparable. But unlike many other flat-earthers, John and his associates made it very clear that they don’t endorse any map of the earth (that is a convenient choice—if they don’t endorse a map, then what they believe about the earth cannot be tested—more about that later). On the other hand, if one accepts the linear distance between the two pairs of cities as Brian did, then on a flat earth, it is equally unavoidable that the longitude difference between the two pairs of cities cannot be the same. Brian can’t have it both ways, on a flat earth accepting both the linear distances between the cities and the longitude differences between the cities, yet he did.

This brings up my second question: rather than expressing the angular separation between the two pairs of cities in terms of the time difference, why didn’t Brian use the more direct measurement of the longitude difference between the two pairs of cities? After all, Brian’s argument is really about the longitude difference, not the time difference. I looked up the longitudes of the four cities on Wikipedia, and I listed them in the table below. I rounded to the nearest minute of arc. For those not familiar with minutes and seconds of arc, a degree is divided into 60 minutes, and each minute is further divided into 60 seconds. With the widespread use of electronic calculators over the past half century, minutes and seconds of arc are not taught much in schools anymore. I rounded the listed longitudes to the nearest minute of arc.

The difference in longitude between Charleston and Long Beach is 38° 16´, while the difference in longitude between New Castle and Perth is 35° 53´. That is, the two US cities are only 2° 23´ farther apart than the pair of Australian cities. At a latitude of 32°, a difference in longitude of 2° 23´ corresponds to a difference of 140 miles. That is not much greater than the 108-mile difference that Brian gave. Brian didn’t state which of the two distances was greater, but I assume that the two US cities are slightly farther apart than the pair of Australian cities. Given the likely errors involved and unspecified portions of the cities were the starting and stopping points for the distances, a difference of 32 miles between 108 miles and 140 miles is reasonable.

What is the time difference between the pairs of cities? As I explained in my earlier blog post, every 15° of longitude corresponds to one hour of time. Therefore, the time difference between Charleston and Long Beach is 2:33, while the time difference between New Castle and Perth is 2:23. Thus, the difference in time between the two US cities is only 10 minutes greater than the difference in time between the pair of Australian cities. Keep in mind that these time differences are in local time, not standard time. Local time is what a sundial reads, and it changes by four minutes for each degree of longitude. If we followed local time, then it would be very confusing because every town would observe different times. For much of history, this wasn’t a problem. But as I explained in my earlier blog post, by the latter part of the nineteenth century, advancements in communication and transportation made continued observance of local time infeasible, so railroads instituted standard time, which established time zones. Ideally, each time zone is defined by standard meridians of longitude at intervals of 15°. For instance, if this practice were strictly followed, then the Eastern Standard Time (EST) Zone would span between 67° 30´ west and 82° 30´ west. Of course, such strict adherence to this definition of time zones is not practical—imagine if your home straddled the boundary.

Where to draw the lines between time zones often is not an easy decision.

Where to draw the lines between time zones often is not an easy decision. New Castle and Perth are about as widely separated on the continent of Australia as one can get. Since the time difference between the two cities rounds to two hours, it makes sense to have a two-hour time difference between the east and west coasts of Australia. Furthermore, New Castle is a little less than two degrees from the meridian of Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST, 150° E), so the standard time is off only seven minutes from the local time (local noon occurs at 12:07 p.m. AEST). Meanwhile, Perth is a little more than four degrees from the meridian of Australian Western Standard Time (AWST, 120° E), so the standard time is 16 minutes off from local time (local noon occurs at 11:44 a.m. AWST). Note that 7 minutes + 16 minutes = 23 minutes, the additional time beyond the two hours of local time difference between the two cities.

But the local time difference between Charleston and Long Beach is 10 minutes greater, three minutes longer than 2 ½ hours. Therefore, strict adherence to 15-degree wide time zones would dictate that there be a three-hour standard time difference between those two cities. If Charleston were at the eastern extreme of the US, then gerrymandering of the time zone borders to get a two-hour difference between the east and west coasts of the US would work. But Charleston is far from the easternmost part of the US. For instance, Boston is nearly 8 ½ degrees (nearly 34 minutes in time) east of Charleston, and most of the state of Maine is east of Boston. Thus, the local time difference between the east and west coasts of the US is more than three hours (2:33 + 0:34 = 3:07 just between Long Beach and Boston), so a three-hour standard time difference across the lower 48 of the US is warranted.

There is an additional check of Brian’s argument that I can supply. This website gives distances between cities. Inputting Charleston and Long Beach, I got 2,198 miles, while the distance between New Castle and Perth worked out to be 2,090 miles. Since this is a difference of 108 miles, Brian must have used this or a similar website to compare the distances between the two pairs of cities. Let us quantify on a flat earth how much the linear distance between two longitudes increases from the 32° north parallel of latitude and the 32° south parallel of latitude. The 32° parallel is 58° from the North Pole, the center of the flat earth. The 32° south parallel of latitude is an additional 64 degrees from the North Pole (32 + 32 = 64). Therefore, the ratio of distances measured between meridians of longitude on the 32° south parallel and the 32° north parallel is (58 + 64)/58 = 2.1. Therefore, if Brian’s analysis is correct, then the distance between New Castle and Perth ought to be (2.1) x (2,198 miles) = 4,600 miles. That is considerably more than the 108 miles that Brian noted. This is why Australia appears so stretched out on azimuthal equidistant maps. From what I noted earlier, I’m sure that Brian and his associates would dismiss any azimuthal equidistant maps—remember they don’t have a map of the flat earth. But Brian’s argument implicitly assumes an azimuthal equidistant map. Otherwise, why would one expect the distance between meridians of longitude to continue to increase past the equator? When Brian’s analysis is done properly, it ends up proving the earth is not flat.

Conclusion

Alas, critical evaluation of flat-earth arguments within that movement is seriously lacking.

Brian has identified a problem that does not exist, for the local time difference between the two pairs of cities is about the same. But we observe standard time, not local time. Given the wider east-west extent that the US has over Australia, it is not surprising that there is a two-hour east coast/west coast time zone difference in Australia while the US has a three-hour east coast/west coast time zone difference. If Brian had checked the longitude difference between the two pairs of cities rather than the time zone difference, he might have seen that his argument is fallacious. After all, the real issue is about the longitude difference, not the standard time difference. Even better, if Brian had quantified his claim about consistently increasing distance between meridians of longitude as I did, then he would have discovered that he ended up disproving the earth is flat. Brian surrounds himself with Nathan Oakley, John Stunja, and others on their panels who obviously believe that they are the crème de la crème of the flat-earth movement. So why didn’t any of his associates recognize the failure of Brian’s proof? Alas, critical evaluation of flat-earth arguments within that movement is seriously lacking. Consequently, internal quality control of flat-earther arguments is virtually nonexistent. Flat-earthers are so committed to their cult that they uncritically repeat the claims of other cult members, never properly scrutinizing their claims. If they did, they would have to leave the flat-earth cult.

Many of you know about my obsession with natural arches. I have a few new things to report about arches, as well as a few other things. And, of course, I’ll bring the discussion back to Red River Gorge, so please keep reading. Or you can skip to the end.

The Death of an Arch, Two Arizona Arches, EDGE, and Grand View Camp

The recent collapse of Double Arch in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area prompted me to write about what the rapid loss of arches in Utah might tell us about how long the arches have been there. I didn’t mean for that brief article to be the final word on the subject, though apparently, some people took it that way. While it is clear how arches cease to exist, there is much uncertainty about how arches form. We have some numerical information on the rate at which arches in Utah’s Arches National Park are collapsing, but we have no data on the formation rate of arches. A good model of arch lifetimes must include both processes. Since we have never observed the formation of an arch, in my initial analysis, I assumed that the current formation rate is zero. If any information on the formation of arches is forthcoming, then that would allow for a revision of my simple first approach to the question of how long arches have been around. But right now, it appears that arches aren’t forming at a significant rate today and thus have not been around for very long.

In October of last year, I happened to be in Flagstaff, Arizona, for a couple of days. While there, I hiked every trail of Old Caves Crater. Old Caves Crater is a cinder cone volcano not far off US Highway 89 on the way to Sunset Crater north of Flagstaff. The name “Old Caves” refers to several cave-like openings in the basalt near the summit of the cinder cone. These openings are either fumaroles or collapsed lava tubes. I noticed that two of the “caves” were connected, producing an arch with a span of more than 10 feet. The connection between the two openings is less than three feet high, but it is more than three feet wide, so this qualifies as an arch.

I had never heard of natural arches made of basalt, so I wasn’t sure if others would recognize this as an arch. But shortly after I returned home last October, I received the latest issue of Span, the publication of the Natural Arch and Bridge Society (of which I’m a member). This issue contained an article about society members who had identified arches in basalt in Hawaii, so I guess Old Caves Arch (my proposed name for this arch) qualifies as an arch. I don’t yet know if anyone else has noted the existence of this arch. I must confess that I have mixed feelings about this arch. Utah has more arches than any other state, and for many years, Arizona was number two. However, a few years ago, Kentucky surpassed Arizona as the state with the second-greatest number of arches. I’m loyal to Kentucky arches, so I’m not sure that I want to help Arizona out. Look out, Utah, we’re aiming for you!

More than five years ago, Eric Glover (who works in housekeeping at the Creation Museum) and I began a partnership looking for the known arches in Red River Gorge (there probably are more than a thousand). We’ve even discovered a few previously unknown arches along the way. Shortly after we began this hobby, I purchased a GPS device for measuring the locations of the arches we visit. On my visit to Old Caves Crater last year, I didn’t have my GPS device with me, but over a very long Labor Day weekend this year, I was once again in Arizona, so I took my GPS device with me. On the evening of Labor Day, I had a star party for EDGE (Exploring and Discovering God’s Earth). EDGE is a ministry of Calvary Baptist Church of Flagstaff. We held the event at the house of Adam Huff, who runs EDGE. Adam used to work for Answers in Genesis before he moved his family to Flagstaff to work for Canyon Ministries, the organization that provides the Grand Canyon raft trips that I take each year. I told Adam that, considering the star party I conducted for EDGE, he ought to change the name to EDGES to include the sky. Since I was staying in Flagstaff within walking distance of Old Caves Crater, the next day, I took a couple of hours to revisit Old Caves Arch to measure its position.

EDGE Star Party

But Old Caves Arch is not the only Arch I visited on this trip. At the beginning of the trip, I spent a couple of days with Michael and Michelle Calcagno. The Calcagnos live in Heber, between Payson and Show Low. Michael is the president of the Arizona Origin Science Association (AZOSA), but he also oversees the Payson and Show Low chapters of AZOSA. I spoke at both chapter meetings, as well as one chapter in Chandler. The day I arrived at Payson, the three of us visited Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. This arch formed very differently from the other arches I’ve seen. Arches generally form from erosion of material from a rock, but Tonto Natural Bridge formed from calcium carbonate precipitating out of water that flowed from a spring and over the edge of a canyon. The travertine eventually filled the top of the canyon, forming the arch. The little stream still flows, so this arch probably is still growing. I visited Tonto Natural Bridge 25 years ago. The photographs I took then were on 35-mm film, so it was good to revisit this arch to take digital photographs, as well as measure its position. I record the arches I’ve seen in an Excel file. I’ve now seen nearly 400 arches, with all but 54 in Red River Gorge.

Tonto Natural Bridge

I spent Labor Day weekend at Grand View Camp. I’ve done the family camp at Grand View Camp over Labor Day weekend at least six times now. I speak about astronomical topics, but we try to do some night observing as well. For that, I bring my green laser, my 8 x 56 mm binoculars, and Johnson Observatory’s Questar telescope to show people the night sky. We had many clouds, but the sky was clear on the final night of the camp. I took this half-hour photograph of star trails while at the camp. The camp sometimes has a second speaker for the family camp. This year it was Brad Zockoll, who does “The Heaven Tour.” Not only does Brad travel and speak about heaven, but he also has a large social media presence where he answers people’s questions about heaven. It wasn’t until after the two of us were scheduled for the family camp that the camp staff realized that one speaker focused on the second heaven and the other speaker focused on the third heaven.

Star Trails at Grand View Camp

Back to Red River

Two years ago, I was the guide for Peter Schriemer and an AV crew to record an episode of Hike & Seek in Red River Gorge. It takes a long time to edit these shows, so this episode only recently went up on Answers TV. If you have a subscription to Answers TV, you can watch it now—it’s season 3, episode 4. Peter and the AV crew have tight schedules, so it is difficult to coordinate a time to record a show. We didn’t plan it this way, but we happened to record in the gorge in leaf season, in mid-October. When I recently watched this episode, I was stunned at how vibrant the colors were in the gorge. It was (ahem) gorgeous! You ought to check it out.

Or, even better, check out Red River Gorge in person during leaf season next month! Our next Explore Arches hike is scheduled for Tuesday, October 22. In addition to the arches, cliffs, and waterfall we will see, we will have the bonus of stunning autumn colors. As usual, each hiker will get a bottle of Cheerwine to drink with their lunch. Why don’t you join us? You can sign up here.

Here we go again: the possible discovery of water on Mars is in the news. Four years ago, scientists announced the discovery of hydrated salts in thin streaks on a slope on Mars. The interpretation was that the salts were deposited by water oozing from the slope during the Martian spring and summer. No one suggested that water was on the Martian surface, but rather this was taken as evidence of subsurface Martian water. Now a new study proposes that there is a much greater amount of subsurface water on Mars than previously thought.

The new study relied upon seismic data from the InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) spacecraft that landed on Mars in 2018. Over a four-year period, the seismometer on InSight recorded more than a thousand Martian quakes. A reanalysis of the data indicated that there may be substantial water inside the rocks 6–12 miles below where InSight landed. If the amount of inferred water is consistent across the Martian surface, then there could be enough water for a large ocean on Mars’ surface. Scientists long ago agreed that Mars once was covered by an ocean. This would have required warmer temperatures on Mars, as well as a much more extensive atmosphere than today. Because of Mars’ low gravity, the atmosphere probably escaped into space, along with much of the ocean. But this new study suggests that much of that ocean may have disappeared deep below the Martian surface.

Before going any further, keep in mind that both studies relied upon indirect evidence of subsurface water on Mars. The data easily could be interpreted differently. Indeed, the seismic data had been interpreted differently for several years. The conclusion of substantial subsurface water will remain controversial. H₂O is one of the most common elements in the universe, and astronomers have detected it in many places. However, H₂O directly detected throughout the universe always has been in the solid or gaseous state. Direct detection of water (liquid H₂O) is unique to the earth.

Among the more than 5,000 known exoplanets, there are none that are clearly earthlike.

This distinction is very important. Everyone understands that water is essential for life. Hence, if life is to exist anywhere else in the universe, water must be present. This is why the search for water is so important to evolutionary scientists—they believe that the existence of water elsewhere would confirm their belief in evolution. The purpose of searching for exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) is to find earthlike planets, the only kind of planets that could support life. Earthlike planets are defined as those that have the proper composition, gravity, and distance from the stars they orbit to have conditions where water might exist on their surfaces. Among the more than 5,000 known exoplanets, there are none that are clearly earthlike.

It is obvious that water cannot exist on the surface of any other body in the solar system, but scientists have identified indirect evidence for water beneath the surfaces of some of the natural satellites, or moons, of the giant planets. Now it is Mars’ turn. Each time subsurface water is claimed for an object in the solar system, speculation about whether life exists there follows. But Mars is a special case. Scientists are more interested if the water under the surface of Mars may be a remnant of the ocean that was on its surface in Mars’ early history. They believe that the conditions for life on Mars were much better in the ancient past, so this discovery will fuel discussion of whether life evolved on Mars but became extinct as the Martian climate became more hostile to life or if life might have followed the ocean into Mars’ interior and still exists there.

The agenda behind the new study is to promote the natural origin of life. But good science argues against the chance development of life from nonliving things. If several centuries of biology as we know it has established anything, it is that only living things give rise to living things. This conclusion matches what the Bible says—God created living things on earth on days three, five, and six of the creation week. Even if water exists elsewhere in the universe, good science argues against the possibility of life there, unless God created it there too. If life exists, then we can be certain that God created it. Hence the question of whether life exists elsewhere is a theological question, not a scientific one. While the Bible does not directly address the question of extraterrestrial life, at Answers in Genesis we believe the Bible indicates that life is unique to earth.

A person recently sent me this question:

“I have been debating a number of flat-earth Christians over the last week. There is an argument they’ve all made that I didn’t see mentioned in any of your articles on the subject, nor in any articles by others. They all adamantly insist that belief in a globe earth and belief in evolution go hand in hand, that you can’t have one without the other. This seems to me to be a complete non sequitur, so I am wondering what causes them to believe it. Have you heard this argument and do you know where they get this idea?”

Indeed, I’ve heard this argument many times, though I haven’t written about it before. My 2019 book Falling Flat: A Refutation of Flat Earth Claims reflected my thinking about the flat-earth movement at that time, but it wasn’t meant to be exhaustive. Consequently, I’ve continued to publish web articles and blog posts about the flat-earth movement as topics that I didn’t cover in my book occur to me. Since this person asked, I suppose that I ought to turn my attention to this question about the supposed connection between globe earth and evolution.

I’ve often heard flat-earthers make this alleged connection by derisively referring to conventional cosmology as “the spinning, wobbling, monkey, space-ball religion.” We all know what the “spinning,” “space,” and “ball” parts are about. I’m not sure what flat-earthers mean by the earth wobbling. I recently asked some flat-earthers what flat-earthers mean by that, but the flat-earthers I asked didn’t seem to know either. If I ever find out what that is about, perhaps I’ll blog about it. The monkey and religion parts obviously are a reference to believing in evolution, and by evolution, flat-earthers seem to understand that evolution is about more than just ideas about the naturalistic origin of man and life but also is about the naturalistic origin of the earth and the universe (some flat-earthers stick “big bang” into that phrase too). Good for them, for many other people don’t grasp the broader meaning of evolution.

The Supposed Connection Between Globe Earth and Evolution

But how does the earth’s shape relate to the origin of the universe, the earth, life, and man? After all, until recently I didn’t know any creationists who were flat-earthers, so it seems that evolution and the earth’s shape are not related. As I said, I’ve often heard flat-earthers make a connection between evolution and globe earth, though I’ve never heard that connection explained. I have spent much time listening to flat-earthers’ arguments, from which I think I can identify their chain of reasoning:

1. The earth is flat because God made it that way, with some using Bible verses to support this view. I’ve already discussed this.
2. The earth being flat is evidence of creation because a flat earth could not come about naturally.
3. If people are creationists, then they can’t be evolutionists.
4. Therefore, before one can convince people of evolution, one must first convince people that creation is not true (and hence there is no God).
5. The best way to convince people that creation is not true is to convince people that the earth is spherical.
6. If the earth is spherical, then it could come about naturally.
7. If the earth came about naturally, then everything else probably came about naturally too.
8. Therefore, the real agenda behind convincing people that the earth is spherical rather than flat is to hide God’s existence.

Examination of Each of These Eight Points

I start with the assumption that the earth is spherical because God made it that way.

There are several flaws in this chain of reasoning, such as starting with the assumption that the earth is flat. If the earth is not flat, then the rest of this reasoning is void. I start with the assumption that the earth is spherical because God made it that way. You see, I don’t believe in the naturalistic origin of the earth. The primary reason why I don’t believe in the naturalistic origin of the earth is that Genesis 1 teaches something very different. But another reason is that the naturalistic scenarios for the formation of planets have physical difficulties. That is, I don’t think properly applied science permits the naturalistic formation of the earth or any other planets. Most secular scientists assume that since planets exist, then those planets must have formed naturally, and they are not open to any other possibility. Apparently, flat-earthers fear that secular scientists must be on to something here, so they attempt to short-circuit the secular theories by denying some of the science that supposedly supports the naturalistic origin of planets, such as by denying gravity.

I suppose that I would agree that a flat earth could not come about naturally, but how do we know? I don’t think anyone has given any serious thought to the naturalistic origin of a flat earth. Evolutionists come up with explanations for all sorts of things, so if they put their minds to it, why couldn’t evolutionists come up with a natural explanation for how a flat earth came to be?

I, too, have difficulty conceiving how one can be both a creationist and an evolutionist, but there are many people who are, calling themselves theistic evolutionists, thinking that evolution was God’s method of creation. I don’t think theistic evolutionists realize the incompatibility of creation and evolution. At its heart, evolution is a naturalistic philosophy of origins. But God is supernatural. If naturalism suffices to explain our existence, then supernaturalism is not necessary. If supernatural suffices to explain our existence, then naturalism is superfluous.

Given the fact that there are many theistic evolutionists in the world today, I strongly disagree that one must be convinced that creation is not true to come to believe in evolution. Sometimes theistic evolution is a stepping stone to becoming a full-blown evolutionist, but sometimes theistic evolution is a stepping stone to becoming a full-blown creationist. Hence, theistic evolution is a two-way street, though some people remain parked on that street.

As I stated above, there are physical reasons why a spherical earth could not form itself, so it doesn’t follow that a spherical earth leads to a naturalistic origin for the earth. This takes care of points five and six.

Naturalism is a package deal, so I suppose that if one believes that the earth formed naturally, then most people would conclude that everything else formed naturally too. However, this conclusion does not follow strict rules of logic. Just because one thing has a naturalistic origin, it doesn’t follow that all things have a naturalistic origin. Such a conclusion amounts to an argument by analogy. Some flat-earthers point out this flaw in an argument for a spherical earth going back at least to Aristotle, that if the sun, moon, and other planets are spherical, then the earth must be spherical too. An argument by analogy is not a rigorous argument. Therefore, I find it strange that flat-earthers make this same leap of logic. OK, I don’t find it strange—I’ve seen flat-earthers frequently point out what they think are logical flaws in globe-earthers’ logic while committing the same logical blunders themselves.

Given all these considerations, it does not follow that “the agenda behind globe earth” is to hide God’s existence. If there is any agenda behind “the globe earth,” it is to teach people the truth about the shape of the world they live in. Flat-earthers often call themselves “truthers” or “truth seekers.” It’s sad that people supposedly committed to finding truth dismiss the abundant evidence that the earth is spherical.

Conclusion

The only way to find true peace with God is through the vicarious atonement of God’s unique Son, Jesus Christ.

The last of the eight points is very important. I repeatedly hear flat-earthers claim that the real agenda behind the globe earth is to convince people that God does not exist. Flat-earthers often say that flat earth leads people to believe that God exists. Good! But keep in mind that even demons believe and shudder (James 2:19). Some flat-earthers claim that flat earth brought them to true salvation through repentance and the finished work of Jesus Christ. I can rejoice in that, much as the Apostle Paul rejoiced in the preaching of the gospel by people with false motives (Philippians 1:15–18). However, I have observed that many flat-earthers subscribe to what I call the Touched by an Angel school of theology, the theology underlying the 1994–2003 television series by that name. That series did not teach the gospel but rather taught a humanistic sort of theology, that God wants us to know that he is real and cares about us and that knowledge is sufficient to help us in our daily lives. The same sort of theology was more irreverently found in the 1977 movie Oh, God! This leaves out the most important fact—that we are sinners alienated from a holy and righteous God and the only way to find true peace with God is through the vicarious atonement of God’s unique Son, Jesus Christ. While there are few atheists among flat-earthers, true biblical Christianity is relatively rare in the flat-earth movement. Many reject Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation. Others are openly hostile to the God of the Bible. This is in stark contrast to the Bible-based mission of Answers in Genesis.

We are now one week away from the April 8 total solar eclipse. In previous blog posts, I gave tips about how to safely watch the eclipse and what to expect to see and experience during totality. In this blog post, I’ll take on an idea that is making its rounds on the internet.

In a recent 10-minute video, Rocket Rob Webb and I discussed the upcoming eclipse. The video received quite a bit of attention, with a quarter million views in less than 24 hours. The comments on the video were interesting. There were many comments from people who saw the 2017 eclipse or earlier eclipses and related their reactions and expressed hopes to repeat the experience again this month. But then there were others who commented that the eclipse is no big deal. Some of those people said that they saw the 2017 eclipse or other solar eclipses and were not impressed. I’m sure that they weren’t in totality, for if they had been, their attitude would have been very different. As I discussed in my second blog post and my third blog post about this eclipse, there is a world of difference between being in totality and not being in totality. Trust me—you won’t understand that until you have experienced totality. Other people commented that they couldn’t care less about the eclipse. But they cared enough to comment. Of course, flat-earthers weighed in with comments critical of Answers in Genesis for not endorsing the notion that the earth is flat.

There is a world of difference between being in totality and not being in totality.

Then there was an entirely different set of comments that involved the provocative title of the video, which is “Why All Americans MUST Be Prepared for April 8, 2024.” Our intended meaning of the title was to get across the wonder and rarity of total solar eclipses and the fact that the United States will not be in the path of totality for another two decades, so to experience this remarkable event, we must prepare to be in the right place on that day. Unfortunately, many people took an entirely different meaning from that title. There are many sources promoting the claim that this eclipse signals God’s judgment on the United States. You may wonder how this could be, seeing that the United States is not clearly identified in Scripture. This claim is the product of extrabiblical speculation that amounts to a Rorschach test. It is claimed that the path of totality this month will pass over several towns or communities (some sources claim seven) called Nineveh, the city that God called Jonah to preach repentance (Jonah 1:2). Furthermore, it is claimed that the path of totality passes over Jonah, Texas. Indeed, the Texas community of Jonah is in the path of totality, but the only community called Nineveh in the path of totality that I can find is the one in Indiana. Purveyors of this notion liken this eclipse to the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:38–42; Luke 11:39–42), mistakenly thinking that the sign of Jonah is merely a sign of judgment. If God does not immediately judge the United States after April 8, will they have the same displeased reaction that Jonah had when God spared Nineveh (Jonah 4:1)?

In this argument, the 2024 eclipse is tied to the 2017 total solar eclipse. The claim is that the 2017 path of totality passed over seven communities called Salem, meaning peace in Hebrew. The paths of totality of the two eclipses cross in southern Illinois near the New Madrid fault, the fault responsible for three of the most powerful earthquakes in US history in 1811–1812. This X formed by the paths of the two total eclipses is supposed to represent God’s judgment, suggested by a claimed resemblance to a Hebrew letter. April 8, the day of this year’s solar eclipse, is the first day of the first month on the Hebrew ceremonial calendar (Passover begins two weeks later, Exodus 12:2). I don’t see the significance of that. At least one person has opined that these two solar eclipses are separated by 6 years, 6 months, 6 weeks, and 6 days. There you have it—6666. No, wait, I thought that the number of the beast was 666 (Revelation 13:18). As I said, this amounts to a Rorschach test—people can find significance in all sorts of things where there is no significance.

If this sounds familiar, it is. A decade ago, Mark Biltz claimed significance for four lunar eclipses that occurred at the time of Passover and Sukkot in 2014–2015, with an implied apocalyptic warning. As I pointed out at the time, this was nonsense, which is further evidenced by the fact that this was a decade ago with neither the return of Jesus to earth nor the end of the age during the ensuing decade (Jesus will return, but don’t expect false prophets to tell you when). And Mark Biltz was involved in the nonsense about the 2017 and 2024 solar eclipses, for he was talking about the eclipses signaling the supposed judgment on the United States seven years ago, so he probably is responsible for all the current speculation about this eclipse. Or consider the hullabaloo seven years ago about the supposed fulfillment of Revelation 12:1–2 on September 23, 2017. As I warned then, this was nonsense, and, of course, the Lord did not return at that time either. Some will say that the four “blood moons” and the sign of Revelation 12:1–2 were just preliminary and that the seven (a number with special significance) years between the 2017 and 2024 eclipses are key, meaning that this time, it will really happen. Or not. You see, there have been eclipses throughout time. I’m sure that in the past there have been many claimed apocalyptic meanings for eclipses, for there is nothing new (literally) under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

So, take heart—there is no prophetic significance to this month’s eclipse. In the words of Adrian Monk, “I could be wrong. But I’m not.” If you will be in the path of totality, enjoy God’s creativity during this eclipse. Christians who do so will praise God and will agree that the heavens declare God’s glory. Please join me in praying for clear weather across the path of totality that day.