Monday, September 8, 2014

 Astrophysicists have claimed to have found evidence of of planet forming around a star called  HD100546 which is 335 light years from Earth, a diameter 2.5 times larger and is 30 times brighter than that of the sun. When the facts are examined as is often the case the reality does not live up to the head line or the claim being made.  No planetary body has actually been observed let alone one that can be considered to be forming. what has actually be been observed is a excess carbon monoxide emission  source who's velocity and position seems vary in a manner that indicates that it orbiting around the star. The claim of a forming is nothing  more than the hypothesis that the emission is a result of a circumplanetary disk of gas orbiting a gas giant about three time the size of Jupiter.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Asteroid 2014 RC

At 2:18 p.m. on September 7 Asteroid 2014 RC   will pass 25,000 miles from Earth  or about 10% of the distancebetwen the Earth and the Moon. At just 60 feet across it is a small asteroid that will not be visible to the unaided eye. There is no danger of an impact with the Earth though it does qualify as a near miss. Even if an impact occured the explosion would be just 4 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki Japan or about 90 kilotons of TNT or 
 
The Nebula Hypothesis says that asteroids a remnant from formation of the solar system but  suffers from problems such things as an imbalance of angular momentum.. Also real planets both in the solar system and among exoplanets that are not in orbits predicted by the Nebula Hypothesis. Alternative theories include an exploded or shattered planet between Mars and Jupiter. They could have originated from outside the solar system which from a creationist perspective could have been created on day four of the creation week with the rest of the universe. There is  also the idea that they formed from material ejected from Earth during the Genesis Flood.