How old is Planet Earth? This is an important question, for even though long ages of time are not a proof of evolution, yet without the long ages evolution could not occur (if it were possible for it to occur).
Actually, there are many evidences that our world is quite young. Here are some of them:
First we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM THE STARS that the universe itself is quite young:
I - STAR CLUSTERSThere are many star clusters in the universe. Each one is a circular ball composed of billions upon billions of stars, each with its own orbit. Because the orbits are elliptical, they have a tendency to be interlocking. An extremely large circular star cluster, with similar stellar orbits within it is found at the center of each saucer-shaped island universe. Evidence indicates that each of these giant packs of stars is moving in a certain direction. Science tells us that some of these clusterswith their starsare moving so rapidly that it should be impossible for them to remain together if the universe were, very old.
2 - LARGE STARSSome stars are so enormous in diameter that it is thought that they could not have existed for even a few million years, otherwise their initial larger mass would have been impossibly large. These massive stars radiate energy very rapidlysome as much as 100,000 to 1 million times more rapidly than our own sun. On the hydrogen basis of stellar energy, they could not have contained enough hydrogen to radiate at such fast rates for long ages, because their initial mass would have had to be far too gigantic.
3 - HIGH-ENERGY STARSSome stars are radiating energy so intensely that they could not possibly have survived for a long period of time. This includes the very bright 0 and B class stars, the Wolf-Rayert stars, and the P Cygni stars. Radiation levels of 100,000 to 1 million times as much as our own sun is emitted by these stars! Yet, by the standard solar energy theory, they do not contain enough hydrogen to perpetuate atomic fusion longer than approximately 50,000 to 300,000 years.
4 - BINARY STARSMany of the stars in the sky are binaries: two stars circling one another. But many of these binary systems point us to a young age for the universe.
"Many such pairs consist of two very different types of stars, one theoretically very old and the other young. How could this be if they had to evolve together in order to form a pair? Such problems have frustrated theorists in their efforts to understand how binary stars could have evolved. Perhaps the great age of stars is a fiction." Robert E. Kofahl, Evolution Refuter (1980), p. 128.
5 - HYDROGEN IN UNIVERSEAccording to one theory of solar energy, hydrogen is constantly being converted into helium as stars shine. But hydrogen cannot be made by converting other elements into it. *Fred Hoyle, a leading astronomer, maintains that, if the universe were as old as Big Bang theorists contend, there should be little hydrogen in it. It would all have been transformed into helium by now. Yet stellar spectra reveal an abundance of hydrogen in the stars, therefore the universe must be youthful.
6 - AGE OF THE UNIVERSEFor much more information on this topic, see the chapter appendix entitled Age of the Universe, at the end of chapter 3 (Origin of the Solar System).
Next we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM OUR SOLAR SYSTEM that our solar system is quite young:
7 - SOLAR COLLAPSEResearch studies indicate that our sun is gradually shrinking at a steady rate of seconds of arc per century. At its rate of shrinkage, as little as 50,000 years ago the sun would have been so large that our oceans would boil. But in far less a time than 50,000 years life here would have ceased to exist, for recent studies have disclosed that neither the size of the sun, nor our distance from it, could be much greater or smallerfor life to be sustained on our planet. (See chapter 2, Origin of the Stars, for more on this. Also see "The Shrinking Sun" in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1980, pp. 57-59.)
"Since 1836, over one hundred different observers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the U.S. Naval Observatory have made direct, visual measurements that indicate that the sun's diameter is shrinking at a rate of about. 1 percent each century or about five feet per hour! Furthermore, records of solar eclipses indicate that this rapid shrinking has been going on for at least the past 400 years. Several indirect techniques also confirm that the sun is shrinking, although these inferred collapse rates are only about 1/7th as much."W. T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p 19.
18 - SOLAR NEUTRINOSIn 1968 it was discovered that the sun is emitting hardly any neutrinos. This evidence points directly to a very youthful sun. These neutrinos ought to be radiating outward from the sun in very large amounts, but this is not occurring. This fact, coupled with research discoveries that the sun is shrinking in size, point to a recently-created sun. (See solar collapse and antimatter in chapter 2, Origin of the Stars, for more information on this.)
"The lack of solar neutrinos is almost irrefutable evidence for a recently created sun . . .
"If the sun had formed as is assumed by most scientists today, nuclear fusion could never have become is energy source. Evidence from the solar neutrino experiment, global solar oscillations, and measured solar shrinkage all are strong evidence against the existence of nuclear fusion in the sun. Any alternate energy source necessarily means a shorter maximum lifetime."Paul M. Steidl, "Solar Neutrinos and a Young Sun" in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1980, pp. 60, 64.
9 - COMETSComets journey around the sun and are assumed to have the same age as our world and solar system. But, as *Fred Whipple has acknowledged, astronomers have no idea where or how comets originated. Yet we know that they are continually disintegrating. This is because they are composed of bits of rocky debris held together by frozen gases and water. Each time a comet circles the sun, some of the ice is evaporated and some of the gas is boiled away by the sun's heat. Additional material is lost through gravitational forces, tail formation, meteor stream production and radiative forces. The most spectacular part of a comet is its tail, but this consists of material driven away from its head by solar energy. All the tail material is lost in space as the comet moves onward.
A number of comets have broken up and dissipated within the period of human observation. Some of those regularly seen in the nineteenth century have now vanished. Others have died spectacularly by plunging into the sun.
Evidently all the comets should self-destruct within a time frame that is fairly short. Careful study has indicated that the effect of this dissolution process on short-term comets would have totally dissipated them within 10,000 years.
There are numerous comets circling our sun, including many short-term ones, with no source of new comets known to exist. If they were "millions of years old," the original size of each comet would have had to be larger than our sun,in which case our sun would have been orbiting the comets, and not vice versa! Yet we have hundreds of comets in our solar system with closed elliptical orbits, proving that they are locked into our solar system and did not originate outside of it.
"Each time a comet approaches the sun on the near part of its orbit, the sun's radiation warms and drives away part of the gases, dust, and frozen water it contains. Moreover, the strong gravitational force near the sun partially disrupts the solid chunks making up the core of the comet. Ultimately, these effects of the sun cause the comet to disintegrate and disappear, and this has actually been observed to happen.
"Careful studies of comets by British astronomer R.A. Lyttleton and others have led to the conclusion that all of the short-term comets should have disappeared in about 10,000 years."R.E. Kofahl and ICL Seagraves, The Creation Explanation (1975), p. 144.
"Short-term comets" includes all those which return close to the sun every several centuries or less. According to Lyttleton's calculations (and he is a confirmed evolutionist), they would have all been wiped out within 10,000 years. See *R.A. Lyttleton's 1968 book, Mysteries of the Solar System, for more information on this.
In reply, evolutionists speculate that there is a hypothetical "Oort cloud" on the edge of the solar system, which is manufacturing new comets. But there is no scientific evidence that such a cloud exists.
"Evolutionary theories are totally incapable of accounting for comets in an old solar system. They cannot explain the formation, maintenance or return of comets. the chemical composition, behavior, and orbits of comets are not consistent with large ages and naturalistic formation. Comets are young objects. And since there is no natural mechanism which can account for a recent formation of comets, they must have been created recently in a recently created solar system."Paul Steidl, "Comets and Creation" in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1987, p. 159.
"According to Richardson's figures, out of an original family of 1,000 short-period comets, at the end of 3,000 years only 1 or 2 would be left! Slusher concludes, 'The destruction and the loss of comets puts a definite upper limit on the age of the solar system. Instead of 4.5 billion years, it appears at the most to be only a few to several thousand years old.' "News note in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1973, p. 174.
10 - COMET WATERIt has only been in recent years that scientists have discovered that comets are primarily composed of water, and that so many small comets are continually striking the earth. Yet each strike adds more water to our planet. Scientific evidence indicates that, if the earth was billions of years old, our oceans would be filled several times over with water.
"Photographs, taken from earth-orbiting satellites, seem to show tiny, ice-filled comets striking the earth's upper atmosphere at a rate of one every three seconds. As each comet vaporizes, about 100 tons of water should be added to the earth's atmosphere. If this began when the evolutionists say the earth started to evolve, the earth and all its oceans should have several times more water than it now has."W. T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p 18.
11 - SOLAR WINDAs the sun's radiation flows outward, it applies an outward force on very, very small particles orbiting the sun. All of the particles smaller than 100,000th of a centimeter in diameter should have long ago been "blown out" of our solar system, if the solar system were billions of years old. Yet research studies by satellites in space have shown that those small particles are abundant and still orbiting the sun. Therefore our solar system is quite young.
12 - SOLAR DRAGThis is a principle known as the "Poynting-Robertson Effect." A solar drag is exerted by our sun on the small rocks and particles (micrometeoroids) in our solar system. This causes these particles to spiral down into the sun and be destroyed. The sun, acting like a giant vacuum cleaner, sweeps up about 100,000 tons (90,720 metric tons) of micrometeoroids each day. The actual process by which this occurs has been analyzed. Each particle absorbs energy from the sun and then re-radiates it in all directions. This causes a slowing down of the particle in its orbit and causes it to fall into the sun. At its present rate, our sun would have cleaned most of the dust and particles in less than 10,000 years, and all of it within 50,000 years.
Yet there is an abundance of these small pieces of rock, and there is no known source of replenishment. This is because each solar system would lock in its own micrometeoroids so they could not escape to another one, and the gravity on each planet and moon would forbid any of its gravel to fly out into space.
(In summary: Particles smaller than 100,000th of a centimeter are hurled out of the solar system by the solar wind effect, and particles smaller than that are pulled into the sun by the Poynting-Robertson Effect. The Poynting-Robertson Effect is illustrated by rain which, falling on a rapidly moving car, tends to slightly slow it. In a similar manner, solar radiation, striking particles orbiting the sun, lessens their speed. )
Next we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM THE OTHER PLANETS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM that it is quite young:
13 - TEMPERATURE AND EROSION ON VENUSTemperatures on the surface of the planet Venus reach 900°F [482°C]. *Emmanuel Velikovsky predicted that such a high Venusian surface temperature would be found, and so it turned out. Velikovsky said that this would provide clear evidence that Venus was only a few thousand years old: Both this high temperature, as well as other surface features, do indeed support a young age for that planet. Many large craters up to 100 miles [160.9 km] in diameter pock its surface. Yet scientists cannot explain how meteors could get through the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere without burning up. They are also astounded that Venus should show such minor effects of erosion. The dense atmosphere should long ago have worn away all the craters if the planet has the age postulated by evolutionary theory (4 billion years).
14-EROSION AND WATER ON MARSA similar problem exists in relation to the planet Mars. When the Mariner satellites orbited Mars, they sent back detailed photographs of its surface. Large numbers of craters and volcanoes were seen, as well as a dust storm that lasted for months. It was obvious that many of the craters had sharp edges, indicating only a small amount of erosion. Yet more than a few thousand years of the kind of weather activity regularly occurring on Mars would have seriously eroded those edges. Long-term erosion should also have obliterated the strong color differences clearly visible on the surface of the planet.
A small amount of water has been found on Mars. But powerful ultraviolet radiation from the sun should long ago have split the hydrogen and oxygen apart, releasing the oxygen into the atmosphere while the hydrogen escapes into outer space. There should now be no water and a sizable amount of oxygen above the surface. But this is not the case. Considerable amounts of hydrogen are indeed now observed to be escaping from the planet into outer space, but there is very little oxygen in the atmosphere,and the water is still there on the surface. It is all a great mystery to scientists who, in spite of the evidence, declare the planet to be billions of years old.
Actually, there are many evidences that our world is quite young. Here are some of them:
First we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM THE STARS that the universe itself is quite young:
I - STAR CLUSTERSThere are many star clusters in the universe. Each one is a circular ball composed of billions upon billions of stars, each with its own orbit. Because the orbits are elliptical, they have a tendency to be interlocking. An extremely large circular star cluster, with similar stellar orbits within it is found at the center of each saucer-shaped island universe. Evidence indicates that each of these giant packs of stars is moving in a certain direction. Science tells us that some of these clusterswith their starsare moving so rapidly that it should be impossible for them to remain together if the universe were, very old.
2 - LARGE STARSSome stars are so enormous in diameter that it is thought that they could not have existed for even a few million years, otherwise their initial larger mass would have been impossibly large. These massive stars radiate energy very rapidlysome as much as 100,000 to 1 million times more rapidly than our own sun. On the hydrogen basis of stellar energy, they could not have contained enough hydrogen to radiate at such fast rates for long ages, because their initial mass would have had to be far too gigantic.
3 - HIGH-ENERGY STARSSome stars are radiating energy so intensely that they could not possibly have survived for a long period of time. This includes the very bright 0 and B class stars, the Wolf-Rayert stars, and the P Cygni stars. Radiation levels of 100,000 to 1 million times as much as our own sun is emitted by these stars! Yet, by the standard solar energy theory, they do not contain enough hydrogen to perpetuate atomic fusion longer than approximately 50,000 to 300,000 years.
4 - BINARY STARSMany of the stars in the sky are binaries: two stars circling one another. But many of these binary systems point us to a young age for the universe.
"Many such pairs consist of two very different types of stars, one theoretically very old and the other young. How could this be if they had to evolve together in order to form a pair? Such problems have frustrated theorists in their efforts to understand how binary stars could have evolved. Perhaps the great age of stars is a fiction." Robert E. Kofahl, Evolution Refuter (1980), p. 128.
5 - HYDROGEN IN UNIVERSEAccording to one theory of solar energy, hydrogen is constantly being converted into helium as stars shine. But hydrogen cannot be made by converting other elements into it. *Fred Hoyle, a leading astronomer, maintains that, if the universe were as old as Big Bang theorists contend, there should be little hydrogen in it. It would all have been transformed into helium by now. Yet stellar spectra reveal an abundance of hydrogen in the stars, therefore the universe must be youthful.
6 - AGE OF THE UNIVERSEFor much more information on this topic, see the chapter appendix entitled Age of the Universe, at the end of chapter 3 (Origin of the Solar System).
Next we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM OUR SOLAR SYSTEM that our solar system is quite young:
7 - SOLAR COLLAPSEResearch studies indicate that our sun is gradually shrinking at a steady rate of seconds of arc per century. At its rate of shrinkage, as little as 50,000 years ago the sun would have been so large that our oceans would boil. But in far less a time than 50,000 years life here would have ceased to exist, for recent studies have disclosed that neither the size of the sun, nor our distance from it, could be much greater or smallerfor life to be sustained on our planet. (See chapter 2, Origin of the Stars, for more on this. Also see "The Shrinking Sun" in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1980, pp. 57-59.)
"Since 1836, over one hundred different observers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the U.S. Naval Observatory have made direct, visual measurements that indicate that the sun's diameter is shrinking at a rate of about. 1 percent each century or about five feet per hour! Furthermore, records of solar eclipses indicate that this rapid shrinking has been going on for at least the past 400 years. Several indirect techniques also confirm that the sun is shrinking, although these inferred collapse rates are only about 1/7th as much."W. T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p 19.
18 - SOLAR NEUTRINOSIn 1968 it was discovered that the sun is emitting hardly any neutrinos. This evidence points directly to a very youthful sun. These neutrinos ought to be radiating outward from the sun in very large amounts, but this is not occurring. This fact, coupled with research discoveries that the sun is shrinking in size, point to a recently-created sun. (See solar collapse and antimatter in chapter 2, Origin of the Stars, for more information on this.)
"The lack of solar neutrinos is almost irrefutable evidence for a recently created sun . . .
"If the sun had formed as is assumed by most scientists today, nuclear fusion could never have become is energy source. Evidence from the solar neutrino experiment, global solar oscillations, and measured solar shrinkage all are strong evidence against the existence of nuclear fusion in the sun. Any alternate energy source necessarily means a shorter maximum lifetime."Paul M. Steidl, "Solar Neutrinos and a Young Sun" in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1980, pp. 60, 64.
9 - COMETSComets journey around the sun and are assumed to have the same age as our world and solar system. But, as *Fred Whipple has acknowledged, astronomers have no idea where or how comets originated. Yet we know that they are continually disintegrating. This is because they are composed of bits of rocky debris held together by frozen gases and water. Each time a comet circles the sun, some of the ice is evaporated and some of the gas is boiled away by the sun's heat. Additional material is lost through gravitational forces, tail formation, meteor stream production and radiative forces. The most spectacular part of a comet is its tail, but this consists of material driven away from its head by solar energy. All the tail material is lost in space as the comet moves onward.
A number of comets have broken up and dissipated within the period of human observation. Some of those regularly seen in the nineteenth century have now vanished. Others have died spectacularly by plunging into the sun.
Evidently all the comets should self-destruct within a time frame that is fairly short. Careful study has indicated that the effect of this dissolution process on short-term comets would have totally dissipated them within 10,000 years.
There are numerous comets circling our sun, including many short-term ones, with no source of new comets known to exist. If they were "millions of years old," the original size of each comet would have had to be larger than our sun,in which case our sun would have been orbiting the comets, and not vice versa! Yet we have hundreds of comets in our solar system with closed elliptical orbits, proving that they are locked into our solar system and did not originate outside of it.
"Each time a comet approaches the sun on the near part of its orbit, the sun's radiation warms and drives away part of the gases, dust, and frozen water it contains. Moreover, the strong gravitational force near the sun partially disrupts the solid chunks making up the core of the comet. Ultimately, these effects of the sun cause the comet to disintegrate and disappear, and this has actually been observed to happen.
"Careful studies of comets by British astronomer R.A. Lyttleton and others have led to the conclusion that all of the short-term comets should have disappeared in about 10,000 years."R.E. Kofahl and ICL Seagraves, The Creation Explanation (1975), p. 144.
"Short-term comets" includes all those which return close to the sun every several centuries or less. According to Lyttleton's calculations (and he is a confirmed evolutionist), they would have all been wiped out within 10,000 years. See *R.A. Lyttleton's 1968 book, Mysteries of the Solar System, for more information on this.
In reply, evolutionists speculate that there is a hypothetical "Oort cloud" on the edge of the solar system, which is manufacturing new comets. But there is no scientific evidence that such a cloud exists.
"Evolutionary theories are totally incapable of accounting for comets in an old solar system. They cannot explain the formation, maintenance or return of comets. the chemical composition, behavior, and orbits of comets are not consistent with large ages and naturalistic formation. Comets are young objects. And since there is no natural mechanism which can account for a recent formation of comets, they must have been created recently in a recently created solar system."Paul Steidl, "Comets and Creation" in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1987, p. 159.
"According to Richardson's figures, out of an original family of 1,000 short-period comets, at the end of 3,000 years only 1 or 2 would be left! Slusher concludes, 'The destruction and the loss of comets puts a definite upper limit on the age of the solar system. Instead of 4.5 billion years, it appears at the most to be only a few to several thousand years old.' "News note in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1973, p. 174.
10 - COMET WATERIt has only been in recent years that scientists have discovered that comets are primarily composed of water, and that so many small comets are continually striking the earth. Yet each strike adds more water to our planet. Scientific evidence indicates that, if the earth was billions of years old, our oceans would be filled several times over with water.
"Photographs, taken from earth-orbiting satellites, seem to show tiny, ice-filled comets striking the earth's upper atmosphere at a rate of one every three seconds. As each comet vaporizes, about 100 tons of water should be added to the earth's atmosphere. If this began when the evolutionists say the earth started to evolve, the earth and all its oceans should have several times more water than it now has."W. T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p 18.
11 - SOLAR WINDAs the sun's radiation flows outward, it applies an outward force on very, very small particles orbiting the sun. All of the particles smaller than 100,000th of a centimeter in diameter should have long ago been "blown out" of our solar system, if the solar system were billions of years old. Yet research studies by satellites in space have shown that those small particles are abundant and still orbiting the sun. Therefore our solar system is quite young.
12 - SOLAR DRAGThis is a principle known as the "Poynting-Robertson Effect." A solar drag is exerted by our sun on the small rocks and particles (micrometeoroids) in our solar system. This causes these particles to spiral down into the sun and be destroyed. The sun, acting like a giant vacuum cleaner, sweeps up about 100,000 tons (90,720 metric tons) of micrometeoroids each day. The actual process by which this occurs has been analyzed. Each particle absorbs energy from the sun and then re-radiates it in all directions. This causes a slowing down of the particle in its orbit and causes it to fall into the sun. At its present rate, our sun would have cleaned most of the dust and particles in less than 10,000 years, and all of it within 50,000 years.
Yet there is an abundance of these small pieces of rock, and there is no known source of replenishment. This is because each solar system would lock in its own micrometeoroids so they could not escape to another one, and the gravity on each planet and moon would forbid any of its gravel to fly out into space.
(In summary: Particles smaller than 100,000th of a centimeter are hurled out of the solar system by the solar wind effect, and particles smaller than that are pulled into the sun by the Poynting-Robertson Effect. The Poynting-Robertson Effect is illustrated by rain which, falling on a rapidly moving car, tends to slightly slow it. In a similar manner, solar radiation, striking particles orbiting the sun, lessens their speed. )
Next we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM THE OTHER PLANETS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM that it is quite young:
13 - TEMPERATURE AND EROSION ON VENUSTemperatures on the surface of the planet Venus reach 900°F [482°C]. *Emmanuel Velikovsky predicted that such a high Venusian surface temperature would be found, and so it turned out. Velikovsky said that this would provide clear evidence that Venus was only a few thousand years old: Both this high temperature, as well as other surface features, do indeed support a young age for that planet. Many large craters up to 100 miles [160.9 km] in diameter pock its surface. Yet scientists cannot explain how meteors could get through the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere without burning up. They are also astounded that Venus should show such minor effects of erosion. The dense atmosphere should long ago have worn away all the craters if the planet has the age postulated by evolutionary theory (4 billion years).
14-EROSION AND WATER ON MARSA similar problem exists in relation to the planet Mars. When the Mariner satellites orbited Mars, they sent back detailed photographs of its surface. Large numbers of craters and volcanoes were seen, as well as a dust storm that lasted for months. It was obvious that many of the craters had sharp edges, indicating only a small amount of erosion. Yet more than a few thousand years of the kind of weather activity regularly occurring on Mars would have seriously eroded those edges. Long-term erosion should also have obliterated the strong color differences clearly visible on the surface of the planet.
A small amount of water has been found on Mars. But powerful ultraviolet radiation from the sun should long ago have split the hydrogen and oxygen apart, releasing the oxygen into the atmosphere while the hydrogen escapes into outer space. There should now be no water and a sizable amount of oxygen above the surface. But this is not the case. Considerable amounts of hydrogen are indeed now observed to be escaping from the planet into outer space, but there is very little oxygen in the atmosphere,and the water is still there on the surface. It is all a great mystery to scientists who, in spite of the evidence, declare the planet to be billions of years old.