From KHouse.Org

In his Commentary on Hosea (at chapter 2, verse 4), Chuck Missler mentions that “we have invented the most insulting “god” of all: random chance as our creator…” Dr. Missler is referring to the Theory of Evolution that was devised by Charles Darwin.

A much-ignored quote from Darwin himself says, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” (Darwin, p. 191)

At the time Darwin developed his theory, the scientific world knew little of the inner workings of the cell. An article on the CreationMoments.com website says:

“In Darwin’s day, the cell was thought to be just a simple sac filled with jellied carbon. This concept is the origin of the term protoplasm. However, nearly 150 years of cell research has shown us that even protozoan and fungi cells are hugely complex. Today we know that even the simplest of these cells, eukaryotes, have an estimated 100,000 parts.”

There is no doubt that Darwin would think again if he had this information, yet his theory has become the foundation of all that is believed and taught in the field of biology. Secular science has suppressed the truth of creation and follows the pattern described by Paul in Romans:

“For God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and wickedness of those who in their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God himself has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. Instead, their thoughts turned to worthless things, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Though claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images that looked like mortal human beings, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.” — Romans 1:18 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
–23, ISV

As the complexities of the cell have been discovered, the response should be to see God’s work, glorify Him and give thanks. God shows Himself clearly as modern science has allowed us to see the invisible through microscopes, among other things.

The choice, though, was made to reject God. Therefore the judgment of darkened hearts was pronounced upon secular scientists so that they could not see Him, no matter how obvious He was. Though they do indeed profess to be wise, they are fools. In the end they make idols out of created things.

There is a new trend in idolatry that is making much headway in the academic world. In an article in Discovery News, Ray Villard reports that:

Vladimir I. shCherbak of al-Farabi Kazakh National University of Kazakhstan, and Maxim A. Makukov of the Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute, hypothesize that an intelligent signal embedded in our genetic code would be a mathematical and semantic message that cannot be accounted for by Darwinian evolution. They call it “biological SETI.” What’s more, they argue that the scheme has much greater longevity and chance of detecting E.T. than a transient extraterrestrial radio transmission.

Scientists have started waking up to the fact that Darwinian evolution cannot account for parts of our genetic code. This, of course, is an understatement, since Darwinian evolution also cannot account for any of our genetic code nor the cells that hold it.

Villard goes on to quote his source saying, “Simple arrangements of the code reveal an ensemble of arithmetical and ideographical patterns of symbolic language.” In other words, there are more than just mathematical structures, but patterns of data that resemble language.

Villard asks the question, “Could our genes have an intelligently designed ‘manufacturer’s stamp’ inside them, written eons ago elsewhere in our galaxy?” He has stated it as a rhetorical question; however the slightest knowledge of Scripture reveals the answer. Yes we do have a manufacturer’s stamp inside us written a long time ago by God.

After a discussion in which Villard suggests aliens engineered humans and placed them here, he goes on to attempt to debunk the obvious answer: Intelligent Design (ID). He says “To date, ID has been nothing more than Biblical creationism in sheep’s clothing.” This logic is the pinnacle of Villard’s debunking and does not go far to prove any point.

Ultimately he asks, “And, even if the genetic code is ultimately considered the handprint of an extraterrestrial grand designer, then who designed the designer?”

Villard’s rhetorical question has a clear answer. Sadly Villard’s heart seems too dark to hear it. In Jeremiah 1:5 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
, God tells the prophet, “I knew you before I formed you in the womb; I set you apart for me before you were born …”

Each of us does indeed have the mark of our maker, but that maker isn’t an alien race. The Maker is God Himself. Scientists like Ray Villard need prayer that God will humble them and give them no rest until they find rest in Jesus Christ.

Related Links:

• Do You Know How Complex A Single Cell Is? - Creation Moments
• On the origin of species - Darwin, C.
• Prophets To The Northern Kingdom: Amos, Hosea - Koinonia House

Is An Alien Message Embedded In Our Genetic Code? - Discovery News

From KHouse.Org

“Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:” — Isa 40:21 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
–22

According to most astrophysicists, the Universe has been expanding since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Then, about the time the Earth was formed, that expansion got FASTER.

Come again?

Since the time of Edwin Hubble, cosmologists have believed the Universe to be inflating, speeding into the nothingness to make it somethingness. They expected that eventually gravity would pull the mass of the Universe back in toward itself, and the expansion would slow down, possibly collapsing back in on itself. In 1998, three supernova experts presented data that shocked the world of astronomers and physicists alike. In 2011, Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering what is believed to be the accelerating expansion of the Universe. The Universe isn’t getting slower in its race into the void, they concluded; it’s speeding up.

It goes back to supernovae. A type Ia supernova is a super compact white dwarf star in a binary system with a red giant. Material from the red star is pulled onto the white dwarf until the highly dense star reaches a mass limit of about 1.4 solar masses (1.4 times the mass of our sun) and in a runaway thermonuclear reaction it just explodes. Because they blow up under the same conditions, type Ia supernovae reach about the same brightness each time, which means they can be used as “standard candles” for measuring distance. The brighter the supernovae, the closer the supernovae.

There are other independent ways of measuring supernova distance as well, but Ia supernova at the same distances should be about the same brightness when they explode. So when Perlmutter, Schmidt, and Riess noticed dimmer-than-expected supernovae, they were puzzled. They told the world in 1998, “Um… these supernovae we’re seeing aren’t bright enough for their distances. Something’s odd here.”

Perlmutter on one team, and Schmidt and Riess on another, independently found some 50 distant supernovae whose light reached Earth more weakly than anticipated. The scientists were expecting the expansion of the Universe to be slowing down, causing the supernovae to appear brighter. Instead, the light from the supernovae was fading. They concluded that the exploding stars had been carried away through space at an ever increasing velocity, along with the rest of their galaxies. In other words, it appeared that the Universe was accelerating.

Then, in 2001, a supernovae 10 billion light years away – the farthest ever observed - once again disrupted expectations because it was determined to be too bright. This indicated that when that particular supernova exploded, the Universe was still slowing down..

“Long ago, when the light left this distant supernova, the Universe appears to have been slowing down due to the mutual tug of all the mass in the Universe,” said Riess in 2001. “Billions of years later, when the light left more recent supernovae, the Universe had begun accelerating, stretching the expanse between galaxies and making objects in them appear dimmer.”

What? How could that even work?

Newtonian physics requires that in order for a mass to increase in velocity, force has to be added to it according to the equation F=ma. Force equals mass times acceleration. What could have happened that would have suddenly forced the Universe to expand more quickly? (Or make it appear as though it were expanding faster?)

Right now, the culprit is called “dark energy.” It’s not a super villain, a cosmological nemesis of the superhero Quasar Man. No. It’s just energy nobody can see. Or prove directly. Astrophysicists have no clue what dark energy might be or what causes it, but its most important characteristic is its negative pressure evenly distributed in space. Dark energy supposedly accounts for 73 percent of the total energy density of the entire Universe. “Dark matter” accounts for another 23 percent, and boring matter made of regular old atoms we can detect makes up just 4 percent of the energy density.

Of course, dark energy and dark matter are hypothetical. They are used to try to explain the data astronomers have been collecting, but nobody has any good answers. Saul Perlmutter writes, “The dark energy evinced by the accelerating cosmic expansion grants us almost no clues to its identity. Its tiny density and its feeble interactions presumably preclude identification in the laboratory. By construction, of course, it does affect the expansion rate of the Universe, and different dark-energy models imply different expansion rates in different epochs. So we must hunt for the fingerprints of dark energy in the fine details of the history of cosmic expansion.”

Perlmutter states we cannot detect dark energy on Earth, presumably because of its “feeble” interactions, and yet it has the power to force galaxies to move at increasing rates through the cosmos?

It may be that astrophysicists need to revamp their models. Perhaps they’ve missed something. Something important.

The idea that the Universe is expanding it largely based on the red shift—the fact that light from deep in space shifts to the red. The same way that a motorcycle sounds deeper as it zooms away from us, the red waves—the longest waves of light—that reach us from supernovae cause most astronomers to assume that the sources of light are moving away from us. However, William Tifft in 1976 determined that the red shift was quantized, not continuous. If it were caused by stars moving away at high speeds, it should be continuous, not bundled in little packages. In the 1980s, Guthrie and Napier at the Edinburgh Observatory spent ten years challenging this view, and confirmed that Tifft was correct. There is also the potential that the speed of light has been slowing down, which we have touched on in previous articles [see the links below].

At the same time, the term “stretching the heavens” appears at least 17 times in the Scriptures. According to the Scriptures, the heavens can be “torn” (Isa 64:1 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); “worn out” like a garment (Ps 102:25 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
) “shaken” (Heb 12:26 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
; Hag 2:6 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
; Isa 13:13 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); “burnt up” (2 Pet 3:12 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); “split apart” like a scroll (Rev 6:14 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); “rolled up” like a mantle (Heb 1:12 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); or a scroll (Isa 34:4 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
) “Rolled up?”

How can all the data best be reconciled? The astronomers and physicists and child prodigies are still working on it. In the meanwhile, we congratulate the Nobel Prize in Physics winners and their dedicated hard work in trying to hammer out the mysteries of the Universe.

Related Links:

• Supernovae, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Universe - Saul Perlmutter
• Written In The Stars - NobelPrize.com
• Type Ia Supernova Cosmology with ADEPT - John Hopkins
• Faster Than The Speed Of LIght - Koinonia House
• History Of The Light Speed Debate - Koinonia House
• A Supernova Sheds Light On Dark Energy (2001) - NASA

From KHouse.Org

It has been observed that science is no longer Science. This rather shocking statement seems very radical and inflammatory, but while it may be inflammatory, it isn’t radical.

Over the last several decades, science has taken a grand “turn”. In the early years of science, there was an understanding that one had to be a rigorous slave to the systematic requirements of discovery. To “know” anything it had to be measured and tested, and then retested.

Conclusions could only be drawn from what was ascertained, not only from testing but from the duplication of the results by independent sources. This would inhibit emotional and political biases from “sneaking” into the pool of what was understood as Truth at the time. Even then it was understood that one piece of new data could “turn over” their perspective in any given area, or possibly their entire world view.

As measuring devises became more and more precise, more and more was discovered to be either outright wrong, or at least suspect. There was a certain humility built into the system. Somewhere in time, science changed from being an area of discovering to a religion dedicated to proving its dogma. Whether this was a result of cross-contamination from the involvement of the church, or a reaction to the realization that the universe (and consequently the data in it) was much more vast than anticipated, science drifted away from “theorizing-and-then-proving” to “proving-the-theory”.

This may seem like a minor point, but it is one which can violate the very definition of science itself. SCIENCE requires conclusions to be drawn from hard (provable, see it to believe it) data. Now theories can be treated as if they are Laws. Then the task is to disprove the theory. No longer is hard data required—only consensus of the majority, the most influential, most political or wealthiest.

This is present in our everyday discussions. Do we ever discuss the “Law of Evolution”? Even its proponents still refer to it as “the Theory of Evolution” while they militantly assure you that it is absolutely the foundational Truth. Any data that threatens any of its dogmas is attacked with accusations of biased, uneducated “opinions”. This is the true dominant religion of our time.

Science is a system, and as with all systems, the systems can be in error without the parts, for the most part, having some devious agenda. Most scientists are well-meaning, hard-working, dedicated technicians. But, much like the persecutions that took place when rigorous science first started drawing conclusions that threatened the prevailing dogma, those trying to adhere to a conservative definition of science are being vilified, isolated and condemned within their disciplines.

96% of the Universe

There has been a problem for some time with the mathematics of the universe. For all to work within the current “theories” of a gravitational Universe there is a factor that is off by 96%. All of the visible matter in the Universe amounts to approximately 4% of what the math tells us should be there. With such a large discrepancy, there are two possible obvious explanations: 1) the missing 96% is there but can’t be seen, or 2) the underlying presuppositions of the math are wrong. Of course, we are told that the most likely explanation is that this 96% consists of “dark matter” (you can’t see it or measure it). And so, in a worldwide effort involving billions of dollars (and Euros, Yen, etc.) there has been a frantic attempt to find this unseen mass. After all the time and money spent, there really hasn’t been much in the way of hard data proof revealed. With the pressures of failure looming, they are now looking for secondary “effects” or by-product particles.

About a year and a half ago, an “antimatter” (positron) detector in space started its search. Just this week the first results were released with excitement and hesitation. The excitement was that positrons were actually detected. The disappointment was that there is no fundamental understanding of the various sources of positrons.

It is “theorized” that when dark matter particles collide, one of the resultant effects is the release of positrons. The difficulty is that Pulsars, a rotating super-dense star, emits positrons also. Our understanding of this release by pulsars is not fully understood.

The only conclusion to be drawn so far is that there are positrons in space (which we already knew). The space-based detector has proved more sensitive than their terrestrial counterparts. But with no ground zero calculation on the “normal” background resulting from other sources, there is no hope of drawing any concrete conclusion on the existence of dark matter.

Since we know that Pulsars emit positrons, it is more likely that they are the sources of the positrons recently detected. Since there is no evidence for dark matter, there must be another explanation in which the mathematics actually works.

Of course there are other “theories” that could explain this mathematical discrepancy, but that would involve giving up some of our most engrained accepted “theories,” such as a gravitational-dependent universe, black holes (which have never really been seen, you know), fusion cycle in the stars, etc.

As with all “revolutions” in science, it takes at least 50 years to discard one paradigm for a new one. There is always great social upheaval involved. Scientific edifices fall and others are raised up. As we build one “theory” on top of another, we are crawling further out on the limb. Be discerning about what you believe is true.

Related Links:

• Space-Station Experiment Deepens Antimatter Enigma - Nature
• Dark Matter - Wikipedia

The Dark Side of Matter - Euronews

From Fox News.Com

Astronomers are already getting set for the arrival of Comet ISON, which may become one of the brightest comets ever seen when it cruises through the inner solar system this fall.

NASA has brought together a small team of experts to organize an observing campaign for Comet ISON, which could potentially shine as brightly as the moon when it makes its closest pass by the sun in late November if the most optimistic scenarios play out.

Coordinating the efforts of observatories on the ground and in space should help wring as much quality science as possible out of the comet’s solar flyby, Comet ISON Observing Campaign (CIOC) officials said.

“It’s a rare opportunity that we’ve got such a long heads-up time, so we actually have time to organize a campaign like this,” said Karl Battams, a scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Lab in Washington and a member of the eight-person CIOC Team. “There’s a lot of new science that we could get from this.”

Russian amateur astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok discovered Comet ISON in September 2012 after poring over photographs taken by a telescope run by the International Scientific Optical Network. Hence the comet’s official name, which is C/2012 S1 (ISON).

ISON is a sungrazing comet, meaning its long, looping path through space takes it extremely close to our star. Indeed, ISON is forecast to zoom just 680,000 miles above the solar surface on its closest approach, which will take place on Nov. 28.

Comet ISON could put on a spectacular show around this time, experts say, potentially glowing so brightly that it’s visible in the daytime sky. (The comet poses no impact threat to Earth.)

Skywatchers aren’t the only people looking forward to the icy wanderer’s solar encounter. Astronomers are excited as well, for ISON’s flyby could give them a rare window into comet composition.

“Sungrazers experience the most intense thermal and gravitational stresses of any comet. There’s a lot of sublimation of material that doesn’t normally sublimate,” Battams told SPACE.com. “Once [ISON] gets really close in to the sun, then we could start to see some of the composition that you wouldn’t normally get.”

So Battams and his colleagues have contacted major ground-based observatories, raising awareness of the comet’s flyby and encouraging them to solicit ISON-observing proposals. The response has been warm, with telescope operators typically voicing enthusiasm about the campaign, Battams said.

The CIOC crew has also reached out to some spacecraft mission teams, asking them to consider taking a look at the comet at some point. And a number of them are already on board.

“Observing campaigns are planned by the SOHO, STEREO and SDO solar missions; by Spitzer, Chandra and Hubble space telescopes; and by the Deep Impact, JUNO, Mercury MESSENGER, Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter missions,” the CIOC website states.

“Other missions at or on Mars are looking into observing ISON, as are a handful of other NASA Planetary missions. We welcome and encourage our international partners to contact us and join in the fun!”

In fact, Deep Impact has already begun its ISON work. The NASA probe snapped its first photos of the comet in January.

Sizzle or fizzle?
There’s no guarantee that ISON will live up to the hype; it may fall apart before even making its closest solar approach. Comets are notoriously unpredictable and sometimes fizzle out despite great expectations, as Comet Kahoutek did in 1973.

The wild-card factor with ISON is especially high, Battams said, since this is apparently the comet’s first trip through the inner solar system from the distant, icy Oort cloud.

Astronomers and skywatchers probably won’t get a real sense of how the comet is going to behave until early August, when water ice should start sublimating in earnest, he added.

But the CIOC Team is proceeding as if Comet ISON will put on a dazzling show, because that’s the scientifically prudent thing to do.

“We have to go forward with optimism and prepare for something really special, something really spectacular, and hope that it happens,” Battams said. “If it does, we’re absolutely going to be in place to take an unprecedented and comprehensive set of observations of the comet.”

- Prophecy News Watch.Com

From KHouse.Org

Mars’ Near Pass-by?

The Long Night of Sennacherib

by Dr. Chuck Missler

Virtually all ancient calendars were initially based on a 360-day year: 12 months of 30 days each. However, all calendars change in 701 b.c.; they all resort to adjustments to accommodate the current sidereal reckoning. Why?

There is a strange segment of history that is, apparently, so important that it is repeated three times in the Old Testament—2 Kings 18, 19, 20; 2 Chronicles 29, 30; and Isaiah 36, 37, 38, 39 (a unique historical parenthesis inserted in the prophecies of Isaiah). Why? Why did the Holy Spirit provide this unusual emphasis of these particular events? Are there some surprises hidden behind these details? These three passages (each) detail three unique miracles:

1. The death angel slays 185,000 Assyrians (Isaiah 37:36–38);
2. God heals Hezekiah and extends his life fifteen years (Isaiah 38:1–5);
3. The sun retreats ten degrees on the sundial of Ahaz (Isaiah 38:7–8).

The Long Night of Sennacherib

Isaiah was the official prophet that served King Hezekiah. In general, Hezekiah did well: he tore down the idols throughout the land and reestablished worship to the true living God in Jerusalem. However, this was misunderstood by his enemies. The Assyrians were encamped against Jerusalem, encouraged by their soothsayers and astrologers. Hezekiah’s anxiety came from the imminent attack of the Assyrians, led by Sennacherib. The fears associated with the awesome power of the Assyrian Empire were justified: they were very powerful and relished in extreme brutalities upon their captives.

However, Isaiah counseled Hezekiah that God was going to intervene and protect them. And He certainly did. On the Passover night of March 20, 701 b.c., the angel dramatically destroyed 185,000 (of an estimated 250,000) Assyrians.¹ It is provocative—and perhaps quite insightful—that so many catastrophic events frequently occurred on the precise anniversary of the Passover of Egypt. This is suggestive of a cyclical (perhaps orbital) mechanism being employed. Could these events also bear a relationship to the drama that occurred on the fabled “long day” of Joshua? The subsequent behavior regarding Ahaz’s sundial is also suggestive of some “cosmological irregularities.” Could they all be related to orbital planetary intervention?

Planetary Intervention

Apparently the cyclical near pass-bys of the planet Mars (every 108 years) were a key factor in a significant series of catastrophic intrusions that ultimately resulted in Mars (“Ares,” or “Baal”) being worshipped (and universally feared) by the ancient cultures.² These pass-bys were accompanied by, among other things, interplanetary lightning. (An aurora or electromagnetic flux tube can currently be observed between Jupiter and its innermost moon, Io.)

Could an interplanetary flux tube have been an instrument of God’s intervention on behalf of Jerusalem? Could Sennacherib’s extensive iron weapons and chariots present been a distinguishing (electromagnetic) factor highlighting the vulnerability of the Assyrian warriors? Apparently, Sennacherib personally also suffered some strange burns, although his clothes were unscathed.³ This, too, is suggestive.

Mars’ Near Pass-bys

Catastrophic Realities

Virtually all ancient calendars were initially based on a 360-day year: 12 months of 30 days each.⁴ However, all calendars change in 701 b.c.; they all resort to adjustments to accommodate the current sidereal reckoning. Why? Something distinctive occurred that year, 701 b.c., to perturb the previous resonances. It is interesting to catalog the Biblically recorded catastrophes:

Catastrophe	Bible Ref.	B.C.
Flood of Noah	Gen 6–8	Oct 2484
Tower of Babel	Gen 11	Oct 1944
Sodom-Gomorrah	Gen 19	Mar 1889
Exodus from Egypt	Exodus 12	Mar 1447
Long Day of Joshua	Joshua 10	Oct 1404
Sisera’s Defeat	Judges 5	Oct 1296
Gideon’s Victory	Judges 7	Mar 1241
Philistine Defeat	1 Sam 7	Oct 1080
Davidic Catastrophe	2 Sam 22	Oct 972
Mt Carmel & Elijah	1 Kings 18	Oct 864
Jonah-Joel-Amos	Jonah 3f, et al.	Oct 756
Sennacherib’s Night	Isa 37, 38	Mar 701

The Long Day of Joshua apparently occurred on 1080^th anniversary of the Flood of Noah, and the 540^th anniversary of the Tower Babel event. The confrontation on Mount Carmel would occur on the 540^th anniversary of the Long Day of Joshua. A careful study of the cyclic underpinnings, and the frequent multiples of 54 (or 108) years, supports the view involving orbital resonances with the planet Mars (with assists involving Jupiter and Saturn as well). The apparent role of the near pass-bys of the planet Mars is persuasive.

A strange form of confirmation has also emerged from fictional literature: Jonathan Swift, in his political parody known as Gulliver’s Travels, has Gulliver, in his third voyage, encounter the astronomers in Laputa who brag that they know about the two moons of Mars while the astronomers in London don’t. (They even describe the sizes, periods and orbits of the two moons with disturbing precision.) What makes this documentation so startling is that Swift published his imaginative fiction in 1726, 151 years before these moons were discovered by the astronomical world!⁵

It is assumed that Swift simply embroidered his colorful parody drawing upon an ancient legend of some sort, probably not realizing that it was, apparently, an actual eye-witness account long prior to the development of telescopic optics.⁶

The Mars near pass-by in 701 b.c. was particularly distinctive in that, for orbital mechanics reasons, it stabilized both the Earth and Mars in their present non-resonant orbits, ending the disruptive pass-bys.

The Roche Limit Factor

The Roche limit is the distance within which a celestial body, held together only by its own gravity, will disintegrate due to a second celestial body’s tidal forces exceeding the first body’s gravitational self-attraction. Inside the Roche limit, orbiting material will tend to disperse and form rings, while outside the limit, material will tend to coalesce.

It is suspected that it was the penetration of a Roche limit that led to the fragmentation resulting in the numerous asteroids now infiltrating the solar system, forming the rings around Saturn, and pockmarking the planet Mars.

Yet, why are over 90% of the craters on Mars located in a single hemisphere? It would appear that the majority of them occurred in a single epoch of time. It has been suspected that if the fragments were composed of ice—a source of water—they could also account for the peculiar erosion evidences on Mars, and despite the current absence of water, perhaps they could have been an additional factor in the flood of Noah.

Summary

We are all victims of a form of uniformitarianism, a presumption that ignores observable evidences, and desperately requires reexamination. Even a casual review of the solar system reveals that it was once a very rough neighborhood. And its history is surprisingly well documented in ancient records. The diligent student will discover that behind the Biblical records lie surprises illuminating the realities of both the macrocosm and the microcosm of cosmological history, a drama indelibly written on the tapestry of what apparently is a holographic universe.⁷ We are having a grand time with our continuing current study of Isaiah. Come join us on www.KITrust.org. There are even bigger surprises in the chapters ahead.

This article was originally published in the
January 2013 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

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**NOTES**

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Notes

1. Rabinnical sources: Shabbat 113b; Sanhedrin 94a; Jerome Is. 10:16; Tosefta-Targum 2 Kings 19:35 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
   ; Targum 2 Chron. 13:21 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
   . Also, Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1928, Vol IV, p.269. “Their souls were burnt, though their garments remained.”
2. Donald Patten, Ronald Hatch, and Loren Steinhauer, The Long Day of Joshua, Pacific Meridian Publishing Company, Seattle, Washington, 1973. Donald Patten, Catastrophism and the Old Testament, Pacific Meridian Publishing Company Seattle, WA 1988; Also, Patten, Donald, W., and Windsor, Samuel R., Recent Organization of the Solar System, Pacific Meridian Publishing Company, Seattle, Washington, 1995.
3. LouisGinzberg, Legends of the Jews, Jewish Publication Society of America, 2nd Edition, 1938; Vol 2, p.1047, note 59.
4. Ancient calendars featuring 360-day years include Arabia, Assyria, Babylonia, China, Egypt, Greece, Hebrews, India, Japan, Mexico, Persia, Peru.
5. This strange corroboration is discussed in our Expositional Commentary on Joshua, and also in our summary survey, Learn the Bible in 24 Hours.
6. The two moons are very small, and have an albedo (reflectivity) of less than 3% (almost black). The further observation is that one of them, Phobos, is the only moon in the solar system going backwards!

Read our materials on the “boundaries of our physical reality” to better appreciate and understand the Bible.

From KHouse.Org

At the end of Planet of The Apes (1968), Charlton Heston and Linda Harrison trot down the beach, where they famously see the charred remains of the Statue of Liberty and realize that the planet the apes are ruling is actually Earth. In the 2011 reboot, biotech researchers have produced a genetically engineered virus that increases the intelligence of both humans and apes. A stronger version of the virus is lethal to humans, however, and has the potential to wipe out the world’s human population – answering the question of how future astronaut Charlton Heston eventually finds a post-apocalyptic Earth run by apes.

Is there a virus capable of truly deleting the majority of humanity on the planet? Does a microscopic bug exist with the perfect combination of immune-system defiance, easy transmission, and a just-long enough incubation period for those infected to unwittingly pass it on before it kills them dead? Guaranteed, there are folks hunting for such a monster, and if they can’t find it in nature, they hope to build it.

H5H1
The bird flu strain that killed a 39-year-old Chinese bus driver on New Year’s Eve was not spread from human to human, according to a statement from China’s Shenzhen Disease Control Center. The recent infection, like ones that caused other human deaths by bird flu, came from contact with diseased poultry. “Though it is highly pathogenic to human beings, the virus can not spread among people,” said the statement. “There is no need for Shenzhen citizens to panic.”

Researchers in Wisconsin and The Netherlands, however, have tweaked the genetic code of the H5H1 virus to make it airborne. Infected ferrets have spread the modified virus to each other, raising the uncomfortable possibility that it could be quickly transmitted between humans as well. The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) stated on December 20 that the H5H1 researchers were free to publish the results of their study, but were not permitted to release a description of the process by which they produced the virulent new strain, except to a very trusted list of researchers.

Should bioterrorists learn how to manufacture this deadly bug and release it into a targeted human audience, it is expected it would be wildly difficult to stop the ensuing pandemic. The H5H1 has a death rate of about 50 percent, 20 percent higher than that of smallpox fifty years ago.

What would possess researchers to purposely develop an airborne version of a deadly disease?

Flu viruses are notorious for their quick-mutating ways, which is why our immune systems have to adapt to the newest versions every year. The scientists at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been seeking to get a step up on this potentially vicious virus so that they can find ways to conquer it before it does show up naturally in the general population. Virologist Ron Fouchier at the Rotterdam lab was amazed to see how few genetic changes it took to develop the airborne version of H5H1. From Fouchier’s point of view, his work has helped the world appreciate how dangerous this virus truly is, encouraging countries with high rates of infection to take urgent steps to eradicate it.

In fact, there are a number of scientists who resent the government’s effort to restrict access to this information. Knowing the steps the flu virus can take to reach airborne transmissibility could give those monitoring the bird flu the ability to recognize when it gets close to a pandemic form. It would give other labs the opportunity to further experiment and find ways to treat and prevent the spread of this potentially lethal virus. On the other hand, the more bird flu floating around, the greater the possibility it could get out.

Bioterrorism:
Bioterrorists do not need an airborne version of the bird flu to kill large numbers of people. There are plenty of easier, less expensive ways to do it. The ricin toxin or anthrax can be made in one’s shed and don’t require a sophisticated lab. Top of the line facilities are needed for purity and to avoid contamination. Bioterrorists, though, do not necessarily care whether their particular biological agent is contaminated. They’re not trying to get FDA approval, after all.

The mechanisms of genetic engineering are no longer a big mystery, and even sophomores in high school biology can run experiments in which they add genes to bacteria. There’s plenty of potential for somebody out there to come up with a dangerous bug. What’s more, after the Soviet Union fell, those who were experts in biotechnology needed jobs, available to be hired by those who had the money and interest.

Would-be bioterrorists do face a major hurdle if they want to infect the human population with a particularly destructive super bug; they need a working space where they themselves can be safe from whatever it is they are cooking up. An airborne virus is a dangerous pathogen to those who work in the lab where it is being developed, and enjoying biosafety of that caliber can get expensive and requires equipment that raises the sorts of red flags that the FBI and Homeland Security and Interpol like to look for.

If a bioterrorist’s goal is to cause panic and gain attention, then the terrorist just needs to mail envelopes with white powder that could be anthrax… or… chalk dust. If the purpose is to harm an enemy, then an airborne virus is a poor weapon, since it can spread across borders to other countries not intended for abuse, including the terrorist’s home country.

If, however, the bioterrorists’ goal is to cull the human population as a whole, then it would be ideal to use an easily transmitted and deadly virus like that offered in an airborne version of H5H1. If humanity itself is the terrorist’s enemy, then it doesn’t matter which international borders a pathogen crosses, or which tribes and nations are affected.

Our Safety:
In Revelation, we find the pale [chloros, green] horse as one of the four horsemen:

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. -Revelation 6:8 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

We usually infer that the “beasts of the earth” are of the four-footed kind; we rarely include in our perspective the possibility that they might be microbial. There are many passages that may take on a different complexion when viewed from the vantage point of the current technological revolution in genetics, and the potential Bibilical implications are provocative.

In these uncertain times, more than ever we need to put all our trust and comfort and faith in the person of Jesus Christ and the love of a God who has all of our hairs numbered. Our job is not to fear, but to trust wholly in Him.  Whether dealing with deadly diseases or simply crossing the street, He is our true source of safety.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. (Psalm 91:5-10 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
)

Related Links:

• Variola Virus (Smallpox) - UPMC Biosecurity
• China: Bird Flu Death Not From Human-Human Spread - AP
• A Public Policy Expert Looks at the Bird Flu Threat - The New York Times
• Debate Persists on Deadly Flu Made Airborne - The New York Times
• Call To Censor Flu Studies Draws Fire - Nature

From KHouse.Org

Scientists think they’ve caught sight of the elusive Higgs boson, a theoretical subatomic particle that makes up the glue that holds the Universe together.  The announcement was made at a press conference on Tuesday.  After billions of dollars and a decade of sweat from thousands of scientists deep in the ground under the Alps, the great mysteries of physics may finally be answered.  Perhaps.  The Higgs may exist after all.

The Large Hadron Collider, a massive atom smasher hidden underground in the Alps along the border of France and Switzerland, has a price tag of $10 billion and the job of shooting atoms through its 16.8-mile circular tunnel at insanely high speeds.  The CERN scientists running this vast project have been on the hunt for the Higgs boson, which the media have warmly dubbed the “God Particle.”  The scientists cannot see the Higgs boson itself; it breaks down too quickly to be directly observed, and only its ”shadow” can be seen.  They do believe, however, that they have narrowed its mass down to the region of 124 to 126 GeV.  (Remember, mass = energy according to Einstein’s famous E=mc^2.)  That’s approximately 125 times heavier than a proton and 500,000 times heavier than an electron. The data is not conclusive, but if the Higgs actually exists, then the CERN scientists are on the way to getting a snapshot.  The Higgs boson theoretically isn’t charged, but it does have a sizeable mass.

This is a big deal to physicists.   All known matter is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons, which are made up of quarks, leptons, and gluons and the like.  These are the building blocks of all matter.  Physicists want to know what gives these subatomic particles their mass in the first place. Why don’t particles just race around at the speed of light? What gives them inertia, and what slows them down? What makes it possible for our atoms to stick together so that we can exist?  Is there a particle that unifies all the forces we see in the physics of the Universe?

The Need For The Higgs:
The Standard Model in particle physics attempts to explain how all the fundamental particles of the Universe interact with each other.  The model, which is often compared to the Periodic Table of Elements used by chemists, consists of 16 particles that make up all matter in the Universe. The problem is that the Standard Model is not complete.

In 1964, a physicist by the name of Peter Higgs, currently professor emeritus at the University of Edinburgh, proposed that empty space is not really empty at all; it is filled with a background energy field, like a lattice through which all other particles have to move.  Wherever a particle moves through this field, the field gets distorted and hugs around the particle.  The Higgs boson is that ”hug” of the field around a particle - like a crowd of people around a starlet.  The particle is given mass, making it harder for it to change direction, speed up or slow down, like the crowd-clustered starlet trying to move across the room.  People surround her as she moves, making it harder for her to speed up or slow down.  In a similar way, it is believed that subatomic particles get their mass - their inertia, their resistance to changes in motion - through interactions with the Higgs Field.  That was Peter Higgs’ idea.

Since a field cannot be seen, scientists are looking for the hugging clusters, the uncharged particle that would interact with every other subatomic particle to give them all mass. Since then, scientists have been scrambling to find this particle, the Higgs boson.

Back in 2008, world renowned physicist Steven Hawking told British TV, ”I think it will be much more exciting if we don’t find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of $100 that we won’t find the Higgs.”  If the recent excitement is all based on random blips that have no statistical significance after all, then the physicists will have to embrace the renewed mystery of the Universe and be open to other possibilities.

“If we don’t see [it], that would be an incredible discovery, be cause then the Standard Model doesn’t work,” Pierluigi Catastini, a research associate with the ATLAS experiment, told Mashable Tech. “If we do find the Higgs boson, then we fill in the most important piece.”

A significant number of scientists, though, are hopeful about proving the Higgs Field and are willing for Hawking to eventually lose his bet. The project involves more than 8,000 scientists from at least 85 countries.

Dark Matter
The existence of dark matter was proposed in 1932 by astronomer Jan Oort, who measured the motions of nearby stars in our Milky Way relative to the galactic plane. He found that the mass of the plane must be more than the mass of the material that can be seen. A year later, Fritz Zwicky examined the dynamics of clusters of galaxies and found their movements similarly perplexing. Over the years, many spiral galaxies were observed and found to be swirling too fast to be held together by the gravitational pull of the visible stars. Since the speedy-moving stars have not been flung out through space, some scientists describe dark matter as “the glue that holds the Universe together.”

Astronomers cannot detect or measure dark matter directly because it emits no light or radiation - hence the name. Its existence is inferred from the gravitational effect it has on visible matter (such as stars and galaxies). There have been a number of conjectures regarding the nature of dark matter, but all of them have eluded any empirical validation.

Physicists hope CERN’s Large Hadron Collider will shed even more light on dark matter, dark energy, the existence of extra dimensions, and the fundamental nature of matter, energy, space and time.

Without Excuse:
Science, like religion, often requires us to take a leap of faith. Any honest scientist should admit that despite centuries of scientific discovery and technological advances, most of the Universe remains an enigma. There are large numbers of areas that, despite careful investigation, we do not fully understand, from the “magic” of photosynthesis to the mysterious particles that make up the fabric of space-time.

Science continues to develop and change as scientists discover new evidence, and it is one of the great joys of being human to explore and discover the marvelous brilliance and detail God used in putting this world together.  Still, even as scientists analyze the data from the LHC and hope to catch a glimpse of the Higgs boson, we’re certain that the name “God particle” is more accurate than some physicists would choose to admit.  Whether or not dark matter is busy keeping distant stars from shooting further into space, we know that Jesus Christ holds each of us, and we trust him to hold the atoms in our bodies together with as much care as he takes in sustaining the entire Universe.  Even if Science changes, we know He does not.

“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” - Hebrews 11:3 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

“For by him [Jesus] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” - Col 1:16-17 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

Related Links:

• Higgs Boson Seminar: Have Physicists Found The ‘God Particle’? - The Guardian
• Why the Higgs Boson Announcement Matters - Mashable Tech
• What Is the Higgs Boson And Why Is It Important? - CNN
• Deep below the Alps, Physicists Seek to Fill in the Blanks of Time and Space (2008) - The Globe And Mail
• Higgs Boson: One Page Explanations - Physics World Volume 6 Number 9
• Physicists Close In on a Universal Puzzle - The Wall Street Journal

From KHouse.Org

“Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:” - Isa 40:21-22 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

Perlmutter on one team, and Schmidt and Riess on another, independently found some 50 distant supernovae whose light reached Earth more weakly than anticipated. The scientists were expecting the expansion of the universe to be slowing down, causing the supernovae to appear brighter. Instead, the supernovae light was fading. They concluded that the exploding stars had been carried away through space at an ever increasing velocity, along with the rest of their galaxies. In other words, the universe was accelerating.

Then, in 2001, a supernovae 10 billion light years away – the farthest ever observed - once again disrupted expectations because it was determined to be too bright.  This indicated that when that supernova exploded, the universe was still slowing down..

“Long ago, when the light left this distant supernova, the Universe appears to have been slowing down due to the mutual tug of all the mass in the Universe,” said Riess in 2001. “Billions of years later, when the light left more recent supernovae, the Universe had begun accelerating, stretching the expanse between galaxies and making objects in them appear dimmer.”

The cause of all this celestial confusion?

Newtonian physics requires that in order for a mass to increase in velocity, force has to be added to it according to the equation F=ma. Force equals mass times acceleration. What could have happened that would have suddenly forced the universe to expand more quickly? (Or make it appear as though it were expanding faster?)

Right now, the culprit is called “dark energy.” It’s not a super villain, a cosmological nemesis of the superhero Quasar Man. No. It’s just energy nobody can see. Or prove directly. Astrophysicists have no clue what dark energy might be or what causes it, but its most important characteristic is its negative pressure evenly distributed in space. Dark energy supposedly accounts for 73 percent of the total energy density of the entire universe.  “Dark matter” accounts for another 23 percent, and boring matter made of regular old atoms we can detect makes up just 4 percent of the energy density.

Of course, dark energy and dark matter are hypothetical.  They are used to try to explain the data astronomers have been collecting, but nobody has any good answers.  Saul Perlmutter writes, “The dark energy evinced by the accelerating cosmic expansion grants us almost no clues to its identity. Its tiny density and its feeble interactions presumably preclude identification in the laboratory. By construction, of course, it does affect the expansion rate of the universe, and different dark-energy models imply different expansion rates in different epochs. So we must hunt for the fingerprints of dark energy in the fine details of the history of cosmic expansion.”

Perlmutter states we cannot detect dark energy on Earth, presumably because of its “feeble” interactions, and yet it has the power to force galaxies to move at increasing rates through the cosmos.  It may be that astrophyicists need to revamp all their models.  Perhaps they’ve missed something.  Something important.

The idea that the universe is expanding it largely based on the red shift - the fact that light from deep in space shifts to the red. The same way that a motorcycle sounds deeper as it zooms away from us, the red waves – the longest waves of light -that  reach us from supernovae cause most astronomers to assume that the sources of light are moving away from us. However, William Tifft in 1976 determined that the red shift was quantized, not continuous. If it were caused by stars moving away at high speeds, it should be continuous, not bundled in little packages. In the 1980s, Guthrie and Napier at the Edinburgh Observatory spent ten years challenging this view, and confirmed that Tifft was correct.  There is also the potential that the speed of light has been slowing down, which we have touched on in previous articles  [see the links below].

At the same time, the term “stretching the heavens” appears at least 17 times in the Scriptures. According to the Scriptures, the heavens can be “torn” (Isa 64:1 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); “worn out” like a garent (Ps 102:25 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
) “shaken” (Heb 12:26 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
; Hag 2:6 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
; Isa 13:13 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); “burnt up” (2 Pet 3:12 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); “split apart” like a scroll (Rev 6:14 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); “rolled up” like a mantle (Heb 1:12 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
); or a scroll (Isa 34:4 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
) “Rolled up?”

How can all the data best be reconciled?  The Astrophysicists are still working on it.  In the meanwhile, we congratulate the Nobel Prize in Physics winners and their dedicated hard work in trying to hammer out the mysteries of the Universe.

Related Links:

Supernovae, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Universe - Saul Perlmutter
• Written In The Stars - NobelPrize.com
• Type Ia Supernova Cosmology with ADEPT - John Hopkins
• Faster Than The Speed Of LIght - Koinonia House
• History Of The Light Speed Debate - Koinonia House
• A Supernova Sheds Light On Dark Energy (2001) - NASA
• Beyond Newton Briefing Pack - K-House Store

From KHouse.Org

Neutrinos may indeed travel faster than the speed of light, according to three years’ worth of data amassed at a huge underground lab in Italy. Physicists across the world are skeptical of course; Einstein’s theory of relativity hinges on the speed of light and the fact that nothing goes faster. If a particle can shoot past light speed, then crazy science fiction dreams like time travel conceivably become possible. If other labs are able to duplicate the results, this discovery will cause theoretical physicists to wrestle once again with the most fundamental concepts about the nature of the universe.

Less massive than an electron, faster than a speeding photon, able to fly through thick rock without hitting a single quark. It’s a lepton. It’s uncharged. It’s… it’s… a neutrino!

Neutrinos are tiny subatomic particles without any charge, which makes it possible for them to speed through the earth without interacting with the atoms along the way. Neutrinos are so tiny and finicky to work with, they aren’t even assigned a quantified mass. For example an electron has a mass of 9.11×10^−31 kg (which is exceedingly small), but a neutrino’s mass is described simply as “non-zero.” Just barely there.

The Opera Experiment:
Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory is buried deep under the ground, out of the way of the Sun’s cosmic radiation. There a group of 160 physicists from 11 countries have been collaborating in an experiment called Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Tracking Apparatus, or “Opera” for short. The Opera experiment does not begin in Italy, though. Just over 450 miles away at the CERN Large Hadron Collider on the border of France and Switzerland, naked protons, stripped of electrons, are fired into a graphite target. There they turn into a pulse of smaller particles called mesons that decay into neutrinos and speed through the earth toward the Gran Sasso lab.

Much to their dismay, the Opera physicists found the neutrinos traveled a distance of 454 miles from the CERN particle accelerator to the underground lab in Italy about 60 nanoseconds faster than a beam of light. That’s significant, because the margin of error was only 10 nanoseconds. In 2007, scientists at Fermilab in Chicago clocked neutrinos exceeding light speed, but their margin of error was higher - high enough to render the results inconclusive - high enough to protect the conceptual order and the sanity of the world’s physicists.

The Opera scientists are not trying to prove a point, nor do they wish to upset Einstein. They were not even initially focusing on neutrino speed. Neutrinos can morph from one shape to another, and the scientists performing the Opera experiment have been trying to study the transformation of muon neutrinos to tau neutrinos. In the process, they measured the speeds of thousands of neutrinos, and came to the uncomfortable discovery that they were going too fast. After 16,000 neutrinos detected over three years, the physicists only detected one tau neutrino. While the speed of neutrinos is becoming the big issue, OPERA spokesperson, Antonio Ereditato of the University of Bern, said, “We would like to see some tau neutrinos.”

Skeptical physicists abound. Few are ready to believe that any particle, however small, surpasses the speed of light. Astrophysicist Martin Rees of the University of Cambridge reminds Scientific American readers that neutrinos and photos arrived about the same time from SN1987A, a supernova first observed in February of 1987. If neutrinos indeed travelled faster than light, then the neutrinos from the supernova should have beat the photons in their space race from the explosion by a good four years. The SN1987A neutrinos had lower energies than the particle accelerator neutrinos, but still. Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University voiced the same sentiments, also noting that the experiment appears to violate Lorentz invariance, “which is at the heart of so much known physics.”

That’s the struggle. So much known physics, tested over and over, depends on the speed of light as the max of the universe. The equations work. The numbers fit over and over again. So, if the speed of light can be surpassed, what does that really mean? Does it mean that neutrinos actually leapfrog forward in time? Or, is there something that physicists have missed?

Most theoretical physicists assume there must be a mistake somewhere. Is there a systematic error that the Gran Sasso team missed? Did they measure the underground distance with the necessary precision, accounting for the tidal bulges in the Earth’s crust due to the location of the Moon?

Dr. Dario Autiero, of the Institut de Physique Nucleaire de Lyon in France declared that his group has been trying to explain the results for six months without success.

“We cannot explain the observed effect in terms of systematic uncertainties,” Dr. Autiero told the physicists at CERN. “Therefore, the measurement indicates a neutrino velocity higher than the speed of light.”

“This result comes as a complete surprise,” confirmed Ereditato. “After many months of studies and cross checks we have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement. While OPERA researchers will continue their studies, we are also looking forward to independent measurements to fully assess the nature of this observation.”

Physicists in other labs are jumping to see if they can repeat the Italian lab’s results. Until others can repeat the experiment and get the same data, it’s unwise to take a stubborn position on the issue. At the same time, an editorial in The Guardian warns against rejecting discoveries just because they’re uncomfortable:

“[B]ut the history of science cautions against branding it unthinkable…Recall, too, that it was the then inexplicable Michelson-Morley experiment which encouraged the spread of Einstein’s early ideas, and the baffling perihelion precession of Mercury which lent support to his general theory. The first thing in science is to face the facts; making sense of them has to come second.”

Related Links:

• Why OPERA’s Claim For Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos Is Not Wrong - John P Costella, PhD
• Challenging Einstein Usually A Losing Venture - USA Today
• Unthinkable? Faster Than Light - The Guardian
• PERA Experiment Reports Anomaly In Flight Time Of Neutrinos From CERN To Gran Sasso - CERN
• After Report on Speed, a Rush of Scrutiny - The New York Times
• Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos? Physics Luminaries Voice Doubts - Scientific American

From Fox News.Com

The night sky may be a lot starrier than we thought.

A study suggests the universe could have triple the number of stars scientists previously calculated. For those of you counting at home, the new estimate is 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s 300 sextillion.

The study questions a key assumption that astronomers often use: that most galaxies have the same properties as our Milky Way. And that’s creating a bit of a stink among astronomers who want a more orderly cosmos.

It’s one of two studies being published online Wednesday in the journal Nature that focus on red dwarf stars, the most common stars in the universe. The study that offers the new estimate on stars is led by a Yale University astronomer. He calculates that there are far more red dwarfs than previously thought, and that inflates the total star count.

A second study led by a Harvard University scientist focuses on a distant “super Earth” planet and sees clues to the content of its atmosphere — the first of this kind of data for this size planet. It orbits a red dwarf.

Red dwarf stars — about a fifth the size of our sun — burn slowly and last much longer than the bigger, brighter stars, such as the sun in the center of our solar system, said Yale astronomer Pieter van Dokkum. His study looks at how many red dwarfs are in elliptical-shaped galaxies.

When scientists had estimated previously how many stars there were in the universe, they assumed that all galaxies had the same ratio of dwarf stars as in our galaxy, which is spiral-shaped. Much of our understanding of the universe is based on observations inside our Milky Way and then extrapolated to other galaxies.

But about one-third of the galaxies in the universe are not spiral, but elliptical, and van Dokkum found they aren’t really made up the same way as ours.

Using the Keck telescope in Hawaii, van Dokkum and a colleague gazed into eight other distant, but elliptical, galaxies and looked at their hard-to-differentiate light signatures. The scientists calculated that elliptical galaxies have more of those dwarf stars. A lot more.

“We’re seeing 10 or 20 times more stars than we expected,” van Dokkum said. By his calculations, that triples the number of estimated stars from 100 sextillion to 300 sextillion.

For the past month, astronomers have been buzzing about van Dokkum’s findings, and many aren’t too happy about it, said astronomer Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology.

Van Dokkum’s paper challenges the assumption of “a more orderly universe” and gives credence to “the idea that the universe is more complicated than we think,” Ellis said. “It’s a little alarmist.”

Ellis said it is too early to tell if van Dokkum is right or wrong, but it is shaking up the field “like a cat among pigeons.”

- Prophecy News Watch