"For decades it has been somewhat of a mystery to secularists as to why our solar system is structured the way it is: the four gas giants—Saturn and Jupiter, composed mainly of helium and hydrogen, and Uranus and Neptune—orbiting far away from the sun, and the four smaller rocky planets, the terrestrials—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—orbiting much closer to the sun.
Astronomers are puzzled that other recently discovered planetary systems look so different from ours. One evolutionist stated, “There are so many surprises in this field—almost nothing is turning out as we expected.”
The predicament is this:
Planet formation must occur quickly before the protoplanet is pulled into the star it’s orbiting, but getting tiny bits of protoplanet dust to join up into nice, round spheres and thence into a proper planet has not been found to work. Many stars in our Milky Way possess spinning disks of matter—orbiting gas and dust—but there are three significant problems in forming planets from these ingredients:
Ours is certainly unique: “Today we know that planetary systems are quite common,
but in many cases the ones we see differ significantly from our own.” Finkbeiner concurs, stating, “Perhaps the biggest question is why our Solar System is so different.”
Exceptional star systems require, well, an exceptional star:
It so happens our sun provides the perfect conditions. It’s not too small (i.e., too dim or too cool) or too big (producing unfortunate charbroiled results from simply being too hot). Compared to the intense and violent activity seen on other stars, our sun is remarkably even-tempered and well-mannered—it doesn’t flare or pulse like other stars. When solar flares do occur, they are not so violent as to vaporize our oceans…or worse.
On the local level, our moon is equally amazing, leading two secular authors to ask, “Who built the Moon?” Knight and Butler state, “The Moon is 400 times smaller than the star at the centre of our solar system, yet it is also just 1/400th of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.” Consequently, the moon and sun appear exactly the same size in Earth’s sky—making precise solar eclipses possible. The authors also say, “By some absolutely incomprehensible quirk of nature, the Moon also manages to precisely imitate the perceived annual movements of the Sun each month.”
Another secular author expressed surprise at the moon’s amazing orbit:
After seeing the precise placement of our planets with their right distances, masses, gravitational attractions, and orbital characteristics, is it any wonder one evolutionist said,
Astronomers are puzzled that other recently discovered planetary systems look so different from ours. One evolutionist stated, “There are so many surprises in this field—almost nothing is turning out as we expected.”
The predicament is this:
Planet formation must occur quickly before the protoplanet is pulled into the star it’s orbiting, but getting tiny bits of protoplanet dust to join up into nice, round spheres and thence into a proper planet has not been found to work. Many stars in our Milky Way possess spinning disks of matter—orbiting gas and dust—but there are three significant problems in forming planets from these ingredients:
death spirals,
accretion (the gradual growth of planets by the accumulation of debris),
and turbulence.
An evolutionist writing in the prestigious Nature journal stated,
The discovery of thousands of star systems wildly different from our own has demolished ideas about how planets form. Astronomers are searching for a whole new theory.
Exceptional star systems require, well, an exceptional star:
There are many factors that would make a star system too hostile for life to even get started, let alone survive for any period long enough to evolve. So what sort of star provides the perfect conditions for a habitable planet elsewhere in the universe?
On the local level, our moon is equally amazing, leading two secular authors to ask, “Who built the Moon?” Knight and Butler state, “The Moon is 400 times smaller than the star at the centre of our solar system, yet it is also just 1/400th of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.” Consequently, the moon and sun appear exactly the same size in Earth’s sky—making precise solar eclipses possible. The authors also say, “By some absolutely incomprehensible quirk of nature, the Moon also manages to precisely imitate the perceived annual movements of the Sun each month.”
Another secular author expressed surprise at the moon’s amazing orbit:
The Moon’s orbit is fiendishly difficult to explain, moving as it does around a rotating Earth, which together form [essentially] a ‘double-planet’ system that orbits around the Sun. It is a classic example of a three-dimensional, gravitational three-body problem.
You might also think that these disparate bodies are scattered across the solar system without rhyme or reason. But move any piece of the solar system today, or try to add anything more, and the whole construction would be thrown fatally out of kilter. So how exactly did this delicate architecture come to be?" ICR
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day,
and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Genesis 1:16
