In a previous article I wrote about the Oort cloud and the scientific evidence that comets are at most thousands of years old. Sticking to our solar system, I now want to discuss the moon and some of the evidence that it is not 4.6 billion years old as promoted by secularists.
MOON VOLCANISM: Lunar orbiters have found that there is widespread evidence of “young” lunar volcanism. Of course, “young” to a secular scientist can mean millions or billions of years, but if the moon is 4.6 billion years old it should be dead cold. This volcanism is in line with a moon created just thousands of years ago as recorded in the Bible. The image below is from NASA and is described as a photo of the remains of ancient volcanism on the moon’s surface. To get all the details on this just search NASA for the volcanism photos.
MOON RECESSION: The moon is slowly moving so that its orbit is further from the earth. If the moon is 4.6 billion years old, it should be much further away using uniformitarian thinking.
As the moon orbits the earth, its gravity affects the oceans resulting in tides. The earth rotates faster than the moon orbits, so there are tidal bulges induced by the moon that are always “ahead” of the moon. For this reason the tides actually pull forward on the moon and that results in the moon gaining energy and gradually spiraling away from the earth.
The moon is currently moving away from the earth at the rate of only an inch per year. In 6,000 years that rate amounts to only about 800 feet which is astronomically inconsequential. However, in 4.6 billion years that rate of movement would mean that the moon would have been actually touching the earth in the past. At that close distance the tides on earth would have been so extreme as to make life on earth impossible. As it is now, the tides are just right for cleansing the ocean shorelines and keeping the ocean currents moving.
Scientists have calculated that at the present rate of recession it would have taken, at most, 1.2 billion years for the moon to move from the point of touching the earth to its present position. This is only 26% of the time evolutionists give for the age of the moon and the earth. Something is very wrong with secular estimates for the age of the earth and moon.
MOON CRATER CREEP: A strong evidence for a young earth is the small amount of talus that has accumulated at the bottom of mesas and canyons, for example, at the Grand Canyon. On the moon there are many craters with steep walls. Of course, there is no atmosphere and no weather on the moon to deteriorate the sides of the craters. However, there is the expectation that rock creep would exist on the moon as it does on earth. There should be some evidence of crater wall creep if the craters are billions of years old. The moon’s craters show no signs of creep, and that is another indication that the moon is not billions of years old.
MOON DUST: When I was a young lad in the 1950s, a major concern of scientists looking forward to space travel was that the moon’s surface consisted of thousands of feet of dust. The dust was imagined to be the result of billions of years of meteoric bombardment. Any spacecraft landing on the moon would sink out of sight upon touchdown.
Prior to the U.S. manned moon landing in 1969 robot landers had been sent to the moon and determined that there was very little dust on the surface of the moon. However, if the moon has indeed been bombarded by meteors for billions of years, why is there so little dust found on the moon’s surface? There should be a lot more according to evolutionary assumptions.
In 2014 NASA published data they had been collecting on the moon since 1969 regarding the rate at which dust has been accumulating on the surface of the moon over this time. The conclusion of the data was, “Powdery particles resting on the moon’s surface could form a layer up to 1 millimeter thick every 1,000 years.”*
So, doing the calculation: 4.6 billion years / 1,000 years = 4,600,000 millimeters. And taking 4,600,000 millimeters and converting it to miles = 2.86 miles. At this rate, in 4.6 billion years nearly three miles of dust would accumulate on the surface of the moon! Could it be that the secular assumptions of long ages are totally incorrect? This evidence seems to indicate just that.
CONCLUSION: These four evidences of moon volcanism, recession, crater creep, and dust that are directly from astronomical science are strong indicators that the moon is not 4.6 billion years old. Biblical Creationists have reasons to be confident that the science is on the side of the Bible’s history, not that of God-rejecting men.
*Meghan Rosen, “Moon Dust Gathers Surprisingly Fast,” Science News, Vol 1. 185, 11 Jan, 2014, p.6.
J.D. Mitchell
