EARTH SCIENCE

Earth Science is concerned with the entire earth

the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, and the
atmosphere. It comprises sciences like Geology,
Meteorology, Astronomy, Oceanography, and
Mathematics. Thus, the study of Earth Science shall
not be limited to the earth alone but also includes
its interrelationship with other science

Astronomy is the study of all matter and

energy in the universe involving celestial bodies
such as planets, stars, and galaxies. The Earth,
our home, is one of the many places in the
universe, the special point from which mans
voyage of exploration started.

One of the oldest sciences

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the

study of celestial objects
The border between terrestrial and
extraterrestrial space = upper end of Earths
atmosphere
Astronomy interferes with physical and technical
sciences

The Goals and Scope of Astronomy

The aim of astronomy is better understanding of

the universe. The astronomer attempts to attain
this by careful observation, testing and logic. At
present, astronomy has little opportunity to see its
knowledge used for the material benefit of
mankind.
Perhaps, the biggest benefit astronomy gives to
mankind is celestial navigation, which up to now is
very useful method of locating oneself whether on
the seas, on land, or in outer space.

The scope of astronomy is so vast. It is the scientific

study of all matter and energy in the universe
emphasizing the concentration of this matter and
energy in evolving bodies like planets, stars, and
galaxies, totally recognizing and understanding that we
are part of the universe.
The field is so complicated and it takes a long way
to understand everything in the universe. The universe
is everything that exists. It is composed of untold
thousands of clusters of galaxies and each one is still
largely a myth.

Most galaxies are made up of billions of stars and

even if our knowledge has been increased over the
past years, no star has been completely understood.
Planets remain as intriguing puzzle. We only have
vague evidence regarding the existence of small
dark objects between stars. For our own planet, our
knowledge covers only the parts near and above the
surface which is therefore only skin-deep.

Man Benefits in Astronomy in many forms:

through a new perspective of his environment

A view of himself and his environment

The stimulation to his imagination brought about

by the adventure of exploring far distant space
and time.

Astronomy accelerated development of

mathematics and physics.

Cosmic research brought new technologies to

common life.

Disadvantages of Astronomy
Most of directly visible events are already well explored
and visible during night (human is active thought day)
Based on mathematics and physics (difficult, maybe noninteresting)
Subject of research is extraterrestrial less necessary +
exacting on money
Astronomers are usually not good at communication
Light pollution of the night sky
Consequence: badly known, not appreciated but future
of mankind lies in the universe!

Theories About the Origin of the Solar System

There have been two main views regarding the
origin of the planets in our solar system.
The first is that another star happened to pass
near our sun, and drew off clouds of gases which
then formed themselves into planets. This is the
planetesimal group of theories. Astronomers are
well aware of the fact that stars do not wander
around through space, but that is how the theory
went..

e other main viewpoint is that a swirling cloud of gas

formed itself into our sun, planets, moons, comets,
and asteroids. By 1940, all the various encounter or
planetesimal theories had pretty much been discarded as
hopeless, but, beginning in that decade, under the urging
of *von Weizsacker, *Whipple, *Spitzer, *Urey, *Garnow,
*Hoyle, *Kuiper, and others, an attempt has been made
to bring astronomers back to some variation of the
nebular (gas cloud) hypothesis. Their efforts have been
surprisingly successful, in spite of the obvious physical
principle that gas in outer space (as well as here on
earth) never coagulates; it always spreads outward.

The planets in our solar system are thought to have

evolved Into existence in one of seven ways:
(1)NEBULAR HYPOTHESISFor many years the
nebular hypothesis was a leading theory.
According to it, the sun and its planets supposedly
condensed out of swirling eddies of cold, dark,
interstellar clouds of gas and dust.

But there are serious problems to the concept:

[1] Before any condensation of gas and dust could occur, the nebula
would have diffused into outer space. According to *Gerald P. Kuiper,
a leading evolutionary astronomer, before gravitational attraction
would become significant, the particles would have to be as big as
the moon.
[2] The theory requires that a complex system of roller-bearing
eddies of gas and dust had to develop, which in turn gradually
whirled out into sun and planets and moons. But this is an
impossibility, since such vortices would have to remain perfectly
intact during essentially the entire period of planetary formation. On
this point, Kuiper doubted that the vortices could last long enough to
get the condensation building process of the planets underway.

[3] What stopped the entire process?If it were not

stopped, the entire mass of material would form one large
bodywithout any planets and moons.

[4] Since the sun has 99.5 percent of the mass in the solar
system, and all the planets and moons only have 0.5
percent of it, what would have kept these small bodies
from falling into the main body?

[5]There is much interstellar material in the vicinity of

our sun, but it is not condensing.

6] Our sun has an extremely small rotational motion

that is, it is turning slowly. This "angular
momentum" is far too small to have evolved from a
gas cloud.If our sun came from a gaseous
protogalaxy, its angular momentum would have to
have been a billion times as much as it is now, in
order for our planets to be flung out and orbit it
as fast as they do. How could it have lost all of its
rotational motion?

2) FISSION THEORYThe "fission theory" says that

our sun burst one day, and all our planets came
from it. Then the moons shot out from each planet,
stopped, turned sideways and began circling the
planets they came out of. Our moon is said to have
emerged from an explosion in the Pacific Ocean.

There are several problems to this theory:

[1] While the moon was moving outward from the earth,
gravity would have pulverized it into rings.
[2] Moon rocks are somewhat different in composition than
the material on earth.
[3] Immense outward explosions would hurl material straight
out into space; they would not circle and then form carefully
balanced orbits.
[4] If thrown off by the earth, the moon should circle our
world over the equator, but, instead of this, it orbits our
planet at a tilt of 18-28 to the earth's equator.

3) CAPTURE THEORYThe "capture theory" says that our

planets and moons were wandering around in spaceand
the planets were captured by the gravity of our sun,
and the moons were captured by the planets.
But there are serious problems here also:
[1] The mathematical probabilities are extremely low.
Given the great distances between objects in space, the
likelihood that objects would pass so close to one
another is very little. Millions would have to pass near
the sun or planets in order for one to pass closely
enough.

 2]We

see no planets flying by us today! If it was

occurring earlier, it should be happening with
great regularity now. We have enough telescopes
in place that we could easily observe such giant
rocks whizzing through our solar system. They
would be brilliant as they shot by, and many could
easily be seen with the unaided eye.

[3]

If they did pass near enough, gravity would

crash into planets and suns, or they would
merely fly past us; they would not pause and
begin orbiting within our solar system.

 [4]By

mathematical probabilities, it would take

thousands of moons passing near the earth in
order for one to possibly begin circling it. In the
process, gravity would have brought many of
them crashing into the earth, destroying both!

These

solar system evolution theories appear to

be little more than fables packaged in big words.

4) ACCRETION THEORYThe "accretion,

condensation, nebular contraction," or "dust cloud"
theory says that small chunks of material separately
formed themselves into our earth and the moon.
"According to this idea, a dust cloud began to
rotate. . When the mass had swept up most of the
material in an eddy, a planet was formed."*M.
Bishop, *B. Sutherland, and *P. Lewis, Focus on
Earth Science (1981), p. 470.

It is said that the moon is just a pile of dust, and

"just happened" to wander near and begin circling
our world, another "pile of dust."But two huge
spheresearth and moonso close to each other,
would fly apart or, being so close to each other,
would soon crash. They would not endlessly circle
one another, neither colliding nor separating.

(5) PLANETARY COLLISION THEORYThe "collision

theory" of the origin our moon theorizes thatour
world is said to have collided with a small planet.
The resulting explosion threw off rocks which
formed our orbiting moon.
Again

there are problems:

[1]Such

a giant impact would totally destroy

our planetor melt its crust.

2] The mathematical probabilities of another large

object hurtling near our planetand then striking it
are remotely "possible."But the fantastically slight
probabilities that it could hit our planet with just
the right weight, speed, and angle of hit to
produce an orbiting of the moon around our
earth, make the whole process an impossibility.

 3]But

more: This would have had to happen

repeatedlyagain and againfor all the other
moons in our solar system!(At the present time 60
moons in our solar system have been counted; the
1989 Neptune flyby added 6 more to the total.)

[4]With

60 moons to form, tens of thousands of

moons would have to pass by our nine planets In
order for their five dozen moons to begin orbiting
them! In the process, thousands of collisions would
have occurred, destroying everything!

[5] If so many near collisions of giant spheres are necessary

in order for moons to form, why are not such near collisions
regularly occurring today? Why are not moons regularly
passing us now? In order to agree with the probabilities
(mathematical likelihood) that it could occur, several
dozen moons would have to fly through our solar system
every day nowand for billions of years beforehandin
order for 60 moons to accidentally start circling our nine
planets through close fly-bys. Of course, that many
wandering spheres entering our solar system would cause
havocand the resulting collisions would smash both
planets and moons and hurtle the pieces into the sun.

6) STELLAR COLLISION THEORYThe "collision

theory" of the origin of our entire solar system
suggests that our planets, moons, and sun all spun
off from a collision between stars. As with most of
the other theories, the problems here are:
1]A

collision hurls materials outward. The debris

would continually travel outward forever.

[2]

If any pieces were drawn together by gravity,

they would have smashed into each other; they
would not mutually orbit.

7)GAS CLOUD THEORYThe "gas cloud theory" of our

planets and moons teachesthat gas clouds were
captured by our sun, which then mysteriously
formed themselves at a distance into planets and
moons.
]We have already observed that gas does not lump
together, any more than air clumps together into
solids.
2] If these planets and moons did adhere in that
manner, they would not orbit one another, nor
would they all together circle the sun.

According to the theory, gas formed into dust

grains, and these glued together somehow and built
up into fist-sized chunks. These pieces continued to
grow until they became planets and moons. But, as
mentioned in the previous chapter,*Harwit
calculated that it would be impossible for the gas
and dust to stick together in outer space, and
before any condensation of gas and dust could
occur, it all would separate.

 SEVEN

MORE FLAWS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM

THEORIESThere are several other weaknesses in
these theories of the originofour solar system.
Here are some ofthem:

(1)

They do not explain where stars, planets

and moons originated.

2) They assume that the very precise and

complicated orbits in our solar system came about
by chance. Yet that could never happen. Man-made
satellites eventually fall back to earth. All the
moons should fall into their respective planets, and
the planets should also fall into the sun.. Yet that
could never happen. Man-made satellites eventually
fall back to earth. All the moons should fall into
their respective planets, and the planets should also
fall into the sun.

 3)

To the extent to which we have studied them,

each planet and moon in our solar system has
unique structures and properties.How could each
one be different if all of them came from the
sun or a common stellar collision?

How

could each one be different if all of them

came from the sun or a common stellar
collision? How could each one be different if all
of them came from the sun or a common stellar
collision?

 4)

None of these theories fit into the laws of

physics, as we know them.

(5)

Nowhere in the universe is to be found

evidence of a building process, such as is depicted
in these fanciful theories. Within the time span of
mankind no such evolutionary changes as those
taught by astronomical theorists has occurred.
How can we assume they take place! This
imaginative thinking is not science, but fiction
writing.

) Evolutionary theorists cannot come up with a

rational explanation of theintricate balancing and
orbital motions of moons and planets in our solar
system!As mentioned earlier, Everything should
crash together or fly apart.

(7) Hydrogen gas never "gravitates" into solids

anywhere, either on the earth or in outer space.
Scientists now know that neither gas nor dust
particles can push themselves into small or large
solids. There is no known mechanism by which small
particles of gas could stick together to build up
chunks big enough, which would finally attract each
other gravitationally, and form planets. There is no
known mechanism by which dust particles in outer
space could do it either.