We're Witnessing the Birth of a New Planet

Creationists often dispute scientific claims of the Earth's age.  Biblical study shows that isn't four and a half billion years old, but only six thousand - despite being studded with dinosaur skeletons which are presumably God's idea of an April Fools' gag.  Now it seems a compromise can be reached: astronomers have found a planet that is only thousands of years old - it just isn't Earth.

Their absolute dedication to the contents of a single multiply-retranslated text does mean that anyone with access to a time machine and a sharpie could have an enormous amount of fun, but does make the extreme religious contingent them rather difficult to convince.  Luckily the scientists have rather more compelling evidence than "Someone wrote it down once" - using US Very Large Array (VLA) and the UK Jodrell Bank radio telescopes, they are observing the birth process of an entirely new planet.

A large disc of material orbiting HL Tau, a Tauran star 500 light years from us, was recently perturbed by the flyby of XZ Tau - another Taurus-constellation star with a significantly more Xtreme set of initials.  Researchers from the Edinburgh Institute of Astronomy theorize that this near miss could have disturbed a region of the disk, causing it to begin gravitationally collapsing.  And if there's one thing the existence of our world and everything we see in the sky ever proves, it's that once a clump of matter starts to collapse it tends to keep going.  The agglomeration of dust and pebbles is continuing to hoover up loose material and is well on its way to planethood.

Not that we can load the dinosaur-disbelievers into a rocket and send them somewhere more in keeping with their biblical timeline just yet. The planet is still extremely inhospitable despite being on the go for about 1,600 years (over 80,000 times the seven days we've been told a planet needs before being ready for human habitation).  In fact it will never support human life, as it already resembles the vast gas giant of Jupiter more than our own smaller, rock covered ball.  There will never be a surface, just an extraordinarily dense, hot, crushing atmosphere.

Which isn't to say we shouldn't send them anyway.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

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Embryonic Planet formation http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7326318.stm

Comments

[Joe Schmo]

Quit ranting on the Christians. Most of them believe the creation story was allegorical, not literal. The news of the planet was good enough, it was not necessary to bash a religion. If you want people to take you seriously leave your personal opinions out of your articles.

[MegaChip]

Hello Mr. Joe Schmo,
I think you are going in the right direction, but you still have some way to come.
Aren't you already prepared to substitute god in your mind by your own conscience?
You can still be a good person, maybe a better one, without the rituals.

Yesterday I was watching a documentary on TV about a tribe in South America.
The wizard of the tribe knows there will be a lunar eclipse and informs the tribe (and he is right).
The tribe must do something about the Moon menstruation and prepares the rituals.
The principal part of the ritual consists in whip the youngsters of the tribe on the back, small children's included.

Now imagine you have to do the same thing, knowing what you learned about lunar and solar eclipses.
Do you still do it?

I think when we learn something, with mensurable facts, witch put in cause our beliefs we should go by the facts and assume our belief was wrong, even if it is hard.

P.S. I'm not a natural english speaker.

[Gerald DeNoble]

Look at these three statements from your third paragraph. "A large disc of material...., WAS RECENTLY PERTURBED by the flyby of XZ Tau." "Researchers....THEORIZE that this near miss COULD HAVE disturbed a region of the disk....". "The agglomeration of dust and pebbles is continuing to hoover up (sic) loose material and is well on its way to planet hood." (emphasis mine) You have gone from theory, to possibility, to fact without stating any proof whatsoever. Further, in your first sentence you say was recently disturbed whereas you next sentence says could have disturbed.
Is this how science works? Are you a scientist or a reporter. If you are a scientist, you should never have made such an explicit error of logic. If you are a report, you might ask to be reassigned to some other desk.
As far as your intolerance and ridicule of other's beliefs, that is never acceptable. Scientist need to reach out, to communicate with others with respect, sir, and not with your undisciplined voice and intolerant attitude.

[popeye]

a bit over the top dont you think, all im seeing GERALD is BLAR BLAR BLAR :]

[SS2K8]

oh you wacky christians, so quick to react. :)

[Barrie O'Leary]

I'll tell you what, though, and this is from a non Christian, those Christians who have responded have all done so in perfect English. I congratulate them for that. The text of this article was clealy written, too,
but it is most disappointing to see how language has gone on a holiday with most people contributing to computer feedbacks.

[Brad]

Dismiss your christian god or gods! All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

[Marty Ferguson]

Again I reiterate...If God (and I stress the CAPITAL 'G')is so important to Christians (and I stress the capital 'C'), why do I see so much writing WITHOUT those terms capitalized? You put on a mean speech, so FOLLOW THROUGH WITH PROPER SPELLING! That also goes for the over-usage of "apostrophe 's'." It shows possession and is used as a contraction ONLY!

[kaedun]

who cares how you spell or how bad your grammer is. its what you say that really counts. if you can only attack by pointing out spelling and grammer mistakes, just give up now.

ps. im a christian and love hearing about this kind of stuff. i dont see anything wrong about it either.

[knoxvilledaniel]

This article about an extra - solar world is fantastic without being marred by a rant against the fallacy of Young Earth Creationism which holds that the Earth is 6,000 years old.

Anyway, the planet is 500 light years away, & resembles a gas - giant planet, so I don't think we'll be visiting it anytime yet. If so, we should look for the wreckage of a Colonial fighter in its orbit* ( * re: " Maelstrom " ep. of BSG ), perhaps. It's not an Earth - like extra - solar world, but you can't have everything.

[Your Obedient Serpent]

Joe Schmo:

The article isn't ranting about "Christians". It's ranting about "Creationists", who are exactly those people who believe in the literal truth of their creation myth.

Note that it doesn't even single out CHRISTIAN creationists.

I agree with the importance of the distinction, but you rushed to the defense of a group that wasn't being attacked -- and thus prompted a whole chain of responses that did, in fact, mock those who have ANY faith.