Stars and Planets

Faulkner, Danny R.  “Are Stars Still Forming Today?”  Answers magazine, April–June 2014.  Answers in Genesis.  Apr 1, 2014.  A magazine article by the astronomer Danny R. Faulkner, a biblical creationist, on whether stars are still forming.  He says the Bible neither clearly forbids nor requires star formation today, and he says he is not sure whether it happens.  The article quotes him for the creationist view that present-day processes cannot explain the origin of stars, and for his admission that he is unsure, and it answers his point that no one has watched a star form.

1. 1a.

   “As an astronomer and biblical creationist, do I believe that stars form today?  I'm not sure.  I understand both sides of the biblical arguments.  I don't see that the Bible absolutely precludes star formation today, nor do I see that the Bible demands it.  So I suggest a continuing discussion of this question.” ↩

Repp, A.  “Fifty-Seven Years of Creation Astronomy, Part II: Issues and Advances.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 59(2):81–91.  2022.  A survey of fifty-seven years of creation astronomy in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, in its Fall 2022 issue.  Its discussion of star formation concludes that the question is unsettled among creationists.  The article uses it for that verdict and for its silence on the other stellar-age methods.

1. 2a.

   Page 87:  Repp 2022, in the CRSQ:  “Other objections seem nothing more than apologetic tactics — for if we disallow star formation, the relatively short lifetime (~ 10⁶ yrs.) of hot blue stars precludes a 13-Gyr. age for the Universe.  However, the physical arguments predicting star formation seem as solid as those predicting such lifetimes;  if so, it is inconsistent to accept the latter but reject the former.  It has also been noted (e.g., Faulkner, 2001a) that star-formation triggers (such as supernova shocks and radiative cooling from dust) require the existence of a previous generation of stars — and thus, even if we accept ongoing star formation, the origin of first-generation stars remains problematic for the naturalist.  More to the point, the apologetic potential of an argument is no measure of its validity.  If we reject the conclusions of mainstream science, we should do so on the basis of solid exegesis, not dubious inference.”  On pp. 86–87 the survey disposes of the two standard creationist objections to star formation, noting that Mulfinger's thermodynamic argument "would disallow any radiative cooling whatsoever and in fact neglects the entropy increase of the environment," and that the scriptural objections come with "Little if any exegesis."  On p. 86 it lists approvingly the arguments creationists have already had to give up, including Faulkner's debunking of "the use of supernova remnants as indicators of a young galaxy." ↩

2. 2b.

   Page 87:  “Rejection of the physical arguments for star formation should logically entail (1) straightforward order-of-magnitude calculations demonstrating that super-Jeans molecular clouds will not collapse and (2) at least the outlines of a self-consistent physical stellar development model (that does not also allow star formation).  This bar seems extremely high.  On the other hand, acceptance of star formation almost forces consideration of how stellar development processes — with their Gyr.-timescales — fit into a YEC framework.  It seems safe to say that there is no consensus on this issue.”  On where model-building stands, p. 87:  “pointing out difficulties in naturalistic origins scenarios — while necessary and valuable work — falls short of actually synthesizing observations within a Biblical framework.”  Page 86:  The survey's opening statement of the difficulty reads:  “Stellar physics is a third unresolved area.  On the one hand, the standard model of stellar development reflects seemingly well-understood physics (noted by Faulkner and DeYoung, 1991).  However, this physics also predicts the spontaneous formation of stars when gas clouds reach a critical density.  Many creationists reject the latter, and thus they are open to skepticism about the former.”  The survey has no entry for main-sequence turnoff ages, globular cluster ages, white dwarf cooling or nucleocosmochronology.  The stellar-age question appears only as the star-formation dispute. ↩

Faulkner, Danny R.  “An Evaluation of Astronomical Young-Age Determination Methods 2: Solar, Stellar, Galactic, and Extragalactic.”  Answers Research Journal 12:329–349.  2019.  The second of two papers in which Danny Faulkner, a young-earth astronomer, grades 23 astronomical arguments for a young sun, stars and galaxies.  Faulkner recommends dropping the arguments that fail and says some of the others appear strong.  Its companion, Part 1 on the solar system, is in the same volume at pages 255–274.  This overview uses the pair for Faulkner's verdicts on all 48 arguments and for his reason for retiring the blue-star argument.

1. 3a.

   Two papers in which Danny Faulkner, a professional astronomer with a PhD who works for Answers in Genesis, grades 48 young-age astronomy arguments.  Faulkner retires 32 of them, keeps 14 and leaves 2 undecided.  The article agrees with most of these verdicts and disagrees with the author about two of the 14 that were kept.  Part 1 is at https://answersresearchjournal.org/astronomical-age-solar-system/.  Part 1 retires 11 (Dodwell; meteorites in strata; lunar dust; rock flow on the Moon; Mercury's atmosphere; tall mountains on Venus; high winds on Venus; dust storms on Mars; high winds on Jupiter and Saturn; hydrogen in Titan's atmosphere; the orbit of Triton; the lifetimes of Chiron and Hidalgo), keeps 12 (lunar ghost craters; lunar recession; Phobos and Deimos; heat loss from the Jovian planets; volcanism on Io; cryovolcanism on Enceladus and Triton; methane in Titan's atmosphere; planetary rings; Poynting-Robertson; meteor shower dispersion; comets; Earth-crossing asteroids), and leaves 2 undecided (transient lunar phenomena; Pluto and Charon).  The retire row lists twelve items because the Titan section splits into a retired hydrogen argument and a kept methane argument, while Faulkner counts the section once.  Part 2 is at pp. 329–349.  Part 2 retires 21 (solar corona temperature; shrinking Sun; solar neutrino problem; solar lithium and beryllium; differential solar rotation; interstellar grain formation; red Sirius; the Algol paradox; rapidly changing stars; dust around hot stars; technetium stars; recurrent novae; fast binaries; supernova remnants; break-up of star clusters; collapse of elliptical galaxies; break-up of galaxy clusters; luminous bridges; fast burn rate of hot stars; fast burn rate of quasars; Olbers' paradox) and keeps 2 (the faint young Sun paradox; the persistence of spiral arms).  Rybka 1993 is the single most-corrected source in Part 1, with eight items, and is still cited approvingly on five others.  Neither paper has a section on main-sequence turnoff fitting, cluster isochrones, white dwarf cooling ages, or nucleocosmochronology, which are the four methods that mainstream stellar-age determination actually rests on.  Faulkner grades what creationists have asserted, not what the mainstream case is built from.  See stellar and galactic ages. ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩

2. 3b.

   Section Fast Burn Rate of Hot Stars:  “Unfortunately, Slusher relied upon some out-of-date references. …  No astronomer today thinks that O and B type stars are primordial.  Rather, astronomers generally think that O and B stars formed very recently (they are classed as extreme population I stars).  Faulkner (2011) and Lisle (2012) have discussed briefly O and B type stars, but within the context of critiquing ideas of star formation.  It is essential that any treatment of O and B stars include discussion of the possibility of star formation by naturalistic means.  Therefore, the existence of stars with very short lifetimes do not in themselves prove that the world is young.” ↩

Answers in Genesis.  Arguments to Avoid.  n.d.  Retrieved Sep 1, 2026.  Moon dust was retired by AiG's own Andrew Snelling in 1993 and has never been listed; the shrinking Sun was retired by DeYoung and Rush in 1989 and is not listed; and the supernova-remnant argument was retired by Faulkner in ARJ in 2017 and is not listed.  A check, made for the Astronomy Arguments to Retire article, of Faulkner's 32 retirements against Answers in Genesis's website: each one was tested against the contents of the topic page and its indexed articles, and all 32 are absent.  Of AiG's five astronomy-touching entries (the NASA missing-day hoax, an evaluation of a Star of Bethlehem DVD, "God Created Things to 'Look Old'", the flat-earth trope and geocentrism), not one is an argument Faulkner evaluated in either paper, so the two documents do not overlap at a single point.  The article cites it to show that Faulkner's audit and AiG's public list are not connected. ↩

Connelly, J. N. et al.  “The absolute chronology and thermal processing of solids in the solar protoplanetary disk.”  Science 338(6107):651–655.  Nov 2, 2012.  A journal article in Science that dates the solids in the solar protoplanetary disk, the disk of gas and dust around the young Sun, and how they were heated.  The article uses its date of 4,567.30 ± 0.16 million years as the standard age of the solar system.

1. 5a.

   “CAIs define a brief formation interval corresponding to an age of 4567.30 ± 0.16 million years (My), whereas chondrule ages range from 4567.32 ± 0.42 to 4564.71 ± 0.30 My.” ↩

Bonanno, A. et al.  “The age of the Sun and the relativistic corrections in the EOS.”  Astronomy & Astrophysics 390:1115–1118.  2002.  A journal article that estimates the Sun's age by fitting its p-modes, the sound waves that travel through the Sun, and that includes relativistic corrections to the EOS, the equation of state that links pressure, density and temperature.  The article uses its seismic age of 4.57 ± 0.11 billion years as a separate check on the meteorite date, since it uses no meteorite, no decay constant and no assumption about initial lead.

1. 6a.

   Best-fit helioseismic solar age t_seis = (4.57 ± 0.11) Gyr (billion years), from fitting solar p-mode frequencies. ↩ ↩

ESA Gaia archive.  Gaia DR3 astrometry for HD 140283.  n.d.  Retrieved Sep 1, 2026.  The archive record is source_id 6268770373590148224, with parallax 16.26724 mas, parallax_error 0.02603 mas, parallax_over_error 624.8, phot_g_mean_mag 7.036 and ruwe 1.064.  SIMBAD's TAP service returns the same value (16.2672 ± 0.026 mas, bibcode 2020yCat.1350....0G, which is Gaia EDR3, whose astrometry is carried unchanged into DR3).  Distance = 1000 / 16.26724 = 61.47 ± 0.10 pc = 200.5 ± 0.3 light years.  Lundkvist et al. 2025 adopt the zero-point-corrected value 16.305 ± 0.026 mas, which is the same distance to within the errors.  The Gaia DR3 astrometry for HD 140283, which gives the star's parallax, the small shift in its apparent position that astronomers convert into a distance.  The RUWE of 1.06 is a quality measure, and it is well below the 1.4 threshold, so the single-star solution is sound.  The article uses it for the star's distance of 200.5 ± 0.3 light years. ↩ ↩

Lundkvist, M. S. et al.  “Asteroseismic investigation of HD 140283: The Methuselah star.”  Astronomy & Astrophysics 703:A232.  Nov 2025.  Section abstract:  “The star was observed by TESS in 20-second cadence during Sector 51.  We extracted a custom light curve and performed a frequency analysis, revealing a rich spectrum of solar-like oscillations including mixed modes. …  Using a dense grid of models, we find a mass of 0.75 ± 0.01 M⊙, a radius of 2.078 (+0.012/−0.011) R⊙, and an age of 14.2 ± 0.4 Gyr, in agreement with the upper limit set by the age of the Universe within 1σ.”  The frequency of maximum power, ν_max = 611.3 ± 7.4 μHz, is a direct sound-travel measurement inside the star.  Section §6.1:  “Our seismically constrained age (14.2 ± 0.4 Gyr) is higher by 0.8σ than the estimated age of the Universe of 13.787 ± 0.020 Gyr (Planck Collaboration et al. 2020).  Thereby, from our analysis, the age of HD 140283 is not at odds with the age of the Universe. …  It can be concluded that HD 140283 is an old star that was born early in the history of the Universe.”  The authors are careful about the error bar.  “the uncertainties are those quoted by BASTA, not accounting for all systematic effects.  As suggested by, for instance, Tayar et al. (2022), realistic age uncertainties for sub-giants are higher, for HD 140283 perhaps of the order of 10%.”  Ten per cent of 14.2 Gyr is 1.4 Gyr, so the interval the caveat implies is roughly 12.8–15.6 Gyr.  The article does not claim the HD 140283 anomaly was resolved downward; on the best current analysis the star still sits 0.8σ above the Planck age.  A research paper, published in November 2025, that analyses the oscillations of HD 140283, a metal-poor subgiant star often called the Methuselah star, which NASA's TESS satellite observed for 20-second intervals.  It uses those oscillations to fix the star's mass, radius and age, and finds an age of 14.2 ± 0.4 Gyr, within 1σ of the age of the universe.  The article uses it as the best current asteroseismic age for a nearby old star.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 8a.

   Table A.1, page 12:  The table is titled "Literature ages for HD 140283."  The eighteen published values, in the paper's order: VandenBerg 2000, ≤ 16 Gyr; Ibukiyama & Arimoto 2002, 11.38; VandenBerg et al. 2002, 13.5 ± 1.5; Casagrande et al. 2011, 13.42 (+0.32/−0.55) with Padova models and 13.61 (+0.25/−0.54) with BaSTI; Bond et al. 2013, 14.46 ± 0.31; Bensby et al. 2014, 14.7 with an asymmetric error the table prints as "−0.9/−6.6" and a comment that it is plotted as the range 8.1–13.8, which is a typesetting error in the source; VandenBerg et al. 2014, 14.27 ± 0.38; Creevey et al. 2015, 13.7 ± 0.7 for A_V = 0; Joyce & Chaboyer 2018, the range 12.5–14.9; Sahlholdt et al. 2019, ≥ 12; Chen et al. 2020, 14.42 (+2.96/−1.28); Karovicova et al. 2020, mass only; Tang & Joyce 2021, 12.0 ± 0.5; Plotnikova et al. 2022, 14.41 ± 0.65 (BaSTI) and 14.69 ± 1.03 (Padova); Guillaume et al. 2024, 13.08 ± 0.85 with solar-scaled mixing and 12.60 ± 0.88 with 9 per cent reduced mixing; and Lundkvist et al. 2025 themselves, 14.2 ± 0.4.  The floor of the whole distribution is about 11.4 Gyr, and that is the age the article uses. ↩

Bédard, A. et al.  “On the Spectral Evolution of Hot White Dwarf Stars. I.”  Astrophysical Journal 901:93.  2020.  A paper on hot white dwarfs that also produces the evolution sequences the Montreal group publishes as public cooling tables.  Each table gives a white dwarf's surface temperature and luminosity at each age, for stars of different mass.  The article uses the tables to show how little a white dwarf cools in 6,000 years.

1. 9a.

   The header of the web tables says:  “We use our latest generation of evolutionary sequences published in Bedard et al. (2020, ApJ, 901, 93) and provided below.  We rely on stellar models with thick (q_H = MH/M* = 10⁻⁴) and thin (q_H = 10⁻¹⁰) hydrogen layers for the pure-hydrogen and pure-helium model atmospheres, respectively.”  The 97,900 K value is the table's interpolation at 6,000 years, from a start of 98,455 K for a 0.6 M☉ white dwarf with a thick hydrogen layer.  The 132,600 K value is for a 1.0 M☉ model.  The 1.92 × 10⁴⁷ erg integral is also taken from the tables.  The envelope thickness matters:  the same 0.6 M☉ white dwarf reaches 4,000 K at 9.99 Gyr with a thick hydrogen layer, and at 8.14 Gyr with a thin one. ↩ ↩

Bergin, E. A., and M. Tafalla.  “Cold Dark Clouds: The Initial Conditions for Star Formation.”  Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 45:339–396.  2007.  A review article on cold dark clouds, the nearby members of the densest, coldest gas in the Milky Way, where stars like the Sun are being born.  It covers the filamentary structure of these clouds and the subsonic starless cores inside them, which show conditions just before stars form.  The article uses it for the measured temperatures of those cores.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 10a.

   “Tafalla et al. (2004) have studied the temperature profiles of two Taurus-Auriga starless cores, L1498 and L1517B, using NH3 observations with a resolution of 40″ (0.027 pc).  In both cores, the temperature remains constant over the central 0.1 pc with a value of about 10 K.” ↩ ↩ ↩

Evans, N. J. II et al.  “Detection of Infall in the Protostar B335 with ALMA.”  The Astrophysical Journal 814:22.  2015.  An observing paper that uses ALMA on B335, an isolated dark globule, where absorption in HCN and HCO+ lines is redshifted, which fits gas falling inward.  It finds that existing inside-out collapse models can match the line profiles averaged over the central 50 AU, and it gives an infall rate of 3 × 10⁻⁶ M☉ per year.  The article uses it as the direct detection of gas falling toward a forming star.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 11a.

   Section Abstract:  “Observations of the isolated globule B335 with ALMA have yielded absorption features against the continuum that are redshifted from the systemic velocity in both HCN and HCO+ lines.  These features provide unambiguous evidence for infall toward a central luminosity source.” ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩

Krumholz, M. R., and J. C. Tan.  “Slow Star Formation in Dense Gas: Evidence and Implications.”  The Astrophysical Journal 654:304–315.  2007.  A research paper that surveys observations of denser gas in the interstellar medium, including infrared dark clouds and dense molecular clumps, to ask whether these objects turn their gas into stars slowly or quickly.  It finds no sign of a change from slow to fast star formation across three orders of magnitude in density.  The article uses it for the standing result that giant molecular clouds turn only about 1 % of their gas into stars per free-fall time.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 12a.

   The result is attributed to Zuckerman B and Evans NJ II, The Astrophysical Journal 192:L149, 1974.  “It has been known for more than 30 years that star formation in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) is slow, in the sense that only ∼ 1 % of the gas forms stars every free-fall time.  This result is entirely independent of any particular model of molecular cloud lifetime or evolution.” ↩ ↩

Keppler, M. et al.  “Discovery of a planetary-mass companion within the gap of the transition disk around PDS 70.”  Astronomy & Astrophysics 617:A44.  2018.  A 2018 observation paper that analysed new and older near-infrared images of the PDS 70 disk from three telescope instruments.  The authors found a point of light inside the disk's gap, bound to the star, with brightness and colours suggesting a planet-mass companion.  They also note that most earlier planet detections in disks were being challenged at the time.  The article uses it for one of the two directly imaged planets inside the PDS 70 gap.

1. 13a.

   “We detect a point source within the gap of the disk at about 195 mas (∼22 au) projected separation.  The detection is confirmed at five different epochs, in three filter bands and using different instruments.  The astrometry results in an object of bound nature, with high significance.  The comparison of the measured magnitudes and colours to evolutionary tracks suggests that the detection is a companion of planetary mass.”  The gap itself is about 54 au across.  The distance adopted in the follow-up ALMA work is 112.4 pc. ↩ ↩

Benisty, M. et al.  “A Circumplanetary Disk Around PDS 70c.”  The Astrophysical Journal Letters 916:L2.  2021.  A short 2021 report, published as a Letter, of new ALMA radio-telescope observations of the PDS 70 system.  The observations were made at high angular resolution to resolve the disks around the planets, which are disks of gas and dust surrounding a planet, and to measure their dust masses.  The article uses it for the resolved disk around one of the two planets.

1. 14a.

   ALMA band 7 continuum observations at about 20 milliarcsecond resolution (2.3 au) resolve compact dust emission at the location of PDS 70 c, interpreted as a circumplanetary disk; extended low-surface-brightness continuum emission is also detected within the gap. ↩ ↩ ↩

Lisle, Jason.  “Blue Stars Confirm Recent Creation.”  Acts & Facts 41(9):16.  Institute for Creation Research.  Sep 2012.  A short popular article by Jason Lisle in the magazine of the Institute for Creation Research, a ministry that teaches a universe about 6,000 years old.  It makes no new measurements.  It argues that the most massive blue stars burn out within a million years, and that gas clouds cannot easily collapse into stars.  The article takes its two main claims from it and tests each one.

1. 15a.

   “Based on their observed luminosity, the most massive blue stars cannot last even one million years before running out of fuel.” ↩ ↩

2. 15b.

   “In space, there is no container.  So gas expands indefinitely.  If the gas could be forced into a sphere that is very small (in comparison to a nebula) such as the sun, then the gas would be held together by its own gravity.  However, in a typical nebula, the gas pressure far exceeds the miniscule force of gravity.” ↩ ↩

Ekström, S. et al.  “Grids of stellar models with rotation. I. Models from 0.8 to 120 M☉ at solar metallicity (Z = 0.014).”  Astronomy & Astrophysics 537:A146.  2012.  A grid of computer models of how stars evolve, computed as 48 tracks, both with and without rotation, for stars from 0.8 to 120 times the Sun's mass at solar metallicity (the share of elements heavier than helium).  The models are theory, not observations, and the article uses their lifetimes for the most massive stars.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 16a.

   Table 2:  Hydrogen-burning lifetimes t_H in Myr, non-rotating and rotating: 120 M☉ 2.672 / 3.178; 85 M☉ 3.024 / 3.715; 60 M☉ 3.530 / 4.465; 40 M☉ 4.439 / 5.698; 25 M☉ 6.310 / 7.902; 15 M☉ 11.015 / 13.447; 9 M☉ 26.261 / 31.211. ↩ ↩ ↩

Yusof, Norhasliza et al.  “Evolution and fate of very massive stars.”  Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 433(2):1114–1132.  2013.  Computer models, from the Geneva stellar-evolution group, of stars from 120 to 500 times the Sun's mass, with and without rotation, followed to the end of their lives and compared with the very massive stars seen in the cluster R136.  The models are theory.  This overview uses their main-sequence lifetimes to settle how long the most massive blue stars can live, because the Geneva grid used by the star-formation article stops at 120 solar masses.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 17a.

   Section 3.3:  “We see that the MS lifetime of non-rotating models at solar metallicity ranges from 2.67 Myr to 1.99 Myr for initial masses ranging from 120 to 500 … showing the well known fact that VMS have a very weak lifetime dependence on their initial mass.”  VMS means very massive stars.  The same section gives the exponent of the mass-luminosity relation as about 3 for 10 to 20 solar masses, flattening to about 1.3 for 200 to 500 solar masses, so that the lifetime, roughly mass over luminosity, scales as M^−0.3. ↩ ↩ ↩

Lin, C. C., and Frank H. Shu.  “On the Spiral Structure of Disk Galaxies.”  Astrophysical Journal 140:646–655.  1964.  The founding paper of density-wave theory, by two mathematicians at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  It argues that the stars and gas of a disk can maintain a density wave through their gravity, and it gives a formula for the spiral's shape.  The article uses it because the paper itself prints the rival view, that arms are destroyed by rotation and regenerated, sixteen years before the creationist winding argument appeared in Slusher 1980.  Mirror:  Articles.adsabs.harvard.edu

1. 18a.

   Page 646:  “Toomre tends to favor the first of the possibilities described above.  In his point of view, the material clumping is periodically destroyed by differential rotation and regenerated by gravitational instability.”  Lin and Shu's stated objection to Toomre's view is aesthetic and specific, and it is not a claim that the mechanism fails:  “It is somewhat difficult to see how this mechanism alone can account for the relatively regular spiral pattern over the whole disk in most of the flat galaxies”.  This sentence, printed in the founding paper of density-wave theory, is the modern mainstream position.  It predates the appearance of the creationist winding argument in Slusher 1980 by sixteen years. ↩ ↩

Rush, David E., and Larry Vardiman.  “Pre-Flood Vapor Canopy Radiative Temperature Profiles.”  Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism 2:231–246.  Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh.  1990.  A radiation model of a water-vapour canopy above the atmosphere, by David E. Rush and Larry Vardiman.  They ran LOWTRAN 7, a standard atmospheric radiance code, to pure radiative equilibrium, for canopies of different sizes.  The article uses it because the authors' own model shows that even a canopy of 50 mb would make the surface too hot to live on, and because they concede that a thin canopy would hardly supply the rain for the Flood.

1. 19a.

   Page 237:  “In conclusion, only 50 mb of water vapor added above the present atmosphere would raise the surface temperature as determined by a radiation balance from 320 K to 409 K.”  Page 236:  The scale of a 50 mb canopy is given on this page:  “50 mb of water vapor is equivalent to 20 inches of precipitable water”.  half a metre, one twenty-fourth of Dillow's canopy.  The surface temperature of 409 K is.  “35° above the boiling point of water at 1063 mb”.  on page 236.  Page 237:  Their comparison on page 237 makes the point about water vapour specifically:  “Kasting and Ackerman (1986) added 10 bars of CO₂ and got a surface temperature of only 400 K, including convection effects, at present solar luminosity.  Truly, the water molecule has an amazing ability to absorb radiation.”  Page 238:  Their conclusions:  “Radiation considerations strongly suggest surface temperatures are not suitable for the 1013, 125, and 50 mb canopies.  The canopy blanket is simply so effective that the surface temperature becomes inhospitable.”  They credit a critic honestly on the same page:  “Morton (1979) was apparently the first to conclude that the canopy would have made the earth's surface too hot for human habitation …  Life as we know it would not have been possible under a canopy of 1013 mb (1 atm), nor even with a canopy of only 50 mb.” ↩

Humphreys, D. Russell.  “Evidence for a Young World.”  Acts & Facts 34(6).  Jun 1, 2005.  A list of fourteen natural phenomena, written for ICR's Impact No. 384 by Dr. Russell Humphreys and reprinted by Answers in Genesis.  It argues that each process sets a maximum age far below the billions of years that evolutionary theory needs.  The article uses it for two items: item 1, the claim that galaxies wind up too fast, and item 2, the missing supernova remnants, which Faulkner retracted in 2017 but which Answers in Genesis still serves uncorrected.  Mirror:  Answersingenesis.org

1. 20a.

   Section Item 2 of fourteen:  Served at Answers in Genesis, with the byline 'on June 1, 2005', in five translations (French, Dutch, Chinese, Greek, Italian), and at ICR, dated 'WEDNESDAY, JUNE 01, 2005'.  Both copies are still uncorrected and unannotated.  “According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years.  The gas and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years.  Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants.  That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas.”  This is the sharpest datum in Part 8 of the article.  It is not an outside critic's observation: it follows entirely from Answers in Genesis's own two pages.  Faulkner works for Answers in Genesis and published the retraction in Answers in Genesis's own journal in 2017. ↩ ↩

2. 20b.

   Section Item 1, Galaxies wind themselves up too fast:  “For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the puzzle has been a complex theory called 'density waves.'  The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope's discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the 'Whirlpool' galaxy, M51.”  Two defects, one checkable in a line.  The observation was not made by the Hubble Space Telescope.  Zaritsky et al.'s abstract says 'we have obtained K-band (2.2-μm) images', and Hubble had no infrared camera at all until NICMOS was installed on Servicing Mission 2 in February 1997, four years after the paper.  And 'very detailed spiral structure in the central hub' is not a fact that embarrasses an old galaxy, because the authors say it requires several dynamical mechanisms to explain. ↩

Fraser, Wesley C. et al.  “The Transition from the Kuiper Belt to the Jupiter-Family Comets.”  Comets III.  Oct 28, 2022.  An overview chapter for the book Comets III, by five authors, on how icy bodies beyond Neptune become Jupiter-family comets.  It reports that comets 1 to 10 km across have physical lifetimes of about 4,000 to 40,000 years.  The article uses it for the mainstream figure of 4,000 to 40,000 years, which it says the observations get right.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 21a.

   “Fits to the inclination distribution of JFCs with diameters between 1 and 10 km suggest physical lifetimes of ≈ 4000–40,000 years (≈ 500-5000 orbits), which is a small fraction of the dynamical lifetimes.” ↩ ↩

Lorenz, R. D. et al.  “Titan's inventory of organic surface materials.”  Geophysical Research Letters 35:L02206.  2008.  A 2008 study by the Cassini radar team that maps Titan's lakes and dunes from radar images and estimates how much organic liquid and solid material they hold.  It finds that the lakes hold far less liquid than the atmosphere holds methane, so they cannot keep the atmosphere supplied over geologic time.  The article uses it for the point that Titan would lose its methane in about ten million years without a resupply from the interior.

1. 22a.

   Page 10:  “Put another way, there is an order of magnitude less liquid in the lakes than there is methane in the atmosphere, and photochemical models predict that inventory to be depleted in ~10 Myr.” ↩ ↩

Meyers, Stephen R., and Alberto Malinverno.  “Proterozoic Milankovitch cycles and the history of the solar system.”  PNAS 115(25):6363–6368.  2018.  A research article in PNAS that applies a Bayesian inversion, a statistical method that fits astronomical theory to rock records, to rhythmic rock layers about 1.4 billion years old in the Xiamaling Formation of North China.  It estimates the Earth–Moon distance and length of the day at that time, finding 340,900 ± 2,600 km and 18.68 ± 0.25 hours.  The article uses it for the Earth–Moon distance 1.4 billion years ago, one of two rock-based points showing that the Moon's recession was slower in the past.

1. 23a.

   Section Abstract:  “Application of the approach to 1.4-billion-year-old rhythmites indicates a precession constant of 85.79 ± 2.72 arcsec/year (2σ), an Earth–Moon distance of 340,900 ± 2,600 km (2σ), and length of day of 18.68 ± 0.25 hours.” ↩ ↩

Lantink, Margriet L. et al.  “Milankovitch cycles in banded iron formations constrain the Earth–Moon system 2.46 billion years ago.”  PNAS 119(40):e2117146119.  2022.  A research article in PNAS that matches regular layers in a 2.46-billion-year-old banded iron formation in northwest Australia to Milankovitch cycles, the slow changes in Earth's orbit that drive climate.  The authors dated the rocks by high-precision uranium–lead dating of zircon and got an Earth–Moon distance of 321,800 ± 6,500 km and a daylength of 16.9 ± 0.2 hours at 2.46 billion years ago.  The article uses it to show that the Moon's recession was slower in the deep past, the opposite of what the young-earth calculation assumes.

1. 24a.

   Page 1:  “…an Earth–Moon distance of 321,800 ± 6,500 km and a daylength of 16.9 ± 0.2 h at 2.46 Ga.” ↩ ↩

Lainey, V. et al.  “Strong tidal dissipation in Io and Jupiter from astrometric observations.”  Nature 459:957–959.  2009.  A study of how strongly tides dissipate energy inside Io and Jupiter, measured from astrometric observations (precise measurements of where the bodies are).  The article uses it as the direct measurement of Io's tidal energy input that answers the heat argument for Io.

1. 25a.

   Tidal dissipation determined from astrometric observations spanning 1891 to 2007 is in good agreement with Io's observed surface heat flow, indicating Io is close to thermal equilibrium. ↩ ↩

Lainey, V. et al.  “Strong tidal dissipation in Saturn and constraints on Enceladus' thermal state from astrometry.”  Astrophysical Journal 752(1):14.  2012.  A study of how strongly Saturn dissipates tidal energy, measured from astrometry (precise measurements of the moons' positions), which also constrains the heat inside Enceladus.  The article uses it as the measurement that Saturn's tidal dissipation is about ten times stronger than theory assumed, which lets Enceladus's heat be explained.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 26a.

   Saturn's tidal dissipation factor Q = 1682 ± 540, about ten times stronger than theoretical expectation.  A lower Q means more of the tidal energy turns into heat.  The source concludes:  “as a consequence, eccentricity equilibrium for Enceladus can now account for the huge heat emitted from Enceladus' south pole.” ↩ ↩

Volk, Kathryn, and Renu Malhotra.  “The Scattered Disk as the source of the Jupiter Family comets.”  Astrophysical Journal 687:714–725.  2008.  A research article in the Astrophysical Journal that tests whether the scattered disk, a dynamical subclass of the Kuiper Belt, can supply the Jupiter-family comets.  It builds an improved model of the scattered disk's orbits, runs a 4-gigayear numerical simulation, and finds that the observed supply may fall short by more than two orders of magnitude; the authors call the fixes they consider possible but problematic.  The article uses it as one of the two open problems in the comet question, the shortfall of the source population for short-period comets.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 27a.

   Section ABSTRACT:  “However, the best estimates from observational surveys indicate that this source may fall short by more than two orders of magnitude the estimates obtained from theoretical models of the dynamical evolution of Kuiper belt objects into JFCs.” ↩

Nesvorný, D. et al.  “Origin and Evolution of Short-period Comets.”  Astrophysical Journal 845:27.  2017.  A journal article in the Astrophysical Journal on the origin and evolution of short-period comets.  It reports that its model of the orbits of ecliptic comets works without P9.  The article uses it for the state of the question in 2017: the orbital pattern is reproduced, but the numbers of comets are only within a factor of a few.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 28a.

   “The orbital distribution of ecliptic comets (ECs) is well reproduced in models with Np(2.5)=500 and without P9.” ↩ ↩ ↩

Humphreys, D. Russell.  “The creation of planetary magnetic fields.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 21(3):140–149.  Dec 1984.  The author, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, published the paper in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, a creationist journal.  It proposes that God could have started planetary magnetic fields by creating atoms with aligned nuclear spins, that the fields decay over thousands of years, and that their present strengths fit a 6,000-year age for the solar system.  The article uses it for a published prediction about the magnetic moments of Uranus and Neptune, and for the theory behind that prediction.

1. 29a.

   “In that case, according to equation (3), (4), and (30), the present dipole moment of Uranus would be of the order of 10²⁴ J/T.”  The same order of magnitude is given for Neptune. ↩ ↩

2. 29b.

   In the paper's footnote 2, about Mercury.  “Mercury's decay rate is so rapid that some future probe could detect it fairly soon.  In 1990 the planet's magnetic moment should be 1.8 percent smaller than its 1975 value.” ↩

Ness, N. F. et al.  “Magnetic Fields at Uranus.”  Science 233(4759):85–89.  1986.  A report in the journal Science on the magnetic field of Uranus.  The field is a dipole (the field a bar magnet would make) with moment 0.23 gauss·R_U³, offset 0.31 R_U from the centre and tilted 59° from the rotation axis.  Converting with m = R³B×10⁷ and R_U = 25,559 km gives 3.8 × 10²⁴ A·m², and the same conversion reproduces Earth's accepted 7.9 × 10²² A·m².  The article uses that Uranus value to test Humphreys' 1984 prediction. ↩ ↩

Ness, N. F. et al.  “Magnetic Fields at Neptune.”  Science 246(4936):1473–1478.  1989.  A report in the journal Science on the magnetic field of Neptune.  The field is an offset, tilted dipole (the field a bar magnet would make, shifted away from the centre and tilted) with moment 0.133 gauss·R_N³, displaced 0.55 R_N from the centre and inclined 47°.  With R_N = 24,765 km that is 2.0 × 10²⁴ A·m², and the article uses that Neptune value to test Humphreys' 1984 prediction. ↩ ↩

Elms, Abbigail K. et al.  “Spectral analysis of ultra-cool white dwarfs polluted by planetary debris.”  Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 517:4557.  2022.  A spectral analysis of very cool white dwarfs whose atmospheres are polluted by debris from planets.  The authors fitted each star's spectrum to get its temperature, mass and cooling age.  The article uses it for WD J2147−4035, which is 91 light years away and has a cooling age over 10 billion years.

1. 32a.

   Table 1, page 3:  WD J2147−4035 has a Gaia EDR3 parallax of 35.79 ± 0.49 mas, zero-point corrected per Lindegren et al. 2021, giving 27.94 ± 0.38 pc = 91.1 ± 1.2 light years.  Table 5, page 6:  Its surface temperature is 3,048 ± 35 K, its mass 0.69 ± 0.02 M☉ and its cooling age 10.2 ± 0.2 Gyr.  The table caption says:  “The quoted uncertainties are purely of statistical nature as derived from the fits, and are much smaller than the model-dependent systematic uncertainties.” ↩ ↩ ↩

Hansen, Brad M. S. et al.  “The White Dwarf Cooling Sequence of NGC 6397.”  Astrophysical Journal 671:380–401.  2007.  A paper that dates the globular cluster NGC 6397 from the cooling of its white dwarfs, and compares that age with the age from the main-sequence turnoff, the point where the cluster's stars begin to leave the main sequence.  The authors say the two methods are in complete agreement.  The article uses it as a clock on NGC 6397, whose white dwarf cooling age is 11.47 ± 0.47 Gyr.

1. 33a.

   Section 3.6, The Main Sequence Turnoff:  “Hence the two methods are in complete agreement, as these were the models used to determine the progenitor ages in Figure 13.  As a result, this combination represents a successful end-to-end (main sequence to white dwarf) comparison of a set of stellar models with the observed stellar population.”  Section 4:  “our final age constraint is that derived from Figure 17, T = 11.47 ± 0.47 Gyr.”  The turnoff age it is compared with is 11.6 Gyr, from the models of Dotter and Chaboyer with the distance and extinction restricted to the range that fits the white dwarfs. ↩ ↩

Samec, Ronald G., and Evan Figg.  “The Apparent Age of the Time Dilated Universe I: Gyrochronology, Angular Momentum Loss in Close Solar Type Binaries.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 49(1):5–19.  2012.  A young-earth paper, accepted for publication on 14 January 2012, on the apparent ages of close binary stars, worked out from how their spins and orbits lose angular momentum.  Both authors were listed as "Bob Jones University, Astronomy Program".  The article uses it because it draws the boundary of "nearby" at about 3,000 light years and excludes the objects the article discusses.  Mirror:  Crsq.creationresearch.org

1. 34a.

   Page 15:  The passage quoted, p. 15:  “We observe that all of these objects are local (all within ~1000 parsecs or ~3000 ly) and not cosmological, deep-space objects.  This may validate the notion that all nearby objects partook in the same dilation effects as the earth during Creation Week and that they all have ages measured in earth time on the order of 10,000 years, nearly the same as we find for solar system objects such as that of Jupiter and interplanetary dust. …  We believe that this paper gives physical confirmation of the youthful age of at least the nearby universe.” ↩ ↩

Faulkner, Danny R.  “A Review of Stellar Remnants: Physics, Evolution, and Interpretation.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 44(2):76–84.  2007.  A review article in a creationist journal, by a creationist astronomer at the University of South Carolina Lancaster.  It surveys how white dwarfs and neutron stars are observed and modelled, then sets out possible creationist responses.  Its closing section says that many questions are posed but few definitive answers are offered.  The article uses it because it concedes that white dwarfs must cool as they age, and that their ages are far greater than a few thousand years.

1. 35a.

   Page 83:  “Lacking an internal energy source, white dwarfs must tap their considerable store of internal heat and so they must cool as they age.  From their temperature, we can estimate the ages of white dwarfs.  These ages typically are far greater than a few thousands of years.  Did God create white dwarfs with various ages?  Many creationists would answer yes to both of these questions.”  The next quotation is about neutron stars, on the same page.  “Did God create 'fossil' stars?  Creationary geologists would object adamantly if this were suggested in the realm of fossils of biological origin (i.e. fossils of plants and animals were planted in the ground by God).  Is the astronomical realm so different?”  Page 76:  The methodological statement.  “we must be very careful that we do not mistakenly 'throw the baby out with the bath water' by dismissing some of the conclusions that are based upon good observations and physics.  As difficult as it may be, we must separate the evolutionary speculations from the well-established ideas.”  Page 84:  The closing remarks, and then the statement of the theological cost.  “We have posed many questions here, but offered few definitive answers.  The field of creation stellar astronomy is still in its infancy.  The author has few answers for many of these questions at this time, and he hopes that this brief discussion can lead to further discussion and research.”  “Many creationists view the aging and death processes of stars, as well as stellar remnants, such as black holes, as part of the curse. …  If so, then when did these aging and dying processes occur?  If after the Fall, then how did the light get here?  If before the Fall, then is that consistent with a creation that was declared 'very good?'” ↩

Hartnett, J. G.  “Giant molecular clouds: a look at uniformitarian assumptions in star formation.”  Creation Ministries International.  Feb 4, 2016.  A web article from Creation Ministries International, a creationist ministry, that takes a critical look at the assumptions of star formation theory.  The article quotes its objections to a textbook's account of how giant molecular clouds collapse, and answers them.  It was updated on 15 March 2016.

1. 36a.

   “From Eq. (1) it is obvious that as the density of the cloud is increased with collapse the temperature of the cloud is increased (without some rapid cooling method; i.e. radiated away) and the required Jeans mass increases, as does the required Jeans length [Eq. (2)].  This runs counter to a collapse through the Jeans limit.” ↩

Crutcher, R. M., and A. J. Kemball.  “Review of Zeeman Effect Observations of Regions of Star Formation.”  Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences 6:66.  2019.  A review chapter on the Zeeman effect, the only technique that measures the strength of magnetic fields directly in regions of star formation.  It collects Zeeman measurements from extended gas and from masers, and reports that clouds above a column density of about 10²² cm⁻² are supercritical, which means gravity wins over their magnetic support.  The article uses it for the field measurements that contradict the claim that magnetism stops collapse.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 37a.

   Section 4.2.1 B vs. N:  “Clouds with N_H ≳ 10²² cm⁻² have a mean M/Φ that is supercritical by a factor of 2–3.  The data strongly suggest that subcritical self-gravitating clouds are the exception and in fact none may exist.” ↩ ↩

Heyer, M., and T. M. Dame.  “Molecular Clouds in the Milky Way.”  Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 53:583–629.  2015.  A review article on the cold gas clouds of the Milky Way in which stars form, summarising the field.  The article uses its estimate of the Galaxy's total molecular hydrogen to work out how fast the Milky Way should be making stars if its clouds simply fell together.

1. 38a.

   The review's compilation of CO surface-brightness measurements out to a galactocentric radius of about 20 kpc gives a total Galactic molecular hydrogen mass of (1.0 ± 0.3) × 10⁹ M☉. ↩

Licquia, T. C., and J. A. Newman.  “Improved Estimates of the Milky Way's Stellar Mass and Star Formation Rate from Hierarchical Bayesian Meta-Analysis.”  The Astrophysical Journal 806:96.  2015.  A statistical study that combines published measurements of the Milky Way's stellar mass and star formation rate into one improved estimate.  The article uses its star formation rate of 1.65 ± 0.19 solar masses per year as the measured rate for the whole Galaxy, and sets it against what free collapse of the gas would predict.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 39a.

   “Ultimately, our analysis yields a SFR for the Galaxy of Ṁ⋆ = 1.65 ± 0.19 M☉ yr⁻¹.” ↩ ↩

Visbal, Eli et al.  “LAP1-B is the First Observed System Consistent with Theoretical Predictions for Population III Stars.”  arXiv preprint, version 2.  Oct 15, 2025.  A short research letter by three astronomers at the University of Toledo and Columbia University, posted on arXiv.  It uses a computer model to estimate how often such systems should be seen, and it argues that the candidate LAP1-B matches three predictions for the first stars.  The authors call LAP1-B a candidate.  The article uses it for the best current candidate for the first stars, and for the caveat that it sits at redshift 6.6, far later than the redshift 20 or more where the article says most of these stars form.

1. 40a.

   Section Introduction:  “Up to this point, there have been no unambiguous direct detections of Population III (Pop III) stars, defined by their extremely low metallicities.” ↩ ↩ ↩

Weidenschilling, S. J.  “Aerodynamics of solid bodies in the solar nebula.”  Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 180:57–70.  1977.  A theoretical paper, with no new measurements, that works out how gas drag makes solid bodies in the solar nebula (the disk of gas and dust that formed the Sun and planets) drift inward.  It gives analytic and numerical results for all the applicable drag laws and for several model nebulae, and finds that the drift speed depends strongly on size, reaching about 10⁴ cm/s (100 metres per second) for metre-sized objects.  The article relies on it for the claim that the metre-size barrier is real.

1. 41a.

   “A particle would spiral into the sun in a characteristic lifetime of τ_c = r/|dr/dt|. … For s ∼ 100 cm, τ_c < 100 yr at r = 1 AU.” ↩ ↩

Zsom, A. et al.  “The outcome of protoplanetary dust growth: pebbles, boulders, or planetesimals? II. Introducing the bouncing barrier.”  Astronomy & Astrophysics 513:A57.  2010.  A computer study that models how dust grains in a disk stick and grow, using collision rules taken from laboratory experiments on dust aggregates (loose clumps of grains) in a random-sampling growth model.  It runs the model at 1 au (the Earth's distance from the Sun) at three gas densities, and finds that growth stops because the aggregates bounce apart rather than shatter, with a maximum mass of about one gram.  The authors say the collision model rests on necessary assumptions about the shape of the aggregates.  The article uses it for its claim that growth stalls long before a metre.

1. 42a.

   “The particle growth is stopped by bouncing rather than fragmentation in these models.  The final Stokes number of the aggregates is rather insensitive to the variations of the gas density and the strength of turbulence.  The maximum mass of the particles is limited to ≈ 1 g (chondrule sized particles).”  The collision model is built from the laboratory experiments of Güttler et al. (2009) and applied at 1 au in the disk midplane at three gas densities. ↩ ↩

Manara, C. F. et al.  “Why do protoplanetary disks appear not massive enough to form the known exoplanet population?”  Astronomy & Astrophysics 618:L3.  2018.  A short letter that compares the dust masses of disks around young stars, measured with the ALMA radio telescope array in star-forming regions 1 to 3 million years old, with the masses of known exoplanet systems.  The authors expected the planets to weigh less than their disks, but found they weigh as much as or more than the most massive disks.  The article uses it for the objection that the disks may not hold enough material to make the known planets.

1. 43a.

   “While expecting that the mass in exoplanetary systems is much lower than the measured disk masses, we instead find that exoplanetary systems masses are comparable or higher than the most massive disks.”  Disk masses were recalculated using Gaia DR2 parallaxes; the comparison is repeated in heavy-element content, using core masses for giants and full masses for super-Earth systems. ↩ ↩

Morbidelli, Alessandro et al.  “Asteroids were born big.”  Icarus 204:558–573.  2009.  A computer study that simulates small solid bodies colliding, sticking and growing, to ask how big the first planetesimals (the first solid bodies to form in the disk) had to be.  Starting from km-sized bodies cannot reproduce the bump near 100 km in the size distribution of today's asteroids, but starting from about 100 km can.  The article uses it as the first of three lines of solar-system evidence that planetesimals jumped straight to large sizes.

1. 44a.

   “We find that, if the initial planetesimals were small (e.g. km-sized), the final SFD fails to fulfill these constraints.  In particular, reproducing the bump observed at diameter D ∼ 100 km in the current SFD of the asteroids requires that the minimal size of the initial planetesimals was also ∼100 km.  This supports the idea that planetesimals formed big, namely that the size of solids in the proto-planetary disk 'jumped' from sub-meter scale to multi-kilometer scale, without passing through intermediate values.” ↩

Nesvorný, David et al.  “Trans-Neptunian Binaries as Evidence for Planetesimal Formation by the Streaming Instability.”  Nature Astronomy 3:808–812.  2019.  A short paper that runs three-dimensional computer simulations of the streaming instability and predicts how the orbits of Kuiper belt binary pairs (two small bodies orbiting each other) should be oriented.  About 80 per cent of the simulated binary orbits are prograde, that is, they move the same way as the planets, which matches the observed binaries, and the paper says models with mostly backward orbits can be ruled out.  The article uses it as evidence that Kuiper belt binaries are mostly prograde and similar in size, which collapsing clumps would produce.

1. 45a.

   “Here we report evidence that Kuiper belt planetesimals formed by the streaming instability, a process in which aerodynamically concentrated clumps of pebbles gravitationally collapse into ∼100-km-class bodies.  Gravitational collapse was previously suggested to explain the ubiquity of equal-size binaries in the Kuiper belt. … [models] which imply predominantly retrograde binary orbits … can be ruled out.” ↩

McKinnon, W. B. et al.  “The solar nebula origin of (486958) Arrokoth, a primordial contact binary in the Kuiper belt.”  Science 367:eaay6620.  2020.  A paper by the New Horizons science team that studies how Arrokoth, a small body in the Kuiper belt made of two lobes that touch, was assembled.  It combines New Horizons' close-up data on the shape of the lobes with computer simulations of low-speed collisions, and concludes the lobes merged gently in the early Solar System.  The article uses it as evidence that Arrokoth's two lobes merged gently, which fits a pebble cloud collapsing under its own gravity.

1. 46a.

   “…finding it is the product of a gentle, low-speed merger in the early Solar System.”  The two lobes are.  “little disturbed, with no obvious morphological signs of a violent or energetic merger.” ↩

Haffert, S. Y. et al.  “Two accreting protoplanets around the young star PDS 70.”  Nature Astronomy 3:749–754.  2019.  A 2019 observation paper reporting two accreting protoplanets around the young star PDS 70.  Its evidence is strong hydrogen-alpha emission from two distinct locations inside the planets' gap, measured with high-resolution spectral imaging.  The article uses it for the second planet inside the PDS 70 gap.

1. 47a.

   High-resolution (R ∼ 2,500) integral-field spectral imaging detects strong hydrogen-alpha emission from two distinct locations inside the PDS 70 gap, confirming the earlier detection of PDS 70 b and identifying a second protoplanet, PDS 70 c.  Line widths as well as intensities are measured, constraining the accretion onto each object. ↩ ↩ ↩

Humphreys, D. R.  “Evidence for a young world.”  Creation Ministries International.  Jan 27, 2006.  A popular web article from Creation Ministries International that lists twelve natural phenomena said to conflict with the idea that the universe is billions of years old.  The author says the figures are maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages.  The article uses it as the popular young-earth version of the comet argument.

1. 48a.

   Section 2. Comets disintegrate too quickly:  “According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about 5 billion years.  Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years.  Many comets have typical ages of 10,000 years.” ↩

DeYoung, Don, and Jason Lisle.  “Does Astronomy Confirm a Young Universe?”  The New Answers Book 3.  Answers in Genesis.  Jun 9, 2014.  Chapter 19 of a book by Answers in Genesis, a creationist ministry, that argues from astronomy that the universe is young.  It assumes naturalism and uniformitarianism for the sake of argument, then says the Moon, comets, the faint young Sun, star aging and spiral galaxies all give ages far too young, and that these ages are upper limits.  The article uses it for the Moon-recession argument and for the point that these estimates are only upper limits.

1. 49a.

   Section Moon Recession:  “Currently, the moon is moving outward from the earth by 3.82 cm/yr (1.5 in/yr).  However, this recession is highly nonlinear and would have been greater in the past.  If one assumes unlimited extrapolation back in time, gravity theory shows the moon in direct physical contact with earth about 1.55 billion years ago.” ↩

Spencer, Wayne.  “Our young solar system.”  Creation 33(4):38–41.  Oct 2011.  A popular article in Creation magazine, from Creation Ministries International, that argues several features of the solar system show it is young.  It was posted at creation.com on 30 January 2012 and updated on 23 March 2024.  The article uses it for two heat problems, the heat of Io and the faint young Sun.

1. 50a.

   Section Io is too hot:  “However, the amount of heat that Io gives off, that scientists have observed with infrared telescopes and spacecraft, is about 10 times the amount of heat generated by all known sources of heat, including tidal dissipation.” ↩

2. 50b.

   Section The young Sun was too cool:  “At that time in the Sun's life cycle it would have given off about 30% less light energy than today, and the Earth would have been much colder.  Earth would likely have looked like a ball of ice instead of how it looks today.” ↩

Faulkner, Danny R.  “Are Old Supernova Remnants Really Missing? Re-Evaluating a Well-Known Young-Universe Argument.”  Answers Research Journal 10:245–258.  2017.  The creationist source is Keith Davies, whose fullest statement is "The Range of Sizes of Galactic Supernova Remnants," Creation Research Society Quarterly 43, no. 4 (March 2007): 242–250.  Section abstract:  The abstract opens:  “For more than two decades, recent creationists have used the supposed lack of old supernova remnants, and particularly the lack of stage three supernova remnants…”  Table 1, page 254:  Table 1 lists seventeen remnants past Davies' 7,000-year criterion, five of them over a million years old.  A 2017 paper by a young-earth astronomer that re-examines the argument that the galaxy has too few old supernova remnants.  It lists seventeen remnants older than the argument's cutoff, five of them over a million years old, and it discourages recent creationists from using the argument.  The article uses it as the retraction of Keith Davies's argument that the galaxy's missing old remnants point to an age of about 7,000 years. ↩

Lisle, Jason.  “Stellar Astronomy: Part 4 — Of Dwarfs and Supergiants.”  Biblical Science Institute.  Mar 22, 2024.  Part 4 of Lisle's series on stellar astronomy.  It grants that the masses of binary stars can be measured from Newton's laws, then argues that the ten-billion-year fuel estimate assumes a starting composition that God need not have given.  The article uses it for that answer to the main-sequence age argument.

1. 52a.

   “Most stars are part of a binary system in which two or more stars orbit their common center of mass.  By measuring their orbital period and their distance from each other, we can compute the mass of the stars from Newton's laws.”  “Based on the size of the sun and its energy output, it would theoretically take ten billion years for it to convert all its core hydrogen into helium.  However, this assumes that its core composition was initially identical to its surface composition.  If the star began its existence with very little hydrogen in the core but lots of helium, it would take much less time to fuse the remaining hydrogen.  We don't know that God created each and every star with a 'full tank of gas.'  Furthermore, how do we know that God didn't create some stars with only helium in their core to begin with, in which case they would begin their existence already off the main sequence?”  In footnote 4, Lisle writes:  “Many astronomers would point to cluster turn-off points as evidence in favor of the standard model of stellar evolution. …  Since early type stars exhaust their fuel more quickly than late type stars, they would indeed leave the main sequence sooner.  Thus, secular astronomers use this as a tool to estimate the age of the cluster.  However, even clusters that are assumed to be very old often contain a handful of blue main sequence stars known as 'blue stragglers,' which is contrary to the predictions of the model.  Secular astronomers suppose that such stragglers formed by stellar mergers and are therefore recent, but there is no way to test this.”  In the surveyed young-earth literature this footnote is the only place where the turnoff method is stated correctly and then answered.  The body text first grants the mass-measuring apparatus, and argues that the main sequence is a mass sequence rather than a time sequence, which is true and is not what the turnoff argument claims.  The body text and the footnote are in tension, and the 2008 time-dilation move has disappeared from this treatment. ↩

Miglio, A. et al.  “Detection of solar-like oscillations in relics of the Milky Way: asteroseismology of K giants in M4 using data from the NASA K2 mission.”  Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 461:760.  2016.  A research paper that detected solar-like oscillations, rhythmic pulsations of the star's surface caused by sound waves inside it, in eight red giant stars in the globular cluster M4.  It used the mass each star's oscillations give, and the article uses it because that mass agrees with the masses from the stellar models and from the eclipsing binaries.

1. 53a.

   Section §3.1.1, page 4:  The isochrone fit to M4's colour-magnitude diagram with BaSTI models gives.  “an age of 13 Gyr and a M_ISO,RGB = 0.84 M⊙”.  Extrapolating the measured masses of M4's turnoff eclipsing binaries (Kaluzny et al. 2013) up the giant branch gives M_EB,RGB = 0.85 M☉, and the asteroseismic mass, under all four combinations of seismic and non-seismic constraints in their Table 2, is 0.84 M☉.  Section abstract:  “for RGB stars we find excellent agreement with the expected masses from isochrone fitting, and with a distance modulus derived using independent methods.  The offset with respect to independent masses is lower, or comparable with, the uncertainties on the average RGB mass (4 - 10%).”  Three routes give one number: stellar-model isochrones, Newtonian orbital mechanics, and the frequencies of sound waves inside the stars.  This paper also fixes the metal-poor scaling-relation bias reported by Epstein et al. 2014. ↩

Hartnett, J. G.  “Planetary system formation: exposing naturalistic storytelling.”  Creation Ministries International.  Feb 17, 2016.  A young-earth creationist article arguing that naturalistic models do not yet explain how planets form.  Hartnett's article was updated on 14 April 2016.  The article calls it the most detailed young-earth treatment of the question, and says Hartnett reads the standard sources, quotes them accurately, and identifies genuine weak points.

1. 54a.

   “Furthermore, simulations show that once the putative grain size has reached about 1 metre at a distance of 1 a.u. from the protostar the grains will spiral into the protostar in only 100 years.  This is known as the 'metre-sized barrier' to planetesimal formation.” ↩

2. 54b.

   “According to the biblical model there is no reason to expect that the Creator did not create many different forms of planetary systems, which might be incorrectly labelled by evolutionists as being at various 'evolutionary stages' of formation.” ↩ ↩

Musiolik, G., and G. Wurm.  “Contacts of Water Ice in Protoplanetary Disks — Laboratory Experiments.”  The Astrophysical Journal 873:58.  2019.  A laboratory experiment on how water-ice grains stick to one another at the temperatures found in protoplanetary disks.  The article uses it because its measurements undercut the idea that water ice is much stickier than rock, the usual escape route for dust growth.

1. 55a.

   The measured surface energy of water ice falls by almost two orders of magnitude between 273 K and 180 K, so at the temperatures prevailing in protoplanetary disks water ice is not more sticky than silicate dust or complex organics.  Subsequent work has quoted fragmentation velocities for ice as low as about 1 m s⁻¹. ↩ ↩

Dunham, M. M. et al.  “The Evolution of Protostars: Insights from Ten Years of Infrared Surveys with Spitzer and Herschel.”  Protostars and Planets VI.  University of Arizona Press.  2014.  A review chapter for the Protostars and Planets conference volume, on what the Spitzer and Herschel space telescopes' infrared surveys have shown about protostars, the young stars still gathering mass from a dense core.  The article uses it for two sets of protostar counts and their lifetimes, and for the protostar luminosity problem.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 56a.

   “Over the past two decades various theories have attempted and failed to explain observed protostellar luminosites, which are found to be generally ∼10 times less luminous than expected.”  The expected accretion luminosity for a 0.25 M☉ protostar at a collapse-driven rate of about 10⁻⁵ M☉ yr⁻¹ and a radius of 3 R☉ is about 25 L☉; the observed median (Table 2) is 1.3 L☉ for the Spitzer sample and 1.2 L☉ for the Herschel sample. ↩

Faulkner, Danny R.  “Solving the Light Travel Time Problem.”  Answers in Depth.  Feb 23, 2021.  A popular web article, published 23 February 2021, that surveys the creationist answers to the light travel time problem, meaning the question of how distant starlight can have reached Earth in a few thousand years.  It covers mature creation, accelerated light speed, the white hole cosmology, Carmeli's cosmology, the anisotropic synchrony convention and the dasha proposal, and it reports that Humphreys has abandoned the white hole model.  The article uses it for that report, and for two passages in which the author rejects mature creation as deceptive.

1. 57a.

   “For instance, I have more than four decades of experience observing eclipsing binary stars. …  However, if the light of these stars were created in transit so that the light never left the stars, then we would see evidence of events (eclipses, for example) that would have never happened.  This is deceptive.”  The consequence the author draws:  “Since in the mature creation solution, the light from distant objects never left those objects, none of those distant objects need exist at all.  Consequently, in the mature creation solution, much of the universe could be an illusion.” ↩

Hoogerwerf, R. et al.  “On the origin of the O and B-type stars with high velocities. II. Runaway stars and pulsars ejected from the nearby young stellar groups.”  Astronomy & Astrophysics 365:49–77.  2001.  A detailed astronomy paper that traces fast-moving runaway stars and pulsars back in time to find the young groups they came from.  It uses positions and motions measured by the Hipparcos satellite, and it retraces the orbits of 56 runaway stars and nine compact objects.  The article uses it for a clock that needs no stellar theory: three runaway stars were in one small volume at the site of the Trapezium cluster about 2.5 million years ago.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 58a.

   The retracing uses Hipparcos proper motions and parallaxes plus radial velocities, with Monte Carlo error propagation.  “We … show that the orbits of the runaways AE Aurigae and μ Columbae and of the eccentric binary ι Orionis intersected each other in a very small volume ∼2.5 Myr ago, and show that they were ejected from the nascent Trapezium cluster.” ↩

Silva Aguirre, V. et al.  “Standing on the shoulders of dwarfs: the Kepler asteroseismic LEGACY sample II – radii, masses, and ages.”  Astrophysical Journal 835:173.  2017.  A 2017 study that dates a large sample of main-sequence stars, the stage the Sun is in, from the way they vibrate (asteroseismology), using Kepler satellite data.  Its key test sent seven independent modelling teams the vibrations of a disguised Sun, without telling them what star it was, and asked for its mass, radius and age.  The article uses the test to show what happens when several teams date the same star.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 59a.

   Page 12:  “The true identity of this star was concealed from the modellers.”  Table 2, page 15:  What the seven independent pipelines returned for the disguised Sun.  Masses, against a true value of 1.000 solar masses (M☉): 0.979, 0.986, 0.978, 1.021, 0.997, 0.927 and 1.037 M☉.  Radii, against a true 1.000 solar radii (R☉): 0.992, 0.994, 0.993, 1.006, 0.995, 0.973 and 1.012 R☉.  Ages: 4840 ± 367, 4686 ± 393, 4852 (+1181/−1069), 4331 ± 85, 4859 ± 128, 4621 ± 200 and 5297 ± 350 Myr.  The table note gives the reference value:  “the solar age is determined to be 4.57 Gyr (Bahcall et al. 1995).”  Page 12:  The one high outlier is diagnosed as a pipeline whose grid lacked microscopic diffusion, the slow sorting of elements by gravity inside a star.  Its authors write:  “A test including this effect in the YMCM modelling results in an estimated age of tau = 4.83 Gyr, in better agreement with the solar value of 4.57 Gyr.”  The Sun's age is known independently, from lead-lead dating of calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions in meteorites.  That is radioactive decay in solid rock, and it shares no physics with sound waves in a star.  Section Abstract:  On the precision now achieved for the wider sample:  “Average uncertainties are of the order of ~2% in radius, ~4% in mass, and ~10% in age, making this the best-characterised sample of main-sequence stars available to date.” ↩

Tremblay, Pier-Emmanuel et al.  “Core crystallization and pile-up in the cooling sequence of evolving white dwarfs.”  Nature 565(7738):202–205.  2019.  A 2019 paper that counts the white dwarfs, the dead cores of Sun-like stars, within 100 parsecs of the Sun, using Gaia distances, and finds that they pile up at one brightness.  The pile-up is where the cores crystallise, locking their carbon and oxygen ions into a solid while the star releases heat, which delays its cooling.  The article quotes its statements that white dwarfs cool predictably, and that the pile-up is a direct observation of a transition predicted over fifty years earlier.  Mirror:  arXiv

1. 60a.

   “The case without latent heat release by crystallisation is clearly ruled out by the observations.”  Page 5 of the arXiv version.  The comparison uses white dwarfs with Gaia masses between 0.9 and 1.1 M☉ and population simulations under three treatments of crystallisation. ↩

Humphreys, D. Russell.  “Accelerated Nuclear Decay: A Viable Hypothesis?”  Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, 333–380.  Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research Society.  Edited by Larry Vardiman, Andrew A. Snelling and Eugene F. Chaffin.  2000.  Chapter 7 of a young-earth creationist research volume on radioisotopes and the age of the earth.  The chapter asks whether accelerated nuclear decay is a viable hypothesis, and it lists reasons God might have changed decay rates.  The article uses it for the claim that the change would apply to the heavens as well as the earth.

1. 61a.

   Page 356:  Arguing from 2 Peter 3:7:  “Going back to the seventh verse, notice that this change in nuclei applies to the heavens as well as the earth.  It was not just a local change in the vicinity of the earth;  it affected the whole cosmos.”  On the same page, in the list of reasons God might have changed decay rates:  “since nuclear fusion rates are related to decay rates, it could increase the activity of stars.”  Both halves matter.  The scope claim means a critic cannot say RATE confined itself to Earth rocks, because if alpha-decay rates were globally larger, the stellar thorium and uranium chronometers are affected identically.  The fusion coupling is where the argument fails.  No calculation is supplied of what a factor of 10⁸ to 10⁹ in stellar reaction rates does to a star, and the chapter concedes, citing Noyes 1999 p. 66, that core changes take millions of years to reach the surface, which removes any observable signature and therefore any test. ↩

Kempf, S. et al.  “Micrometeoroid infall onto Saturn's rings constrains their age to no more than a few hundred million years.”  Science Advances 9(19):eadf8537.  May 12, 2023.  A paper that measures how much micrometeoroid dust falls onto Saturn's rings and uses that rate to limit the rings' age.  The article uses it for the claim that Saturn's rings may be younger than the dinosaurs.

1. 62a.

   The measured micrometeoroid flux, combined with the low non-icy volume fraction of ring material (0.1–2%), constrains the ring age to less than a few hundred million years. ↩

Crida, A. et al.  “Are Saturn's rings actually young?”  Nature Astronomy 3:967–970.  2019.  A paper that asks whether Saturn's rings are actually young and argues that their present mass does not date them, because rings of any starting mass spread out and converge toward the mass seen today over about four billion years.  The article uses it to show that the ring-mass argument for youth fails for a second reason.

1. 63a.

   More massive rings spread faster, so rings of any initial mass converge toward the presently measured mass after roughly four billion years; the low measured mass therefore does not by itself date the rings. ↩

Gundlach, B., and J. Blum.  “The stickiness of micrometer-sized water-ice particles.”  The Astrophysical Journal 798:34.  2015.  A laboratory experiment that grew aggregates of micrometre-sized water-ice grains and measured the speeds at which they stuck together and the speeds at which the grown aggregates eroded, at temperatures from 114 K to 260 K.  The sticking result applies only below about 210 K, the authors say.  The article uses it as a measurement that looked like an answer to the growth problem.

1. 64a.

   “We show with our experiments that for low temperatures (below ∼ 210 K), µm-sized water-ice particles stick below a threshold velocity of 9.6 m s⁻¹, which is approximately ten times higher than the sticking threshold of µm-sized silica particles.  Furthermore, erosion of the grown ice aggregates is observed for velocities above 15.3 m s⁻¹.” ↩

Snelling, Andrew A., and David E. Rush.  “Moon dust and the age of the solar system.”  Journal of Creation (Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal) 7(1):2–42.  1993.  A technical paper by two creationist researchers that reviews the measured rates at which tiny particles of space dust and meteorite debris fall on the Earth and Moon.  It finds that most current estimates for the Earth are 10,000 to 20,000 tons per year, against the 14,300,000 tons per year figure that creationists had used.  It concludes that the thin lunar dust layer does not contradict the multi-billion-year timescale, though it does not prove it.  The article uses it as the creationist retraction of the moon dust argument.

1. 65a.

   “It thus appears that the amount of meteoritic dust and meteorite debris in the lunar regolith and surface dust layer, even taking into account the postulated early intense meteorite and meteoritic dust bombardment, does not contradict the evolutionists' multi-billion year timescale (while not proving it).  Unfortunately, attempted counter-responses by creationists have so far failed because of spurious arguments or faulty calculations.  Thus, until new evidence is forthcoming, creationists should not continue to use the dust on the moon as evidence against an old age for the moon and the solar system.” ↩

Mitchell, Tommy.  “Arguments Christians Shouldn't Use.”  Answers in Genesis.  Jul 27, 2010.  “Simply put, some arguments are wrong, even if what they are arguing for is ultimately right.  We would do a disservice to our witness for Christ by knowingly using bad argumentation—effectively bearing false witness—even if those arguments are used to support the truth of the Bible.”  “When we use a particular scientific model as part of an argument, we must remember that creation models are not part of God's Word and, thus, they are not infallible.  We must discern what is biblically necessary from that which, while perhaps supporting the Bible, is nonetheless simply a scientifically falsifiable model.  We must subject creationist claims to the same high standards of peer review we would demand of evolutionists.  Otherwise, using undocumented or doubtful evidences, logical fallacies, and models that are incompatible with Scripture may hurt our case and weaken our testimony, making us look foolish to those outside (Colossians 4:5–6)”.  His three kinds of failed argument are arguments based on inaccurate historical data, arguments based on scientific models that were attractive at one time but have since proved unsupportable, and arguments that are mere speculation from the outset.  “Some frequently used arguments are based on inaccurate historical data.  Some are based on scientific models that were attractive at one time, but have been found to be unsupportable after further analysis.  Some arguments are no more than mere speculation from the outset and should be avoided.”  A rationale article by Dr. Tommy Mitchell arguing that some creationist arguments are wrong even when the conclusion they support is right.  He holds that creation models are fallible and must meet the same peer-review standard that creationists demand of evolutionists, and he sorts the failed arguments into three kinds.  It is the rationale article for AiG's "Arguments to Avoid" hub, and the article uses it for AiG's own statement of why some arguments must be dropped.

1. 66a.

   “Casting aside a flawed model is not the same as casting away Scripture.” ↩

Humphreys, D. Russell.  “Mercury's magnetic field is fading fast—latest spacecraft data confirm evidence for a young solar system.”  Journal of Creation 26(2):4–6.  2012.  A short article in the creationist journal's Perspectives section, by the author of a 1984 paper that applied his theory of decaying magnetic fields to the sun, moon and planets.  Using that theory, he calculated how fast Mercury's field must fade to reach its 1975 strength within 6,000 years, predicted a fall of 4–6% by 2010, and reports that MESSENGER found the field 7.8 (± 0.8)% weaker in 2011 than in 1975.  The article uses it as his own published account of the prediction and of the test that followed.

1. 67a.

   “By 2010 the field would have decreased by 4–6% from its 1975 value.” ↩

2. 67b.

   “My result: Mercury's dipole is 7.8 (± 0.8)% weaker in 2011 than it was in 1975.”  In the same article he notes the field is down "possibly by more than my prediction." ↩

Anderson, B. J. et al.  “Low-degree structure in Mercury's planetary magnetic field.”  Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets 117:E00L12.  2012.  A geophysics paper on the structure of Mercury's magnetic field, based on MESSENGER's measurements.  It gives an average dipole moment (the strength of the field as if it came from a single bar magnet) of 190 nT·R_M³, offset 479 ± 6 km north of the equator, with a tilt under 0.8°.  The article uses it for the point that MESSENGER's orbital coverage resolved the trade-off between dipole and quadrupole terms that had plagued the earlier flyby analyses.

1. 68a.

   Ness's review of the Mariner 10 magnetic data lists fifteen different published models with centred dipole moments from 136 to 350 nT·R_M³; MESSENGER's orbital coverage resolved the dipole-quadrupole trade-off that had plagued the flyby analyses. ↩

Lisle, Jason.  “A Young Universe? Astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle Brings The Receipts!”  Justin Peters Ministries, YouTube.  Dec 29, 2025.  A video interview with Lisle, posted on YouTube by Justin Peters Ministries.  The article uses it for Lisle's own words, given on camera, that star formation either does not happen or is too rare to matter.

1. 69a.

   At 32:30–35:00:  “I remember talking with Russ Humphreys about that one time.  We did a quick calculation and we figured that it would actually take about four supernovae happening about the same time in the same area … for the pressure to overcome the outward gas pressure in a typical nebula.”  Lisle is recalling a calculation done with the physicist Russell Humphreys. ↩