Freebird......Or any other Atheist scientist out there.....I want you to use your math on this moon problem?

Question

Remember 1969, the first lunar landing. What scientist were worried about was the dust that was on the lunar surface. The earth and the moon are daily being covered with solar dust. But the moon, not having our atmosphere, would just have the dust accumalate. What NASA scientist did was design large landing pads, like snow shoes for the lander. And they made the air packs the astronauts carry dust proof. Our favorite Atheist scientist of the time, Carl Sagan, said he could picture the lander coming down for a soft landing, and disappearing in dust two miles thick. Nasa scientist believed the lunar surface to be covered by a thick layer of dust.

What the astronauts found was a dust layer only a couple of inches thick. According to dust accumaltion on collection plates which the astronauts left, this shows that the dust on the moon has only been accumalting for less than 10,000 years.

How do you explain the lack of dust if the moon is 4.5 billion years old?

Answer 1

As mentioned above, the "moon dust problem" is calculated based on figures published in 1960. These figures were subsequently proven to be inaccurate. By 1969, NASA had no doubt that the lunar lander would land on a firm surface.

If you don't believe it, check out the two links below. They are from Answers in Genesis, a leading Creationist website. It's listed under their heading of "Arguments Creationists Shouldn't Use", for being inaccurate.

EDIT:
For the record, it's not MY math. It's everbody's math. Scientists just understand it a little better than most people.

Answer 2

No, it does not show that. It only shows evidence of what happens when you assume an input exponentially larger than reality.

In fact, you should give this one up as you are behind the curve even in terms of Creationist leadership.

Two of your own (Snelling and Rush: 1993) gave up this stupid idea a while ago. Here is a quote from them:

"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 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."

Even they describe your assertion as being based on SPURIOUS ARGUMENTS OR FAULTY CALCULATIONS.

Answer 3

We have since discovered with satellite measurements space has a lot less dust that those guesses from the 1950s which led to such wildly erroneous estimates. Given what we know know about the rate of dust accumulation those early estimates look spectacul;arly foolish ( Not as foolish as the creationist claims of course which are still based on those old guesses, even though we now know the actual rates).

Answer 4

Not sure.

But the moon is guessed to be 200-300 million years younger than earth.

Carl Sagan though very bright was a dreamer who told aloud his dreams to all who would listen.

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Answer 5

The calculation you refer to is given by Henry Morris on pp. 151-153 of Scientific Creationism. It is based on a grossly erroneous figure of 14 million tons of meteoritic dust per year, quoted by Petterson in 1960. Morris misinterpreted Petterson's article. Petterson published a figure of 15 (not 14) million tons per year as an upper limit. In other words, Petterson said that the value is not more than. 15 million tons per year. He was not able to measure an actual value. Morris erroneously chose to interpret it to mean it was equal to 14 million tons per year. Accurate values were measured in the late 1960's. The actual value is much lower than 15 million tons per year. Dalrymple gives the value of 22,000 tons per year, nearly 700 times smaller than your figure. That changes your 54 foot figure into about 2 cm, which is quite consistent with the amount of surface soil the astronauts found on the Moon (it was considerably more than 1-2 mm).

My copy of "Everyman's Astronomy" indicates that the earth collects about 9000 kg per day from meteors of visual magnitude 5.0 or brighter. Assuming a typical rock density of 3 g/cc, this corresponds to an accumulation rate of one inch per 10 billion years. Unfortunately no data is presented for fainter meteors. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the actual rate is one or two orders of magnitude higher, but "1 inch in 8000 years" is off by six orders of magnitude.

A dust accumulation rate of "one inch per 8000 years" should should create a spectacular year round meteor shower, and cause severe pitting of the space shuttle windshields in just a single orbit. My quick estimates give values far higher than have been actually observed.

Answer 6

I dont see why this is aimed at "atheist scientists", this should be posted in the Science section as it has nothing to do with religion or spirituality.

Delete this question and repost it in the correct section before you get reported.

Answer 7

When all the asteroids were smashing into the moon, they upset the dust and blew it into space.

Answer 8

HUman

Answer 9

Beats me, maybe the Hoover company knows more about this. For more intellectual subjects visit this link; http://www.godisimaginary.com/

Answer 10

We never actually landed on the moon, it was a hoax. =]