In August, astronomers announced that they detected five planets orbiting the star HD 10180. They used the HARPS spectrometer in Chile to detect tiny variations in the star's wavelength that probably came from Doppler shifts. Astronomers calculated that the five planets follow a regular pattern of increasing distance, like planets in our solar system (Titius-Bode rule). In the solar system, a logarithmic graph of distances versus planet numbers results in a straight line. The Bode rule predicts a planet where Ceres and thousands of shattered planetesimals orbit in the same direction as the other planets. The orbital distances to the large moons of Jupiter and Uranus also plot as straight lines on a logarithmic diagram. Why should local and distant planets migrate into geometric spacings?

We need to examine the concept of gravity, if we seek an answer to that question. Does gravity, whatever it is, propagate at infinite velocity (Newton's system) or at the speed of light (Einstein's system)? "Gravity" is too minuscule an effect to determine its velocity in a lab. Kopeikin claimed that, with the VLBA, he measured how fast Jupiter's gravity affected the radio signals from a distant quasar. He claimed that gravity's effects travel at about light speed. (Kopeikin's test is controversial). Consider that, if gravity propagates at finite speed, it must act on a planet's trailing hemisphere more than on its leading limb. This angular offset should gently migrate planets outwards and also accelerate rotations (relative to former orbits and rotations). If this were so, (1) the earth could continue to have 365 days in a year, even as those days and years were both of shorter duration. (2) The distant planets would spiral out faster than closer ones because they would experience a greater angular offset from the Sun's gravity. (3) Eventually, a sequence of planets should migrate into logarithmically spaced orbits.

One evidence that this has happened includes the logarithmic spacing of planets here and also around HD 10180. Spiral galaxies also have logarithmic spacing between their arms, usually with a pitch of between 10 and 40 degrees. Logarithmic spirals are known as growth spirals because snail shells, nautilus and sheep horns grow into spiral shapes. Why should planet spacing plot logarithmically like star streams in spiral galaxies? Perhaps they are both responding to a common cause, the finite speed of gravity. A few thousand years ago, all ancient people mentioned close planet passages and the shattering of a nearby planet. The Bible also mentions these events. Over the centuries, astronomers kept on measuring with angles, a decreasing optical parallax to the Sun and planets. Everyone experiences the shortening of days and years as we age. However, we were taught that clocks and calendars record linear time so we reject our personal experience of accelerating "time."

Since the speed of light is finite and the universe is vast beyond measure, we observe the continuum of cosmic history exactly as it happened. We can actually examine how the stars in spiral galaxies migrated into their nautilus shapes. The earliest galaxies were visibly naked, without starry appendages. Later, we observe distinct bluish globs in equally spaced chains around the redder cores. In closer galaxies, at many ranges (eras), we observe that the globs rotated out into a spiral shape. Individual globs also spread out into the continuous dust arms in local spirals. What caused the stars streams to accelerate outward, not lapping, but steadily spreading out into growth spirals? May I suggest that one factor is the inherent propagation delay of gravity. The spreading out of billions of galaxies exactly fits what the Bible says God does - call the stars to continually come out, continue to spread out the heavens like a tent to dwell in According to the Bible, God placed the Sun, Moon and stars in the raqiya shamayim - the spreading place in the heavens. The visible history of the universe shows orbits and atomic clocks both accelerating as spiral galaxies grew into huge, local, growth spirals. Think about it.

The graph shows the log to the base ten of the kilometer distances to each planet plotted against the planet number. It was created by the author and is released under a Creative Commons attribution license.

The second photo is of a string of galaxies ejecting from a large elliptical surrounded by a galaxy cluster. This galaxy cluster is the most distant so far detected: SMM 20J2135-0102. Galaxy clusters were evidently formed by ejection of strings of smaller galaxies from central ellipticals.

Read an essay on galactic jets

Is the Bible scientific?

This document is under a Creative Commons License by Victor McAllister. What does that mean?
Last modified on September 20, 2010