According to evolutionary cosmic theory, the Big Bang created an expanding universe filled with gases. As the universe grew and cooled down, some of the gases began to coalesce and form stars, galaxies and planets. The galaxies that formed needed some form of energy to keep going and they found that energy in the clouds of gas that surrounded them.
If this scenario were true and the universe was as old as evolutionists claim, approximately 13.77 billion years old, one expect most of the stellar gas to have been mostly used up by now. That being the case, I have to wonder at the implications of a recent cosmic find that may just cause the current theory to go up in flames.
Nicolas Lehner, research associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, led a team of researchers that used the Hubble Telescope’s ultraviolet spectrographs, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to study the areas around a number of galaxies. They revealed large quantities of gas and minimal amounts of heavy metals surrounding galaxies that they deemed to be ‘modern’ galaxies.
Considering the fact that galaxies consume such massive amounts of gas in order to keep their starry furnaces blazing, the galaxies observed must be fairly modern to have gaseous clouds enveloping them. The small quantities of heavy metals, indicates that the gases had not yet been processed by the galaxies. They compared them to the heavy elements of older galaxies and seemed to work around a time break of 6 billion years.
Folks, that’s still a long time to have such titanic gas clouds still floating around so many galaxies. To be honest, even one billion years would be a long time for virgin gas to be circulating the galaxies.
But if the universe and all of the galaxies were as young as the Bible claims, we would expect to find the gigantic clouds of unused gases surrounding so many galaxies. Of course that option never crossed the minds of the researchers, but was the first thing I thought of as read the article. The article went on to describe other aspects of their research, but I couldn’t help but share my thoughts about the clouds of gas and what they mean to an understanding of origins.
Astronomers Find Massive Supply of Gas Around Modern Galaxies, Science Daily, Jan. 11, 2013.
Join popular apologist Mike Riddle as he uses a classroom setting to present Bible-defending basics. With humor and colorful on-screen graphics, Mike reveals that the scientic evidence supports the biblical worldview of a young earth. He then gives the six main reasons for apologetics, plus essential steps for the successful use of apologetics.
Apologetics 101: Evidence Supports a Biblical Young Earth–Answers some common questions, including
Where did Cain get his wife?
How could the first 3 days be literal days if the sun was not created until day 4?
How could Adam name all the animals in one day?
Does carbon-14 prove the earth older than 6,000 years?
Is the Bible outdated?
About the teacher: Mike Riddle is an adjunct speaker with Answers in Genesis. For more than 30 years he has developed and instructed courses on effective presentation skills and teaching methods, as well as his specialty in the field of creation-based apologetics.