THE FLAT EARTH
II’m often asked questions about astronomy when I travel to give the Heavens Declare presentations. In the last couple of years, one question has risen up from obscurity into being one of the most common I hear: “Is the Earth flat?” Or, “What do I say to a flat earther?” The intent of this article is to bring to light problems that arise as a result of the idea that the Earth is a flat disc with the North Pole in the center and the continent of Antarctica posing as an impenetrable wall of ice circling the entire perimeter of the Earth.
1. In Flat Earth (FE) theory, the Sun is only 3,000 miles from the Earth; this is refuted by mathematical triangulation. However, if the Sun is actually 3,000 miles from Earth:
2. The size of the Sun should dramatically increase at noon vs. morning and evening, but it does not. Furthermore;
3. In FE theory, the Sun circles just above the Earth once a day. If this were actually the case, it would show one side of its face in the morning as we see it with a view to the East and another side of its face as we view it to the West at evening. I can see the same view/features on the Sun in a telescope in the evening as I did in the morning with the exception of the approximately 1/50th of a turn it makes due to its rotation.
4. If the Earth were flat, the Sun should be visible at all times, if not:
5. It would exhibit a downward spotlight behavior (FE theorists claim this is the case). Evidence against this comes from many satellites and is also obvious in my own high powered telescopic observations. However, if it in fact is a spotlight:
6. It should exhibit the shape of a flattening oval as it moves toward the far horizon.
7. It should then never appear to sink below the horizon, but rather move in a large circle near the horizon across the northern sky. In FE theory, refraction occurs to cause the Sun to appear projected below the horizon. However:
8. The Sun, when it appears near the horizon, is never projected downward in a mirage but rather upward. Allowing us to see it longer than we would otherwise and causing the Sun to appear to slow slightly when it reaches the horizon. This is also why we have a few minutes more daytime than nighttime at the equinox when both are supposed to be exactly equal.
9. Plain evidence for the Sun going below the horizon is seen when looking East just after sunset. One can often see the Earth’s shadow rising slowly upward and appearing as a dark blue band.
10. The Full Moon phase should not exist in FE theory. It would never be fully illuminated by the Sun from our perspective on Earth in the FE model since it would never be directly opposite us from the Sun. An answer could lie in the Moon producing its own light. However:
11. The Moon does not shine with its own light as evidenced by: its loss of illumination during lunar eclipses, the Apollo astronauts who’ve been there (which flat Earthers reject), my own high powered telescopic observations in which all shadows on the surface of the Moon point directly away from the Sun, and by its consistent phase lighting in relation to its position in the sky relative to the Sun.
12. If the Moon does shine with its own light, why is there never more than a sliver of Moon shining brightly when it’s close to the Sun?
13. During a lunar eclipse Earth’s shadow on the Moon is always circular regardless of the time of night. If Earth were a flat, round disc, it would have the shadow curve we always see, only if the eclipse occurred at midnight. The solution to this problem FE theorists give is that the Moon never goes ‘beneath’ the Earth and therefore is being eclipsed by something else. However:
14. The alternative object (dark Sun, strong magnetic field, etc.) causing the Lunar eclipse has never been found.
15. When viewing ships approaching a shoreline, an observer will first see the top of the mast, then the sails (if it has sails), then the hull, and finally the contact point with the water. This effect is also why sailing ships were built with “crow’s nests” at the top of the masts. A sailor in this high perch could see land much farther away, and sooner, than others on deck below.
16. At the North Pole, the North Star (Polaris) is overhead. You could move in a straight line, in any direction away from there, and eventually arrive at the South Pole in Antarctica, and you would see Polaris Australis directly overhead. The reason for this is that the North Star is directly ‘above’ the Round Earth and Polaris Australis is directly ‘below’. The problem with the FE model is that Antarctica is a band of land or ice encircling the entire earth. Now, whether you move left or right away from the North Pole, the stars above you change until you get to Antarctica and Polaris Australis is overhead. Polaris Australis is not omnipresent and therefore its position overhead in Antarctica could not explained around the entire supposed ring of ice around the Earth. It’s not just Polaris Australis that presents this problem; it extends to millions of other stars as well.
17. If the flat disc model of the Earth is correct, then the distances between locales near Antarctica are much, much farther apart than they are known to be with the globe Earth model. The flight times between cities such as Melbourne, Australia and Johannesburg, South Africa should be much longer than they currently are. The only way the flights could have this short duration in a flat Earth is if the aircraft move at much faster speeds than they do on other routes. On a flat Earth, the shortest route between the two aforementioned cities would be roughly 13,000 miles and on a globe Earth, the route would be roughly 7,000 miles.
18. On a globe Earth you can see farther by rising higher at the seashore or other level surface. On a flat Earth it should make no difference.
19. On a flat Earth the center of gravity would be underneath the North Pole. So, every person would feel a gravitational tug, not just straight down but also toward the North. The farther away from the North Pole a person would be, the greater the northerly pulling force would become. The only way this problem can be answered is by completely rejecting gravity. However, there is an astonishingly large amount of evidence that gravity exists and its laws are carefully observed in order to successfully send spacecraft across the solar system.
20. The mechanism some flat Earthers use to explain the apparent downward force (gravity) is a continual upward acceleration of the flat disc Earth. If this were actually happening, in a short amount of time the Earth would be exceeding the speed of light which is a universal speed limit; nothing can go faster than light. Also, why would this upward acceleration force act on some things but not others? It would act on the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth, but not everything on Earth, including us. If it would, we would feel weightless on the surface of Earth. When we build satellites on Earth they clearly do not feel this “force” because they just sit heavily on the ground. Once we launch them just a couple of hundred miles upward into space, this “force” (in flat Earth theory) would suddenly begin acting on them, keeping them weightless and preventing their return to Earth.
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Supporting Scriptures
Isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; (KJV)
Pr 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: (KJV) Pr 8:27 When He prepared the heavens, I was there, When He drew a circle on the face of the deep, (NKJV)
Job 26:10 He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end. (KJV) Job 26:10 He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, At the boundary of light and darkness. (NKJV) It’s only possible to have a “circular” terminator (boundary between light and dark) on a sphere, when illuminated with an omnidirectional light source like the Sun.
Misunderstood scripture
Re 7:1 ¶ And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. (KJV)
This verse is often used to support a flat Earth. However, it says nothing about a flat Earth. The last part of the verse (four winds) gives context to the first part (four corners). Metaphorical language is being used here to describe the four cardinal, or compass, directions (North, South, East, and West). If the words here are taken out of their proper metaphorical context, this would mean that the winds would come from only four precise directions while everyone knows that the wind comes from any one of the 360 degrees that surround us.
Morris Yoder
II’m often asked questions about astronomy when I travel to give the Heavens Declare presentations. In the last couple of years, one question has risen up from obscurity into being one of the most common I hear: “Is the Earth flat?” Or, “What do I say to a flat earther?” The intent of this article is to bring to light problems that arise as a result of the idea that the Earth is a flat disc with the North Pole in the center and the continent of Antarctica posing as an impenetrable wall of ice circling the entire perimeter of the Earth.
1. In Flat Earth (FE) theory, the Sun is only 3,000 miles from the Earth; this is refuted by mathematical triangulation. However, if the Sun is actually 3,000 miles from Earth:
2. The size of the Sun should dramatically increase at noon vs. morning and evening, but it does not. Furthermore;
3. In FE theory, the Sun circles just above the Earth once a day. If this were actually the case, it would show one side of its face in the morning as we see it with a view to the East and another side of its face as we view it to the West at evening. I can see the same view/features on the Sun in a telescope in the evening as I did in the morning with the exception of the approximately 1/50th of a turn it makes due to its rotation.
4. If the Earth were flat, the Sun should be visible at all times, if not:
5. It would exhibit a downward spotlight behavior (FE theorists claim this is the case). Evidence against this comes from many satellites and is also obvious in my own high powered telescopic observations. However, if it in fact is a spotlight:
6. It should exhibit the shape of a flattening oval as it moves toward the far horizon.
7. It should then never appear to sink below the horizon, but rather move in a large circle near the horizon across the northern sky. In FE theory, refraction occurs to cause the Sun to appear projected below the horizon. However:
8. The Sun, when it appears near the horizon, is never projected downward in a mirage but rather upward. Allowing us to see it longer than we would otherwise and causing the Sun to appear to slow slightly when it reaches the horizon. This is also why we have a few minutes more daytime than nighttime at the equinox when both are supposed to be exactly equal.
9. Plain evidence for the Sun going below the horizon is seen when looking East just after sunset. One can often see the Earth’s shadow rising slowly upward and appearing as a dark blue band.
10. The Full Moon phase should not exist in FE theory. It would never be fully illuminated by the Sun from our perspective on Earth in the FE model since it would never be directly opposite us from the Sun. An answer could lie in the Moon producing its own light. However:
11. The Moon does not shine with its own light as evidenced by: its loss of illumination during lunar eclipses, the Apollo astronauts who’ve been there (which flat Earthers reject), my own high powered telescopic observations in which all shadows on the surface of the Moon point directly away from the Sun, and by its consistent phase lighting in relation to its position in the sky relative to the Sun.
12. If the Moon does shine with its own light, why is there never more than a sliver of Moon shining brightly when it’s close to the Sun?
13. During a lunar eclipse Earth’s shadow on the Moon is always circular regardless of the time of night. If Earth were a flat, round disc, it would have the shadow curve we always see, only if the eclipse occurred at midnight. The solution to this problem FE theorists give is that the Moon never goes ‘beneath’ the Earth and therefore is being eclipsed by something else. However:
14. The alternative object (dark Sun, strong magnetic field, etc.) causing the Lunar eclipse has never been found.
15. When viewing ships approaching a shoreline, an observer will first see the top of the mast, then the sails (if it has sails), then the hull, and finally the contact point with the water. This effect is also why sailing ships were built with “crow’s nests” at the top of the masts. A sailor in this high perch could see land much farther away, and sooner, than others on deck below.
16. At the North Pole, the North Star (Polaris) is overhead. You could move in a straight line, in any direction away from there, and eventually arrive at the South Pole in Antarctica, and you would see Polaris Australis directly overhead. The reason for this is that the North Star is directly ‘above’ the Round Earth and Polaris Australis is directly ‘below’. The problem with the FE model is that Antarctica is a band of land or ice encircling the entire earth. Now, whether you move left or right away from the North Pole, the stars above you change until you get to Antarctica and Polaris Australis is overhead. Polaris Australis is not omnipresent and therefore its position overhead in Antarctica could not explained around the entire supposed ring of ice around the Earth. It’s not just Polaris Australis that presents this problem; it extends to millions of other stars as well.
17. If the flat disc model of the Earth is correct, then the distances between locales near Antarctica are much, much farther apart than they are known to be with the globe Earth model. The flight times between cities such as Melbourne, Australia and Johannesburg, South Africa should be much longer than they currently are. The only way the flights could have this short duration in a flat Earth is if the aircraft move at much faster speeds than they do on other routes. On a flat Earth, the shortest route between the two aforementioned cities would be roughly 13,000 miles and on a globe Earth, the route would be roughly 7,000 miles.
18. On a globe Earth you can see farther by rising higher at the seashore or other level surface. On a flat Earth it should make no difference.
19. On a flat Earth the center of gravity would be underneath the North Pole. So, every person would feel a gravitational tug, not just straight down but also toward the North. The farther away from the North Pole a person would be, the greater the northerly pulling force would become. The only way this problem can be answered is by completely rejecting gravity. However, there is an astonishingly large amount of evidence that gravity exists and its laws are carefully observed in order to successfully send spacecraft across the solar system.
20. The mechanism some flat Earthers use to explain the apparent downward force (gravity) is a continual upward acceleration of the flat disc Earth. If this were actually happening, in a short amount of time the Earth would be exceeding the speed of light which is a universal speed limit; nothing can go faster than light. Also, why would this upward acceleration force act on some things but not others? It would act on the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth, but not everything on Earth, including us. If it would, we would feel weightless on the surface of Earth. When we build satellites on Earth they clearly do not feel this “force” because they just sit heavily on the ground. Once we launch them just a couple of hundred miles upward into space, this “force” (in flat Earth theory) would suddenly begin acting on them, keeping them weightless and preventing their return to Earth.
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Supporting Scriptures
Isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; (KJV)
Pr 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: (KJV) Pr 8:27 When He prepared the heavens, I was there, When He drew a circle on the face of the deep, (NKJV)
Job 26:10 He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end. (KJV) Job 26:10 He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, At the boundary of light and darkness. (NKJV) It’s only possible to have a “circular” terminator (boundary between light and dark) on a sphere, when illuminated with an omnidirectional light source like the Sun.
Misunderstood scripture
Re 7:1 ¶ And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. (KJV)
This verse is often used to support a flat Earth. However, it says nothing about a flat Earth. The last part of the verse (four winds) gives context to the first part (four corners). Metaphorical language is being used here to describe the four cardinal, or compass, directions (North, South, East, and West). If the words here are taken out of their proper metaphorical context, this would mean that the winds would come from only four precise directions while everyone knows that the wind comes from any one of the 360 degrees that surround us.
Morris Yoder
GRAVITY - THE DOWN TO EARTH LAW
Gravity, that restrictive and sometimes pesky element of our everyday life is not a nuisance, it’s a lifesaver! If it weren’t for gravity, every step we take could launch us into space. There would be nothing to keep us on the earth. If there were no gravity, trees wouldn’t know which direction to grow, food would sail off your spoon, plastering your face, and washing dishes would be a nightmare with water, soap, and dishes floating through the entire kitchen!
Gravity is predictable. If you throw a ball straight up, it will turn around and fall back into your hand at the same speed it was going when it left your hand. If you have a place where air doesn’t interfere, all objects drop at the same speed. You could drop a pen and a couch off your house roof and they would both land at the same time. In a more extreme case, you could drive a bulldozer off a 1300 foot skyscraper and drop a feather from it at the same time. They would both smash into the ground at about 200 miles per hour at exactly the same time if there were no drag in the air.
Even astronauts and other objects in space are not free from gravity. It’s a misconception that there is no gravity in space. In fact, gravity has almost complete control over objects in space. They are simply in a perpetual freefall; this freefalling motion is actually their orbit. Everything in space is orbiting (going around) something else. It might seem hard to understand how an object can orbit the Earth continuously without an ongoing source of power, but it’s a relatively simple concept to understand. All an object needs to have is the proper speed and direction.
For example, if we were to throw a stone across the earth’s surface, we would have the right direction but not the right speed. The stone would fall to the ground within a few seconds. If we would fire a high powered rifle toward a point just above the horizon, the bullet would be travelling at about 2,000 miles per hour and would go farther than the stone before it would drop to the earth but it would still not have the proper speed. Now if we could get a super high powered cannon and shoot a cannonball at about 17,000 miles per hour, the cannonball would start to drop to the ground just as fast as the stone and the bullet did, but this time it wouldn’t hit the ground because the earth is round and as the cannonball curves toward the earth, the earth curves away from it. Now we have the right direction and speed. 17,000 miles per hour just happens to be the speed to keep objects in low orbit away from the earth even though they are continuously falling toward it. If no atmospheric drag were present, the cannonball would keep falling around the earth until it would make a complete circle and come back to the same place it was fired from and keep right on going (provided we’ve moved ourselves and the cannon out of the way)! The cannonball would then be in orbit. If it would slow down just slightly it would crash into the earth, if it were to speed up it would spiral farther away. Each object in orbit is set at the precise speed needed for stability. Objects in our solar system are no exception; the Moon is falling around the earth at 2,300 mph, the earth is falling around the sun at 67,000 mph, and the sun is falling around the center of our galaxy at 500,000 mph.
The big question is; why would two objects in empty space want to bang into each other at every opportunity -- what causes gravity? Our current, best understanding of gravity is that any object with mass will bend space itself inward toward that mass. Other objects are then naturally drawn to that mass. Space around us seems to be empty nothingness, but in reality, it actually has a type of framework that objects move in. A heavy ball on a trampoline illustrates the warping of space by massive objects. The ball makes a dip on a trampoline so other objects on the trampoline want to roll toward it, not because they particularly like the ball but because the trampoline they are on is tilted toward the ball. In the same way, objects in space and on the earth are attracted to each other not because of some force between them but because space itself, like the trampoline, is curved toward the objects.
God has set everything in order and at precise speeds for proper orbits. The precision and clockwork-like patterns speak of a supreme designer. So in this case even gravity glorifies God!
Morris Yoder
Gravity, that restrictive and sometimes pesky element of our everyday life is not a nuisance, it’s a lifesaver! If it weren’t for gravity, every step we take could launch us into space. There would be nothing to keep us on the earth. If there were no gravity, trees wouldn’t know which direction to grow, food would sail off your spoon, plastering your face, and washing dishes would be a nightmare with water, soap, and dishes floating through the entire kitchen!
Gravity is predictable. If you throw a ball straight up, it will turn around and fall back into your hand at the same speed it was going when it left your hand. If you have a place where air doesn’t interfere, all objects drop at the same speed. You could drop a pen and a couch off your house roof and they would both land at the same time. In a more extreme case, you could drive a bulldozer off a 1300 foot skyscraper and drop a feather from it at the same time. They would both smash into the ground at about 200 miles per hour at exactly the same time if there were no drag in the air.
Even astronauts and other objects in space are not free from gravity. It’s a misconception that there is no gravity in space. In fact, gravity has almost complete control over objects in space. They are simply in a perpetual freefall; this freefalling motion is actually their orbit. Everything in space is orbiting (going around) something else. It might seem hard to understand how an object can orbit the Earth continuously without an ongoing source of power, but it’s a relatively simple concept to understand. All an object needs to have is the proper speed and direction.
For example, if we were to throw a stone across the earth’s surface, we would have the right direction but not the right speed. The stone would fall to the ground within a few seconds. If we would fire a high powered rifle toward a point just above the horizon, the bullet would be travelling at about 2,000 miles per hour and would go farther than the stone before it would drop to the earth but it would still not have the proper speed. Now if we could get a super high powered cannon and shoot a cannonball at about 17,000 miles per hour, the cannonball would start to drop to the ground just as fast as the stone and the bullet did, but this time it wouldn’t hit the ground because the earth is round and as the cannonball curves toward the earth, the earth curves away from it. Now we have the right direction and speed. 17,000 miles per hour just happens to be the speed to keep objects in low orbit away from the earth even though they are continuously falling toward it. If no atmospheric drag were present, the cannonball would keep falling around the earth until it would make a complete circle and come back to the same place it was fired from and keep right on going (provided we’ve moved ourselves and the cannon out of the way)! The cannonball would then be in orbit. If it would slow down just slightly it would crash into the earth, if it were to speed up it would spiral farther away. Each object in orbit is set at the precise speed needed for stability. Objects in our solar system are no exception; the Moon is falling around the earth at 2,300 mph, the earth is falling around the sun at 67,000 mph, and the sun is falling around the center of our galaxy at 500,000 mph.
The big question is; why would two objects in empty space want to bang into each other at every opportunity -- what causes gravity? Our current, best understanding of gravity is that any object with mass will bend space itself inward toward that mass. Other objects are then naturally drawn to that mass. Space around us seems to be empty nothingness, but in reality, it actually has a type of framework that objects move in. A heavy ball on a trampoline illustrates the warping of space by massive objects. The ball makes a dip on a trampoline so other objects on the trampoline want to roll toward it, not because they particularly like the ball but because the trampoline they are on is tilted toward the ball. In the same way, objects in space and on the earth are attracted to each other not because of some force between them but because space itself, like the trampoline, is curved toward the objects.
God has set everything in order and at precise speeds for proper orbits. The precision and clockwork-like patterns speak of a supreme designer. So in this case even gravity glorifies God!
Morris Yoder
A STEP INTO SPACE
Living in any country, whether it’s hot or cold, wet or dry, is downright comfy in comparison with being just 62 miles up. This is where space is considered to have its starting point. The Creator has seen fit to make everything just right for us here, but in space, nobody would last long without protection. Have you ever wondered what would happen to your body if you stepped into space? Enough experiments have been done (some accidental) that we have a pretty good idea of what would happen.
At sea level, air pressure is 14.7 pounds per square inch (PSI). If you would step from this normal pressure into space with no air pressure, the air in your lungs would push outward with a pressure of 14.7 pounds on every square inch of your lungs’ surface area. So, the air in your lungs would be forced out through your mouth and nose, almost a like a violent sneeze. You wouldn’t want to try to pinch it off and hold your breath to preserve oxygen because it could rupture your lungs. After the air escapes, you would reflexively continue to make breathing motions but would feel none of the normal sensations of air passing in and out. Normally a person can hold their breath for 30 seconds or longer as the oxygen in the lungs slowly gets used up and carbon dioxide from the incoming blood veins builds up. You couldn’t last that long in this situation. The blood would pass through the lungs and there would be no oxygen whatsoever to pick up. Within 10-15 seconds, that oxygen-free blood would make it to your brain and you’d lose consciousness.
In the absence of air pressure, the boiling point of water drops far below normal body temperature. As a result, all the moisture on your body would boil away. This feeling has been described as a fizzing sensation. In 1965, astronaut Jim Leblanc was in a vacuum chamber test when the hose which was pressurizing his suit came loose. Within seconds he fell over backwards. The last thing he remembered before passing out was the saliva on his tongue bubbling (boiling) away. Thankfully, they were able to quickly re-pressurize the chamber and he recovered with no adverse effects other than aching ears. Any part of your body that has lots of moisture in sweat, saliva, or tears could experience frostbite fairly quickly as the rapidly evaporating moisture removes lots of heat all at once. Leaving you in a peculiar situation of boiling and freezing at the same time. The moisture inside your body would also boil. This would contribute to your body swelling to almost double its normal size. You would expand even further if your skin would be able to stretch more.
On your shadowed side, you would be facing the frigid cold of outer space. Heat would slowly radiate away from your body into space although it wouldn’t feel nearly as cold as the actual temperature since there wouldn’t be any air or moisture to conduct heat away from your body. For example, a dense liquid like water conducts heat away very efficiently so 50 degree water feels much colder than 50 degree air. Remove air and the cold feels even less noticeable.
There would be a night and day difference between your shadowed and sunlit side. On your sunlit side, you would get toasted with the worst sunburn ever from the full, unfiltered effects of the Sun’s radiation. It would only take a few minutes. You would have a much more intense UV sunburn than normal, but worse than that, you’d also have an X-ray and gamma ray burn, something you’ve never experienced before. These rays are filtered out by the atmosphere so we don’t feel them on the Earth. Beyond that, the unfiltered infrared (heat) radiation from the Sun would literally cook your sunlit skin. How hot would it get? We don’t need to look further than the Moon To find out. The daytime temperature of its surface is about 260 degrees Fahrenheit and the nighttime temperature is about -280 degrees Fahrenheit. You could be exposed to those same temperature extremes on one side of your body versus the other. The only way to find relief from that would be to keep spinning round like a rotisserie while you wait to be rescued. It’s all a stark reminder of our proper place according to Ps 115:16 “The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD'S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.”
Morris Yoder
Living in any country, whether it’s hot or cold, wet or dry, is downright comfy in comparison with being just 62 miles up. This is where space is considered to have its starting point. The Creator has seen fit to make everything just right for us here, but in space, nobody would last long without protection. Have you ever wondered what would happen to your body if you stepped into space? Enough experiments have been done (some accidental) that we have a pretty good idea of what would happen.
At sea level, air pressure is 14.7 pounds per square inch (PSI). If you would step from this normal pressure into space with no air pressure, the air in your lungs would push outward with a pressure of 14.7 pounds on every square inch of your lungs’ surface area. So, the air in your lungs would be forced out through your mouth and nose, almost a like a violent sneeze. You wouldn’t want to try to pinch it off and hold your breath to preserve oxygen because it could rupture your lungs. After the air escapes, you would reflexively continue to make breathing motions but would feel none of the normal sensations of air passing in and out. Normally a person can hold their breath for 30 seconds or longer as the oxygen in the lungs slowly gets used up and carbon dioxide from the incoming blood veins builds up. You couldn’t last that long in this situation. The blood would pass through the lungs and there would be no oxygen whatsoever to pick up. Within 10-15 seconds, that oxygen-free blood would make it to your brain and you’d lose consciousness.
In the absence of air pressure, the boiling point of water drops far below normal body temperature. As a result, all the moisture on your body would boil away. This feeling has been described as a fizzing sensation. In 1965, astronaut Jim Leblanc was in a vacuum chamber test when the hose which was pressurizing his suit came loose. Within seconds he fell over backwards. The last thing he remembered before passing out was the saliva on his tongue bubbling (boiling) away. Thankfully, they were able to quickly re-pressurize the chamber and he recovered with no adverse effects other than aching ears. Any part of your body that has lots of moisture in sweat, saliva, or tears could experience frostbite fairly quickly as the rapidly evaporating moisture removes lots of heat all at once. Leaving you in a peculiar situation of boiling and freezing at the same time. The moisture inside your body would also boil. This would contribute to your body swelling to almost double its normal size. You would expand even further if your skin would be able to stretch more.
On your shadowed side, you would be facing the frigid cold of outer space. Heat would slowly radiate away from your body into space although it wouldn’t feel nearly as cold as the actual temperature since there wouldn’t be any air or moisture to conduct heat away from your body. For example, a dense liquid like water conducts heat away very efficiently so 50 degree water feels much colder than 50 degree air. Remove air and the cold feels even less noticeable.
There would be a night and day difference between your shadowed and sunlit side. On your sunlit side, you would get toasted with the worst sunburn ever from the full, unfiltered effects of the Sun’s radiation. It would only take a few minutes. You would have a much more intense UV sunburn than normal, but worse than that, you’d also have an X-ray and gamma ray burn, something you’ve never experienced before. These rays are filtered out by the atmosphere so we don’t feel them on the Earth. Beyond that, the unfiltered infrared (heat) radiation from the Sun would literally cook your sunlit skin. How hot would it get? We don’t need to look further than the Moon To find out. The daytime temperature of its surface is about 260 degrees Fahrenheit and the nighttime temperature is about -280 degrees Fahrenheit. You could be exposed to those same temperature extremes on one side of your body versus the other. The only way to find relief from that would be to keep spinning round like a rotisserie while you wait to be rescued. It’s all a stark reminder of our proper place according to Ps 115:16 “The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD'S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.”
Morris Yoder
SPACIOUS SPACE
And the Simple Method to Make Sense of It
186,000 miles per second sounds fast. It’s a speed fast enough to circle the Earth over seven times in one second. It’s also the speed of Light. Six trillion miles per year describes about the same speed but it’s a lot harder to comprehend, and because of this, it doesn’t really sound as fast. It’s hard for us to crunch these big numbers. We have to shrink them down to be able to understand them.
In the same way, it’s hard to comprehend the vast distance to the stars. It helps to downsize the distances to grasp the reality of the vastness of space. Large distances in space are often measured by astronomical units and light-years. The distances to the stars are usually expressed in light-years. When hearing about any distance expressed in light-years our minds start to glaze over. Fortunately, there happens to be a unique relationship between light-years and miles as compared to astronomical units and inches allowing us to bring things down to size. There’s a little more than 63,000 inches in one mile. There’s also a little more than 63,000 astronomical units in one light-year. One astronomical unit is about 93 million miles; the distance from the Earth to the Sun. This allows us the simple trick of shrinking the distance from the Earth to the Sun down to one inch, and at the same time, have each light year shrunk to one mile.
With this easy to remember relationship of miles to light-years we can downsize the universe into commonly used numbers and make sense of the scale of the distances. Using this method, the Earth would be one inch from the Sun. Jupiter, being five astronomical units away from the Sun, would be five inches away. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, being 4.3 light-years distant in reality, would be shrunk to a distance of 4.3 miles. The distance to Sirius, the brightest nighttime star, would be 8.6 miles away. Betelgeuse would be well over 600 miles away, about a 10 hour drive. Deneb, the star that forms the top of the northern cross in Cygnus, would be at least 1,400 miles away. The center of the Milky Way Galaxy would be about 25,000 miles away and the distance to the farthest object visible to the naked eye would be the Andromeda Galaxy about 2.4 million miles away.
Even in this shrunken state, the universe seems to be extremely large. To return to the actual size, we’d need to multiply the distances by almost six trillion since there is almost six trillion miles in a light-year and almost six trillion inches in an astronomical unit.
This analogy helps to understand the distances across space but does nothing to help understand the size of the objects. After shrinking the Earth-Sun distance to one inch, the Sun would be so small it would be invisible, and the Earth would be a point tiny enough to fit into the invisible speck of the Sun over one million times. That infinitesimal, tiny point of the Earth is a focal point, the focus of the infinite Creator.
Morris Yoder
And the Simple Method to Make Sense of It
186,000 miles per second sounds fast. It’s a speed fast enough to circle the Earth over seven times in one second. It’s also the speed of Light. Six trillion miles per year describes about the same speed but it’s a lot harder to comprehend, and because of this, it doesn’t really sound as fast. It’s hard for us to crunch these big numbers. We have to shrink them down to be able to understand them.
In the same way, it’s hard to comprehend the vast distance to the stars. It helps to downsize the distances to grasp the reality of the vastness of space. Large distances in space are often measured by astronomical units and light-years. The distances to the stars are usually expressed in light-years. When hearing about any distance expressed in light-years our minds start to glaze over. Fortunately, there happens to be a unique relationship between light-years and miles as compared to astronomical units and inches allowing us to bring things down to size. There’s a little more than 63,000 inches in one mile. There’s also a little more than 63,000 astronomical units in one light-year. One astronomical unit is about 93 million miles; the distance from the Earth to the Sun. This allows us the simple trick of shrinking the distance from the Earth to the Sun down to one inch, and at the same time, have each light year shrunk to one mile.
With this easy to remember relationship of miles to light-years we can downsize the universe into commonly used numbers and make sense of the scale of the distances. Using this method, the Earth would be one inch from the Sun. Jupiter, being five astronomical units away from the Sun, would be five inches away. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, being 4.3 light-years distant in reality, would be shrunk to a distance of 4.3 miles. The distance to Sirius, the brightest nighttime star, would be 8.6 miles away. Betelgeuse would be well over 600 miles away, about a 10 hour drive. Deneb, the star that forms the top of the northern cross in Cygnus, would be at least 1,400 miles away. The center of the Milky Way Galaxy would be about 25,000 miles away and the distance to the farthest object visible to the naked eye would be the Andromeda Galaxy about 2.4 million miles away.
Even in this shrunken state, the universe seems to be extremely large. To return to the actual size, we’d need to multiply the distances by almost six trillion since there is almost six trillion miles in a light-year and almost six trillion inches in an astronomical unit.
This analogy helps to understand the distances across space but does nothing to help understand the size of the objects. After shrinking the Earth-Sun distance to one inch, the Sun would be so small it would be invisible, and the Earth would be a point tiny enough to fit into the invisible speck of the Sun over one million times. That infinitesimal, tiny point of the Earth is a focal point, the focus of the infinite Creator.
Morris Yoder
DECEPTIONS OF DUSK AND DAWN
The Sun is huge -- big enough that it would take about two months to fly across its diameter in a jet at 600 miles per hour. Yet, we usually never think about how big it is until we see it rise or set. It’s then that it appears bigger than ever. However, if it seems the Sun is bigger than normal at that time, it’s not that there’s something strange about the Sun, but rather that there’s something strange in our heads. It’s all an illusion and the brain is tricked into thinking the Sun is bigger when it’s close to the horizon. The same effect is seen just as easily on the Moon.
We perceive the sky to be somewhat flattened. For example, we are used to thinking of clouds directly above us as being much closer to us than those far out at the horizon. So when the Sun is at the horizon, we subconsciously think of it as being farther away too. If the Sun were to move farther away, we would naturally expect it to appear smaller, but it doesn’t. Since it still has the same ½ degree apparent size in the sky, we assume it has gotten bigger! Taking a photograph of the Sun every 10 minutes for about an hour after sunrise will show that, in reality, the Sun doesn’t change its apparent size at all as it rises.
There are some equally strange things that do happen with the Sun at sunsets and in reverse order at sunrises. These are not mind bending like the large Sun illusion, but instead are light bending. As the Sun lowers, it shines through more of Earth’s atmosphere. This causes a refraction of light that makes the Sun appear higher than it actually is. The bottom of the Sun shines through more atmosphere, so it is lifted more than the top portion of the Sun which is shining through less atmosphere. As a result, the Sun looks as if it were slightly flattened into an oval shape instead of a circle. The closer the Sun gets to the horizon, the more pronounced the flattening effect is.
The Sun normally moves one degree across the sky every 4 minutes. The Sun is about ½ degree in diameter so it covers the distance of its width every two minutes. By the time the Sun appears to touch the horizon, its image has been refracted upward by ½ degree, or one solar diameter, which means that it is actually just below the horizon instead of just above! Seeing the mirage of a faraway city or structure on the horizon is a rare occurrence but we can see a solar mirage every time we see the Sun rise or set. Since the light from the Sun is slightly refracted around the curve of the Earth, we get to have an extra two minutes of daylight in the morning and two minutes extra in the evening.
The equinox is supposed to be the day of the year when we have equal lengths of day and night. On the day of the March 20th equinox, the town of Quito, Ecuador near the equator has a sunrise at 6:18 a.m. If the day and night were equal, we would naturally expect to have a sunset at 6:18 p.m. Instead the sunset comes at 6:24 p.m. – 6 minutes late. There are the two minutes extra at sunrise and two minutes extra at sunset because of the refraction effect, giving us four extra minutes, but that still leaves two minutes unaccounted for. This is because sunrises are calculated at the moment the uppermost part of the Sun peaks over the horizon, when it first starts to rise, but sunsets are calculated at the moment the uppermost part of the Sun disappears below the horizon when it has finished setting. The Sun traverses its own width every two minutes so we end up with an extra two minutes to add to the four bringing us to the additional six minutes of official daytime at the equinox near the equator.
For parts of the world away from the equator, the Sun does not set in a straight down direction. North of the equator, the Sun slides to the right as it sets making it take longer than two minutes to completely disappear after it first contacts the horizon. In Georgia where I live at 32 degrees north latitude, it takes about one and a half minutes longer for the Sun to rise or set, giving a total of nine minutes of extra daytime on the equinox -- more time to decipher the illusory incidents of the deceptions of dusk and dawn.
Morris Yoder
The Sun is huge -- big enough that it would take about two months to fly across its diameter in a jet at 600 miles per hour. Yet, we usually never think about how big it is until we see it rise or set. It’s then that it appears bigger than ever. However, if it seems the Sun is bigger than normal at that time, it’s not that there’s something strange about the Sun, but rather that there’s something strange in our heads. It’s all an illusion and the brain is tricked into thinking the Sun is bigger when it’s close to the horizon. The same effect is seen just as easily on the Moon.
We perceive the sky to be somewhat flattened. For example, we are used to thinking of clouds directly above us as being much closer to us than those far out at the horizon. So when the Sun is at the horizon, we subconsciously think of it as being farther away too. If the Sun were to move farther away, we would naturally expect it to appear smaller, but it doesn’t. Since it still has the same ½ degree apparent size in the sky, we assume it has gotten bigger! Taking a photograph of the Sun every 10 minutes for about an hour after sunrise will show that, in reality, the Sun doesn’t change its apparent size at all as it rises.
There are some equally strange things that do happen with the Sun at sunsets and in reverse order at sunrises. These are not mind bending like the large Sun illusion, but instead are light bending. As the Sun lowers, it shines through more of Earth’s atmosphere. This causes a refraction of light that makes the Sun appear higher than it actually is. The bottom of the Sun shines through more atmosphere, so it is lifted more than the top portion of the Sun which is shining through less atmosphere. As a result, the Sun looks as if it were slightly flattened into an oval shape instead of a circle. The closer the Sun gets to the horizon, the more pronounced the flattening effect is.
The Sun normally moves one degree across the sky every 4 minutes. The Sun is about ½ degree in diameter so it covers the distance of its width every two minutes. By the time the Sun appears to touch the horizon, its image has been refracted upward by ½ degree, or one solar diameter, which means that it is actually just below the horizon instead of just above! Seeing the mirage of a faraway city or structure on the horizon is a rare occurrence but we can see a solar mirage every time we see the Sun rise or set. Since the light from the Sun is slightly refracted around the curve of the Earth, we get to have an extra two minutes of daylight in the morning and two minutes extra in the evening.
The equinox is supposed to be the day of the year when we have equal lengths of day and night. On the day of the March 20th equinox, the town of Quito, Ecuador near the equator has a sunrise at 6:18 a.m. If the day and night were equal, we would naturally expect to have a sunset at 6:18 p.m. Instead the sunset comes at 6:24 p.m. – 6 minutes late. There are the two minutes extra at sunrise and two minutes extra at sunset because of the refraction effect, giving us four extra minutes, but that still leaves two minutes unaccounted for. This is because sunrises are calculated at the moment the uppermost part of the Sun peaks over the horizon, when it first starts to rise, but sunsets are calculated at the moment the uppermost part of the Sun disappears below the horizon when it has finished setting. The Sun traverses its own width every two minutes so we end up with an extra two minutes to add to the four bringing us to the additional six minutes of official daytime at the equinox near the equator.
For parts of the world away from the equator, the Sun does not set in a straight down direction. North of the equator, the Sun slides to the right as it sets making it take longer than two minutes to completely disappear after it first contacts the horizon. In Georgia where I live at 32 degrees north latitude, it takes about one and a half minutes longer for the Sun to rise or set, giving a total of nine minutes of extra daytime on the equinox -- more time to decipher the illusory incidents of the deceptions of dusk and dawn.
Morris Yoder
COLD OR HOT?
When you pick up a cube of ice, does the cold seep into your hand? Interestingly, the answer is no. What’s happening is the heat from your hand is rapidly escaping into the cool ice causing your hand to feel a cold sensation. We have a tendency to think of coldness as something of substance that can spread into other objects, but that is simply a misconception. Coldness is simply lack of heat, just as darkness is only a lack of light. All objects, whether we call them cold or hot, merely have varying degrees of heat. Even an ice cube has lots of heat in it. We perceive it as cold only because it is cooler than our skin. If we could remove all heat from the ice cube it would settle to minus 459.67° Fahrenheit. This means our ice cube is actually basking in hundreds of degrees of heat above absolute zero, so it’s not really cold after all!
Everything around us is made up of spinning particles called atoms. Particles in liquids and gases, like air and water, zip around and bump into their neighbors. Particles in solids like iron basically vibrate in place, bumping against other particles next to them. As the particles within an object move or vibrate faster, the object feels hotter. Microwave ovens heat food quickly by causing water molecules throughout the entire portion of food to rapidly spin. Conventional ovens heat the outsides of food only; this heat from the outside is then slowly conducted in to the center.
Now, back to the cube of ice; when the fast vibrations of the particles in your warm hand bang into the slower moving, cooler particles of the ice, it causes the kinetic (moving) energy to be transferred into the ice and those particles start vibrating faster while the ones in your hand vibrate slower. Since the ice is stealing heat energy from your hand, your hand begins to feel cold and the ice melts into water. This energy exchange will continue until both the water and your hand reach the same temperature.
When a blacksmith heats a piece of iron it changes color from black to red as the particles in it vibrate faster. As the iron gets even hotter still, it turns from red to orange, then to yellow, and eventually becomes white if it gets hot enough. Stars show the same shift in color according to their temperature. The stars with the least amount of heat are called red dwarfs; they appear red and are about 5,000° F on the surface. Betelgeuse, the bright star in the constellation Orion’s left shoulder is about 6,900° F and appears orange because of this extra heat. The Sun is even hotter at about 10,000° F; this gives it a yellow-white color. The surface of the Sun is much hotter than your oven could ever get so it’s no wonder that it’s glowing white-hot. A surprising thing happens though as stars get even hotter. As they get close to 20,000° F they begin to appear blue. The color blue seems to be the signal of something cold but it’s actually the color of extreme heat.
The Sun transmits its heat energy in the form of infra-red radiation 93,000,000 miles across space to the Earth in a time span of about 8 minutes. In that time, the radiation crosses the frigid emptiness of space where the temperature is hovering only a few degrees above absolute zero. The fact that the Sun doesn’t heat space around it seems to be a violation of heat’s tendency to transfer into cooler areas. However, there is practically nothing in space to absorb the energy from the Sun so this energy is not wasted but conserved as it passes freely through space until it reaches the Earth. Once the Sun’s rays of infra-red radiation strike the Earth and its atmosphere they instantly begin exciting billions of particles into faster spins, vibrations, and darting motions, thereby keeping this planet at a balmy average temperature of over 500° F above absolute zero! It all works according to the grand plan that’s laid out by our great Creator.
Morris Yoder
HEAVYWEIGHTS
What is heavier than the Sun and all the planets yet smaller than a city?
What is bigger than the Sun and all the planets yet lighter than air?
These two riddles above can be solved by reading this article.
All stars are heavy but some are bloated like a hot air balloon on a summer day, while others are so burnt out (literally and figuratively) that they collapse under their own weight and are crushed down to extreme density (compactness). The range of densities of stars is enough to baffle anyone. Our Sun is at neither one of the extremes, not too light and not too heavy. In fact, it wouldn’t be hard to carry part of the Sun around in a bucket.
A one gallon bucket of water weighs a little over 8 pounds. We could dump the bucket out and fill it with dirt, it would then weigh about 10 pounds. If we dumped it out again and filled it with average density plasma from the Sun, it would weigh almost 12 pounds, heavier than dirt but not nearly as heavy as iron. One gallon of iron would start to strain our bucket at 65 pounds. So solar material is not nearly as heavy as metal but there are stars other than the Sun that are even much lighter yet. Many of the supergiant stars have their mass spread out over such a large area of space that something interesting would happen if we were to fill our bucket with material from these stars. After filling the bucket with supergiant star material the bucket would be lighter than it was before it was filled and would start to float directly up into the air! These stars are typically lighter than air itself.
The Earth is the densest object in the solar system. Our one gallon bucket filled with average density Earth would tip the scales at 46 pounds. By comparison, material from Saturn would weigh less than six pounds; this means Saturn is light enough to float on the ten pound water! Just because the Earth is the heavyweight king of the solar system doesn’t mean that it can hold out against the competition from interstellar space. The nearest star to us after leaving the Sun is Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf that would weigh down our fragile bucket with over 450 pounds. Not very many people could pick up a bucket load like that.
We could double the distance and get to the nearest white dwarf, Sirius B, a clear winner in this super-dense category of stars. Our trusty bucket would fail miserably at this point. Pouring in a gallon of Sirius B would crush the bottom and burst out the sides as the 10 million pounds of plasma ran out across the ground. It would be impossible to clean up the mess; a teaspoonful of it would still weigh five tons!
White dwarfs seem like the very definition of heavy but they appear like downy fluff in comparison to a neutron star. One teaspoonful of neutron star material weighs in at one billion tons; equal to 500 million cars! This type of star has more mass overall than the Sun but is less than 10 miles across. If you haven’t guessed it, this star is the answer to the first riddle. Interestingly, it is the end result of the same star that is the answer to the second riddle; a supergiant star. Supergiants are extremely unstable and can explode into a supernova; the remaining mass can then form a neutron star.
As if these mind crushing weights weren’t enough; we have the universe’s most mysterious objects: black holes. These are the most compact massive objects known; so dense they go beyond our understanding of density. Because of that, our spoon sits useless. We have no way of knowing how much the black hole would weigh, or even if the ball of matter in it would be big enough that we could scoop it up with our spoon!
Morris Yoder