Phobos and Deimos Once a Single Moon?

blamanj writes "Phobos (fear) and Diemos (panic), the twin moons of Mars have caused astronomers grief for years, as conventional hypotheses about the moons either violate physical laws or have difficulty accounting for their observed orbits. Now a new hypothesis conjectures that they were once a single moon, that broke apart in an ancient catastrophe."

Comments

FUD

[limekiller4]

Great. Now we just need to find moons Metus (fear), Ambiguitas (uncertainty) and Dubium (doubt) and convince Gates to purchase them...

Re:FUD

[fehlschlag]

Too late, they already are IP of SCO.

Re:FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Metus, Ambiguitas, and Dubium are latin; whereas Phobos and Deimos are Greek... If my math is correct, of course.

Re:FUD

[Antisthenes]

They are, and it goes without saying that Greek is the superior tongue. ;-) Uncertainty would be amphisbetesis, "dispute, controversy" (those e's are eta's, by the way, not epsilon's) and doubt would be apistia, "unbelief, distrust".

S.C. Woodhouse, English-Greek Dictionary
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon

Those 3

[Rhinobird]

Haven't those three long since crashed into the Earth?

Doom?

[sirmikester]

Maybe the catastrophe was related to the demon's gate that was forming... and was later reopened in the Doom games... think about it.

Re:Doom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh jeez, someone send this guy a copy of Doom quick... :o

Re:Doom?

[Anonymous Coward]

"What Singer envisions is a Deimos gateway to extensive Mars exploration."

SEE!!! SEE!!! He wants the Earth to be taken over by monsters!!!

RUN!!! RUN!!!!

Re:Doom?

[Channard]

Gotcha. Loading one into my experimental matter transporter right now.. hey, anyone here a strange growling noise?

Re:Doom?

[Channard]

Hear, I mean (sp).

"Destination: Deimos"

[WTFmonkey]

Awesome! It's about time we set up a base somewhere we don't have to wait for months to get results from launches. But is that any cheaper than maintaining the supply chain to a base (food, air, parts)? Logistics, anyone?

Re:"Destination: Deimos"

[kfx]

Logistics are no problem! The UAC is in the process of building a matter transporter system, and we've got marines to make sure nothing goes wrong!

S. Fred Singer INFO

[MonkeyBoyo]

I don't know how "new" this theory is. Here is some info on S. Fred Singer.

Moons

[Tyreth]

Singer said Phobos will die in a few million years.

"Were lucky in the sense that were seeing Phobos while its still around," he said.

As opposed to, potentially, other moons that once existed and now have died out?

Our own moon also defies all explanations of science too, including this marvel:

One of the most fascinating sights in the sky is a total eclipse of the sun. This is possible because the moon is almost exactly the same angular size (half a degree) in the sky as the sun--it is both 400 times smaller and 400 times closer than the sun. This looks like design. If the moon had really been receding for billions of years, and man had been around for a tiny fraction of that time, the chances of mankind living at a time so he could observe this precise size matchup would be remote.

from here

Doubtful

[CheshireCatCO]

Right, there's a lot here that makes me dubious of the claim. First off, I should point out that I've worked on the capture problem for Mars's moons. (The results haven't been published, although the did land a grant.)

First off, why is synchronous orbit a hint as to their breakup? There's no reason that synchronous orbit is preferred, either as a capture point or as a point for breakup. In fact, synchronous orbit is an unstable equilibrium: a slight perturbation drives everything away from it. (Which is why Phobos is heading inward and Deimos outward.)

Also, he needs to explain why a larger moon orbited there happily (without perturbation!) for billions of years before breaking apart. In the very least, we're witnessing Mars's moons at a very unusal time, and such coincidence make me (and most astronomers) nervous.

Also, Phobos has drifted inward since any such breakup. Why isn't it breaking up more? Unless there's some internal strength (in which case, why did it break up then?), it should.

To be honest, I sort of question his background for this. Besides the fact that he's not an astronomer, he wants to put a base on Deimos? The surface gravity on those moons is virtually non-existant. (For Deimos, being smaller, it's under 1 cm/sec^2, I believe.) No one could even walk around properly. (Although, if he hollowed it out and made a colony ship out of it, we could launch it to Tau Ceti... But it might encounter some hostile, three-eyed aliens.*)

I'd be happy to hear him explain his idea to a group of dynamicists. Hell, I'll volunteer. But I'm very skeptical for now.

(* Kudos to anyone who catches *that* reference.)

Re:Doubtful

[Tablizer]

Which is why Phobos is heading inward and Deimos outward.

I am curious as to why they are drifting. Anybody have the scoop?

Re:Doubtful

[CheshireCatCO]

Glad you asked!

Let's start with moons outside of synchronous orbit. These moons raise a tidal bulge on their planet. (The one on Earth is most apparent in the oceans. Or, rather, at their edges. But there's a bulge in the rock, too.) Now, the planet is spinning and it isn't a perfect fluid. So it will tend to carry the bulge forward with it, before the bulge can move back to under the moon where it wants to be. A balance is struck between these two competing forces where the bulge rides somewhere ahead of the moon.

The moon, then, feels a tug forward in its orbit. This tends to give it angular momentum, so that it drifts outward. (Angular momentum increases as you go out from the central object.) The planet, meanwhile, is being pulled backward so that its spin slows down. (As it must, to conserve angular momentum in the system.) This is why Earth's day in lengthening and why the Moon has drifted about 60 Earth radii from where it formed over the past 4.5 billion years.

What happens of the moon is *inside* synchronous orbit? The opposite happens: the moon moves ahead of the bulge and gets pulled back. So it drifts in.

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to work out what retrograde (backward orbiting) moons do. Triton is an example, by the way.

Re:Doubtful

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Besides the fact that he's not an astronomer, he wants to put a base on Deimos?

No, he's right, or in orbit around it. It makes a lot of sense. There's probably ice on Deimos and/or Phobos. If so, that's rocket fuel; the space equivalent of oil. And Deimos is ideally placed for this- it's high up above Mars (but not so far that you can't go down), and close in delta-v terms to the Earth, ideal for sending fuel back to Earth orbit to fuel Mars and Lunar missions. It's also a great source for rock for use for radiation shielding in LEO. And don't imagine for a moment that a Deimos base precludes a Mars base- it enables a Mars base.

The surface gravity on those moons is virtually non-existant. (For Deimos, being smaller, it's under 1 cm/sec^2, I believe.) No one could even walk around properly.

Yeah right, real important, no walking.

Re:Doubtful

[CheshireCatCO]

Walking is generally important, unless you want the astronouts to stay seated all the time. If there were in zero-g, they could float. But there's enough gravity to make that annoying, but not nearly enough to walk. Also, they'd still need to do daily exercises to keep their bones and muscles from atrophying.

You're making a pretty large leap from "probably water" to "send fuel back to Earth". There probably isn't that much water to start with, given that these guys are a few kilometers across.

It's not a good idea. You're better off parking a space station in orbit on its own. It'll be easier to handle, more flexible and you don't lose any advantages.

Re:Doubtful

[Alsee]

Good explanation, thanx. That's sort of been itching at me but I never asked/checked why it works in that direction.

an exercise to the reader to work out what retrograde (backward orbiting) moons do

The bulge would lag even more and the moon would spiral in even faster no matter where it is.

I don't happen to be an expert on Triton, but I would therefore conclude that it is a young moon and started with a much larger orbit.

-

Re:Doubtful

[CheshireCatCO]

Exactly on the first point.

Not sure of the timescale on the second point. All of this depends on not just the planet's spin and mass, but also on the mass of the moon (bigger is actually better, as I recall), the moon's distance and the tidal reponse of the planet. Since Neptune's upper layers are pretty fluid, I'm guessing that they don't dissipate much and so Triton doesn't move as fast as the Moon. But I'd need to check up on that. (Earth-Moon face a lot of evolution, more now than is typical, because of ocean bulges trying to squeeze through narrow straights. (Gibralter, Magellen, etc.)

Re:Doubtful

[WolfWithoutAClause]

If there were in zero-g, they could float. But there's enough gravity to make that annoying, but not nearly enough to walk.

Garbage. If the gravity is 1cm/s^2, then that is 1/1,000g. It takes about 14 seconds to fall down from a height of 1m and when you hit the deck, it's like you've fallen 1mm. That's zero-g in my book. No you can't walk- but you don't need to.

Also, they'd still need to do daily exercises to keep their bones and muscles from atrophying.

Yup. It would be possible to send a centrifuge there; but it isn't known whether there is enough gravity on Mars to stop atrophy anyway.

There probably isn't that much water to start with, given that these guys are a few kilometers across.

Both hydrogen and oxygen are very abundant in the universe; and H2O seems to be common too. Do you have any idea how much mass a 'few kilometer' body contains? Clearly not. Consider a 1 km cube. 1000m by 1000m by 1000m of which say 1% is ice. If the body has a density only twice that of water, then that is 2 billion tonnes. We only need a few thousand tonnes a year at most for the foreseeable future; and there would be millions of tonnes of ice in just a 1km cube- Phobos and Deimos are much, much bigger than that; and the density of these bodies indicates are that they are made of much more ice than that.

You're better off parking a space station in orbit on its own.

Yes, probably true, although anchoring it or orbiting it around Deimos is probably indicated.

Re:Doubtful

[CheshireCatCO]

You also have to land the base onto the moon, and then secure it down. Do you know how hard it is to land in that kind of gravity? Really? It took a lot of careful effort to manuver NEAR/Shoemaker around Eros. And they didn't have to contend with a nearby Mars.

"Do you have any idea how much mass a 'few kilometer' body contains? Clearly not."

One might have assumed that, in order to calculate the surface gravity, I actually used that number. But that would ruin your attempt to take a swipe at me, wouldn't it? So go ahead and give logic a miss.

The rock is NOT 1% water. I can almost promise you that. It's an asteroid. Asteroids formed inside the "frost-line" in the protoplanetary disk. There would little or no water adhered to the rocky material in this region. Hell, EARTH isn't even 1% water, and we've had quite a bit delivered to us from the outer solar system via cometary impacts. (Deimos would have had far fewer of those and wouldn't easily hold on to any water on its surface anyway. You might think about what surface gravity/escape velocity has to do with that.) So you're making up a number, one that is unreasonably large. Which is jind of funny, because a little reflection tells you that if the water WERE mixed in through the entire volume, as you claim, you'd have to mine it out. Again, you're in microgravity here. That's hard, no matter what you think you learned from "Armeggedon".

And, no, the densities do NOT tell you that they're made of ice. Who told you this? (Or are you making this up as you go?) They're densities are low because they are probably fairly porous. In order words, you're planning to mine empty space. We have plenty of that already, thanks for inquiring.

"Yes, probably true, although anchoring it or orbiting it around Deimos is probably indicated."

See above. You need to think this through to consult someone who actually knows about this stuff. Orbiting a small rock is hard as hell, espcially with Mars right there playing with your orbit all the time. On the other hand, how do you plan to anchor to Deimos? (I repeat, once again, "see low surface gravity") It's a not a very dense rock, so driving in an anchor (how would you do that, anyway?) would be tricky since it'd be anchored in lose dirt for the most part.

Look. Take an astronomy class. Talk to someone about this. Please. Your information is clearly inaccurate.

Re:Doubtful

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Do you know how hard it is to land in that kind of gravity?

Yes. It's trivial.

It took a lot of careful effort to manuver NEAR/Shoemaker around Eros.

I wasn't born yesterday. That was because the speed of light made it really difficult to remote control the vehicle at that distance. Stick a man onboard and it's really, really easy.

Asteroids formed inside the "frost-line" in the protoplanetary disk.

True, kinda. But so did the Earth. The frost-line doesn't form until the protoplanetary disk gets blown away when the Sun lit up. The Earth lost most of its water because the Earth got very hot due to volcanic activity after forming, not because of its distance from the Sun. A smaller body wouldn't suffer then same fate (although the surface ice sublimes away within the radius of the asteroid belt.)

And, no, the densities do NOT tell you that they're made of ice. Who told you this?

See this (among many, many other places): Deimos and more particularly check out Phobos

(Or are you making this up as you go?) They're densities are low because they are probably fairly porous.

Really? Where did you get porosity from?

It's a not a very dense rock, so driving in an anchor (how would you do that, anyway?)

Explosives, blow a tubular hole and screw in a crampon. You don't need much strength anyway. Deimos is tidally locked, so using a tether out towards L1 or L2 is pretty simple. Alternatively, just using a free floating station at Deimos' general orbital radius works pretty well too.

Re:Doubtful

[CheshireCatCO]

OK, this is my last post on this, because it's become clear that you really don't know the details.

First, the speed of light lag was only part of the landing on/orbit around Eros problem. I know, I've spoken with many of the mission scientists. And, no, it isn't trivial. You can't dismiss it that easily.

In the case of Deimos, is a postive SOB. You'll have to orbit within around 11 km of the average surface if you go retrograde, 5 if you go prograde. Given that you're orbiting a moon that is only 6 km in radius, that's pretty tight. (You get this from looking at the Hill radius for Deimos and Mars. It's a very small Hill sphere.) The fact that it is irregularly shaped makes you job that much harder.

Second, you don't know what the frost line is. The frost line is in place IN THE PROTOSOLAR NEBULA. It is there BEFORE THE NEBULA DISSIPATES. That's why we get icy bodies beyond 5 AU and little water inside that distance. Please, for the love of all that is good in the world, look some of this up?

And Earth did NOT lose its water from volcanic activity. Volcanoes can't give water enough heat to escape the Earth. I don't know *where* you heard that little gem, but you need to go back and smack that person. And small bodies have it WORSE. Their escape speed is much lower, so a little thermal energy makes you escape. Look at Mercury and the Moon. (If you're astute, you'll note that neither has any significant amount of water. Possibly theres a bit in the permanently shadowed craters near the poles, but that's the only place you'll find any.)

Next, SEDS needs to update their site. (Notice the date on the webpage? 5 years ago. A lot has happened with asteroid studies since then. And I have caught plenty of mistakes on the Nine Planets site in the past, so please don't take it as gospel. The best thing to do is to talk to someone who works in this field.) We've found that many asteroids have low densities, apparently because they are filled with a lot of vacuum. They very in how much this is the case, but we're pretty sure that low densities is a hallmark not of water (as in the outer solar system), but rather high porosity. Some asteroids show signs of being little more than loose rubble piles.

Where am I getting this from? Journals, talking to the other planetary scientists, etc. I hate to harp on this, but it's relevent: I am a planetary scientist myself.

And finally, as for screwing something in (to gravel?), how are you going to screw it in, pray tell? You need to push down to make it go in. In that gravity, you have no useful weight. No weight, no pushing in.

Look, you gain exactly jack for putting a base on a dinky rock like Deimos, and the trouble involved is nowhere near worth it. You might as well go with a station, where you have control over the orbital distance, you don't have to muck about with the difficulty of putting the base on the moon or the annoyances of the small, but omnipresent, gravity.

Re:Doubtful

[WolfWithoutAClause]

First, the speed of light lag was only part of the landing on/orbit around Eros problem. I know, I've spoken with many of the mission scientists. And, no, it isn't trivial. You can't dismiss it that easily.

Yes, you very much can. When the vehicle has enormously more thrust than its weight it becomes just a control issue, and people are very good at control. I'm not belittling the Eros team in any way- it's just that the problem they solved is not the same issue as landing on Deimos or even Eros with a man in the loop. You don't have to orbit at all.

Volcanoes can't give water enough heat to escape the Earth.

That's only partly true. There are interactions with solar wind and magnetospheres and partial pressures and so on. The Sun's solar wind is quite capable of blowing away water vapour.

Look at Mercury and the Moon.

Oh please! Mercury is right next to the Sun and neither body has any significant atmosphere. Water vapour is just gone from these surfaces.

The best thing to do is to talk to someone who works in this field.

No. The only thing that matters is what is actually there. The only way to find out is to travel there and find out.

No weight, no pushing in.

Newton would be shocked to hear you say that.

Re:Doubtful

[Alsee]

I just tried google and a couple of sources say something like the following:

Triton could not have condensed from the primordial Solar Nebula in this configuration; it must have formed elsewhere (perhaps in the Kuiper Belt?) and later been captured by Neptune

So at least in some sense it is "young" in that it didn't start there, it was later captured. I haven't seen any further discussion of the age, but I didn't look very hard.

-

Re:Doubtful

[CheshireCatCO]

Yeah, you get that from the fact that it orbits retrograde and its orbit is fairly inclined relative to Neptune's equator. That said, damn if we know how to capture such a huge chuck of ice and rock as Triton. Although it seems easier to do when the planet is very young and has a more extended atmosphere.

Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Am i the oney one how thourght the wording of this funny

Origin of the two moons presents a longstanding puzzle to which one researcher proposed the new solution at the, 6th International Conference on Mars, held here last week.

Still There?

[Markus Registrada]

What, is that moon still there? Sometimes it seems like things just go around and around the drain forever.

Seriously, it's funny how astronomers always think that nobody will touch these rocks that are just sitting there in handy orbits. It's the same with Cruithne, the asteroid that co-orbits earth. They always say it will join Earth again in 600 years (or whenever), and it never seems to cross their minds that we might have found something more useful to do with it by then.

Deimos will probably be more useful, though, than Phobos, as a counterweight to attach to the end of the big elevator down to the surface. We might have to move Phobos out of the way -- making the elevator shimmy this way and that so that Phobos just misses colliding each time past is asking for trouble.

Re:Still There?

[AlanGreenSpandex]

it's funny how astronomers always think that nobody will touch these rocks that are just sitting there in handy orbits.

Well you see, they spent so much time tweaking their model that (by this point) they don't even want to contemplate having to predict events caused by human intervention.
=-)

Re:Still There?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you've read a book! (though it was sci-fi) Wanna give credit for the idea next time and not pass it off as your own?

Re:Still There?

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to stop clinging to the idea of "intellectual property"?

1. People are capable of coming up with the same ideas independently. This even happened for calculus and atomic energy.

2. Personally (I don't know about Markus), I don't attribute ideas to any particular author, _especially_ if I've seen or heard a similar idea any time in my life.

Thats no moon...

[andersen]

Thats no moon... Its a space station.

Re:Non-Linear Dynamics

[quinkin]

I agree that that is the situation in a classical two body system.

Unfortunately, classical physics cannot calculate a three-body system (it can be approximated quite closely by using iterative two-body calculations and restricted three-body techniques etc.).

The Earth/Moon orbit, is not periodic but is in fact quasi-periodic (so it has an near periodic cycle - or time to return "near" to origin).

I'll leave calculation of the three body integral as a readers exercise (bad physicist joke).

Q.

The Reasons

[quinkin]

Sure.

"chances of mankind living at a time so he could observe this precise size matchup would be remote."

This seems to be the crux of your argument - and is basically a restatement of "chance never happens" (made famous as God Does Not Play Dice).

So - not only are you Offtopic (your statement regarding the apparent observed size of the earths moon is completely meaningless in the context of the Phobos/Deimos discussion) but you are also touting the Weak Anthropic Principle as proof positive that some external force must have been involved - hence flamebait (a.k.a. BS).

"...while we are at it, someone can tell me why it is that every evolutionist who engages a creationist has never yet understood the creationist position."

Ah, well this one is easy.

It is because I never get the same BS from the same Creationist twice in a row.

If you are happy to co-habit your creationist/evolutionist views then power to you. If you are the usual creationist, anti-evolutionist then the main problem I have is that your "source documents" are er... interesting at best.

Let us look at your beloved trueorigin.org:
"Most advocates of evolutionism subscribe to a set of naturalistic and mechanistic--if not humanistic--philosophical presuppositions, inevitably adding a fundamentalist bias to their perspective."

I'm sorry, but when a staunchly religious site starts by criticizing my philosophical "pre-suppositions"(sic) imparting a "fundamental bias" then my theologically open mind immediately assumes you are a bunch of hypocritical zealots. Or at least mentally challenged.

Perhaps this holier-than-thou prattle could be replaced occasionally by some meaningfull thoughts and ideas - not just trashing of anyone who doesn't agree with you (that is what /. is for).

I enjoy discussing these interesting (and ultimately I believe unanswerable) quandries with my various theologically and philosophically inclined friends. However - they most certainly do not all present the same creationist hypothesis (lets not call it a theory please) of the universe... it's called diversity and is an integral part of belief.

Q.

Re:The Reasons

[pyr0]

Ha! I find it very ironic and that a creationist would quote Steven J. Gould to help support his argument. Something just seems very wrong about that to me. Also, I've said it before and I'll say it again, any post that makes a reference to "data" (in the loosest sense of the term because it's only un-scientifically backed speculation) coming from a creationist website is automatically worthless.

You also mention: "There are many different evolutionists with different ideas. The same problem exists. So instead of saying 'there's never the same thing', I instead show them when they veer from what is actually taught, or answer their arguments when it is the official evolutionary line." I suggest you go read the link in my sig as an answer to this.

Re:The Reasons

[pyr0]

"Where is the science in declaring that archaeopteryx is the descendent of dinosaurs and ancestor of birds?"

Umm...let's think about this....maybe because the skeletal structure (that's a concrete observation by the way, no speculation) shares characteristics with both?

Anyway, the creation vs. evolution argument from a philosophical standpoint doesn't interest me either, because nobody wins. This is how most of my arguments go: I list several pieces of data that detail why the earth is 4.6 billion years old, or point out reasons why man has to be descended from a primate ancestor, blah blah blah, etc....and then my opponent just throws faith up in my face typically. You can't argue against that, so I try not to now.

I like to argue A) against people who try to exploit things that are not related (like your argument about the moon) or B) who use "pieces" of actual valid scientific data while ignoring the rest of it as "evidence" for creation. It just doesn't work.

Point A: That's like saying, "the rock I randomly placed on my window-sill happens to cast a shadow *exactly* on a sticker on my computer at 4pm on December 2nd, which is the reason I tripped and hurt myself last June."

Point B: Trying to tell everyone (this is just an example...I know it's completely unrelated to your post, but I'm just trying to tell you I'm not blindly ripping creationists just because I want to but because I have knowledge of certain things) Rb/Sr radiometric dating doesn't work because in some cases you get isochron lines that gives dates *way* older than a rock really is...while what they're really ignoring is the part that if when you form the rock you mix magmas of two different isotopic compositions, you start out with a rock that has a positive isochron slope thus accounting for the discrepancy(chapter 9 in Faure, 1986).

Anyway, I'm just rambling and burning karma points now, so I'll quit.

Re:The Reasons

[Tyreth]

Umm...let's think about this....maybe because the skeletal structure (that's a concrete observation by the way, no speculation) shares characteristics with both?

Unfortunately, that's not science. You are using logic and reason to speculate about it's ancestry and descendants. You cannot repeat or observe tests to prove scientifically that archaeopteryx is what it is said to be. It is based on reason, logic (faulty in my mind), but not science. It is extremely deceptive and wicked to accuse creationism of being unscientific when the fact is that *any* model dealing with origins is outside of science. That doesn't make it worthless, it just makes it unscientific. Philosophy uses logic and reason - we use it every day - and we employ scientific knowledge to support a model or theory that is, by and large, unscientific in and of itself.

and then my opponent just throws faith up in my face typically

I'm sorry to hear that. I have a couple of thoughts. First, those creationists I see defending our position on slashdot I almost never see throwing up faith (I say almost never because there may have been one occasion, I can't recall). I personally never resort to that position unless it fits within the account given. For example, the flood was clearly a miraculous intervention, so it is completely reasonable to assume that this supernatural event was filled with God's work - for example, collecting all the animals, shutting the ark door, creating the floodwaters, etc. However, I never believe that God created the earth with an old look to test us, or that He tried to hide anything. But this should not be used as a cause for complaint against us.
Consider when evidence that supports creation is given (and there is much for it). The evolutionary response is not to say "wow, maybe there is some evidence for creation", it is exactly the same as our response - "this is an exception, and we just don't understand the situation properly yet". Take, for example, mitochondrial DNA mutation rates. This shows very strongly that all humans descended from one woman around 6,000 years ago. A powerful evidence for creation, but the evolutionary response is that there's just a missing clue, because it's an impossible result.

The things that creationists are accused of are done also by evolutionists. We have been unfairly accused.

I'm curious though, how often do you encounter these christians who throw up the faith argument? I should very much like to see them do it next time you find them, because they are causing damage to our position. They misunderstand the meaning of the word "faith", which is our trust in God to do what He has promised, nothing to do with believing in things we cannot prove.

Point A, while interesting, is really not the same as the moon example I gave. The chances of Point A happening is probably close to 1/1, whereas the chance of humans having culture flourish very suddenly at the exact time the moon is the right size and distance to cover us during an eclipse, and 400 times smaller and closer no less, is extraordinarily unique. It is not a 1/1 chance. And as I said before, I'm not quoting it as evidence of creation on itself, it is merely a strange oddity, a source of fascination, and that's all I meant it to be.

Anyway, I'm just rambling and burning karma points now, so I'll quit.

Don't worry about it :) I've been on excellent karma for a long time, and these posts never drop me below. We have certainly gone off topic by now at any rate, even though I'm still convinced my first post was neither flamebait or off topic.

Re:The Reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Take, for example, mitochondrial DNA mutation rates. This shows very strongly that all humans descended from one woman around 6,000 years ago. A powerful evidence for creation, but the evolutionary response is that there's just a missing clue, because it's an impossible result.

Your example is wrong. "Mitochondrial Eve", as she is called, was several hundred *thousand* years ago. The only people suggesting otherwise are those who use unsubstantiated claims conjecturing highly variable molecular clocks which, at the extreme view, give values of 6,000 years ago. But if that's the case, then indigenous Americans would have had to arrive less than 6,000 years ago (to have the same g'g'g'..mother) and other evidence suggests otherwise. Also, you cleverly omit conjectures that propose a much more distant ancestory on the order of 2 million years, based on palaeoanthropology. (The conjecture is that mtDNA is under too much evolutionary pressure so the clock used is too imprecise, but imprecise the other way from you say, and with fossil data to back up their belief along with evolutionary argument to cast some doubt on the current estimates.)

And that's the main idea. There are so many different and independent techniques which back each other up to show a long history of life and of humans on Earth, far beyond the putative O(10,000) years suggested by creationists. In addition, these theories make predictions on what would be found in the future, and indeed, they are found.

A standard example is the evolution of whales from land animals. This prediction means there should be a set of intermediate fossils (there are) which progress from older, more land-based ones (there are) to newer, more water-based ones (there are). The ages should correspond to strata, radioactive, and other dating techniques (they are). And we should find that whales have close DNA similarity to land animals both derived from the same base stock, and there should be morphological similarities between the two which are not shared with other animals. And guess what - there are. And all this evidence was found well after the prediction was made, making evolution testable and hence good science.

"Creation Science", as it's called by the proponents who distance themselves from those who believe in creation from religious beliefs, does not have anywhere near close to this sort of predictive ability. At best they chisel out little tiny flaws in how techniques are used, even perceived ones, put a magnifying glass over it, and overblow the impact it has on the body of evidence backing up evolution.

For creation science to hold sway against evolution would require that it make some strong claims about which might be found (in rocks, in DNA, in morphologies, in population distributions), find the evidence (and I don't mean flawed evidence like finding so-called human and dinosaur footsteps in the same mud; they must apply the same level of scrutiny and doubt to their own research that they apply to others), and show that evolution predicts otherwise. And has that happened? No.

Why call it a catastrophe?

[TripleA]

Ok, I don't KNOW, but I am quite certain no animals, bugs, fishes or whatever where harmed when the moon became moons. So why was it a catastrophe?

Kepler's Third Law

[Martin Spamer]

First off, why is synchronous orbit a hint as to their breakup? There's no reason that synchronous orbit is preferred, either as a capture point or as a point for breakup. I dont think the article suggest it is, in fact I suggest that since
In fact, synchronous orbit is an unstable equilibrium: a slight perturbation drives everything away from it. (Which is why Phobos is heading inward and Deimos outward.)

I think this is what he is suggesting, a synchronous orbit is not prefered because it is unstable. On a large moon that instability leads to break up. Consider the differental effect of Kepler's Third Law on the inner and surface of the moon. Mass within transfer obit radius is drawn towards the gravity well and the mass outside the transfer obit radius would be thrown away. The larger the object the more the stress this would cause. The central question seems to be is this stress enough to overcome the moons structural stability, and this is a question for materials scientiest not astronomers.

Re:Kepler's Third Law

[CheshireCatCO]

Perhaps he is suggesting that, but it's wrong. Angular momentum is transfer to the moon as a body force, not diffrentially. The moon can simultaneously run ahead of the bulge and behind it. In fact, at synchronous orbit, it does neither. It's perfectly aligned. Which is why the Earth-Moon system is heading for that right now. (It won't be stable for Earth, but that's because we feel the effects of the Sun pretty strongly, too. Pluto-Charon are already there, and are fairly happy. But they're really far from the Sun and tides vary as one over distance cubed.)

Easy one

[Anonymous Coward]

why evolutionists think they have a right to disregard creation theory just because they fail to understand it

Evolutionism is based on facts while creationism is based on faith. Ockham's razor please ? Whether people know creation theory or not is not even relevent here ; your methodology blows godly goats compared to science's, even if science has indeed some bias. Comparing the bias of evolutionism and creationism bias is like comparing that of Hubble and Sputnik.

Bring it on

[Cackmobile]

$30 billion is nothing. Cut the military budget by that much. They get something like $350 billion. Or the shuttles. That would be sweet as.

Wrong title sir

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the R between the two O's.

Re:Non-Linear Dynamics

[CheshireCatCO]

Er, what's your point? The moons are behaving as predicted by the theory, just like ours is. There's obviously some error in it, but there always is. (There's error in our orbital calculations for the Earth, another thing we can't actually integrate exactly. Do you not believe that we know pretty well where Earth will be in a month?)

Offtopic damn straight!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have to think it over whether I would mod your post -1 flamebait (because I would have known that it would--and in fact did--generate flames adding nothing to the discussion), troll (trolling the evolution vs creationism argument AGAIN), or offtopic (the main point of the post was that you somehow viewed the lunar eclipse as evidence for creationism--which you admitted above. Creationism is not remotely on-topic regardless of your view on the origin of species, which concerns BIOLOGY which at any university isn't even in the same department as ASTRONOMY). Was it just creationism? Well, I would have modded it -1 flamebait or troll had the post expoused Velikovskiism or a flat earth, both similarly discredited ideas. I would have also modded it -1 offtopic if somehow a poster would have twisted and spindled this topic as pro-evolutionary since the current topic and evolution have practicaly nothing in common. So it's clearly offtopic flamebait. Both those labels and "troll" are appropriate as witness to the fact that what was an interesting discussion on the moons of Mars now has ONE IN FIVE messages completely offtopic ALL THANKS TO YOU. Yet you have the balls to complain about how your useless and disruptive message was modded?

Re:Offtopic? -- here's why

[js7a]

I am metamoderating the parent comment's "Offtopic" moderation right now as "fair."

I was raised Baptist, taught "creation science," and I still have a stack of books by Josh McDowell somewhere. I just took a look at trueorigins.org, icr.org, and andswersingenesis.com. Nothing new there. I know the arguments. They are lies, designed to keep preachers and their churches in positions of authority and power.

Since college I have been a Quaker (Religious Society of Friends.) We have no problem with the possibility of God's motive force guiding and shaping natural selection. But we see the evidence of evolution in the world around us and we know that since God does not reveal himself to us as an ordinary occurance, that He expects us to use our head in relation to the fossil record, nuclaic cell biology, etc. We are not so stupid as to presume that Genesis is any more than an allegorical myth.

How presumptious is it of you to suggest that the omnipotent God is so weak that He could not have designed the very thought occuring in your head this moment when he set the universe in motion billions of years ago? Only your conformist herd mentality and desparate attempt to cling to the idea of an afterlife keep your nose in the Holy Babble, and result in your adherance to creationism. I feel sorry for your inability to believe in a God without buying in to the popular myths of your cultural ancestors over the millenia. You have more intelligence than that, and God wants you to make use of it, as a thinking human being capable of integrating the evidence you obtain from the scientific method and peer review, not as a superstitious sheep.

You asked.

Re:Offtopic? -- here's why

[Tyreth]

This parent topic was certainly offtopic, but the post I was complaining about being moderated was not offtopic, which do you dispute?

Whether or not you agree with me on creationism is irrelevant. The point of offtopic moderations is strictly for offtopic posts (which the parent post here was, but the post it linked to wasn't). Flame posts are restricted for posts deliberately designed for flaming - and while some may disagree with me, flaming was definately not my intention, and was not the result.

If you disagree with something in a post, or you think it is incorrect, you have two options:
1. Moderate replies that support your position or the correction
2. Post in response

Offtopic and flamebait should NOT be used for modding down posts just because you disagree.

I do not need your empathy regarding my "inability to believe in a God without buying in to the popular myths of your cultural ancestors over the millenia". You have examined the evidence and come to your conclusions. I have done the same. I am persuaded of what I believe because I happen to think the evidence supports it. That is not the issue at hand. Telling me that answersingesis, etc, all have the same arguments they used to, and that you once believed but now have been able to see the light do little to persuade me. The simple fact is, I have not yet met a single evolutionist who understands the creation model. I am interested in specifics regarding evidence and arguments, not general statements of discovery. I must understand why. There is nothing to respond to in your post except general statements such as "they are lies" - what more can I say to that, unless you point out a specific lie?

If you metamodded my parent post offtopic as fair, I couldn't care less. However, I am worried if you metamoderated the offtopic rating of this post then I would be worried.

Re:Offtopic? -- here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

And I hope you'll be fuckin' dead a year from now. It will be around 'tis merry time of the year that I also plan to fuck your girl and then throw her away like the dirty bitch she is.

Re:Offtopic? -- here's why

[js7a]

Okay, well, it had nothing to do with the moons of Mars.

That in itsself should be enough for the parent comment, but I want you to understand why "creation science" is thought of so poorly even by theists.

God gave you a brain. Use it. Please don't presume that God is so stupid that He could not have designed live via evolution a billion years ago.

Re:Offtopic? -- here's why

[Tyreth]

Okay, well, it had nothing to do with the moons of Mars.

Hang on - what are you saying - that it was my original post about the moon that you metamoderated down? Just because it was not about the moons of mars it was still certainly on topic - it was about strange mathematical qualities of a moon - in the very same nature of the original story. How many hundreds of thousands of posts are made that are more 'offtopic' than that modded up?

Please excuse me if I misunderstand what you are saying here.

That in itsself should be enough for the parent comment, but I want you to understand why "creation science" is thought of so poorly even by theists.

Yes, they have been told by other organisations such as PBC that answersinegenesis and other organisations are money hungry institutes playing on the ignorance of those who listen to them.

But just because they try and present that position doesn't mean it's true. I like to understand what I believe - and that has led me to reject evolution. I'm not sure why you find that so hard to comprehend. I would love to get into a discussion about this in detail - talking about specifics instead of general insults - but I've committed myself to having a break from debates to get some rest.

I will say that insults like "God gave you a brain. Use it. Please don't presume that God is so stupid that He could not have designed live via evolution a billion years ago" to brothers in the Lord do not help - because I have been using my brain which led me to a rejection of evolution. And there are plenty of others like me. Are you one of those evolutionists that doesn't understand the creation model? I suppose we could talk about that, if you are interested. What do you think is the creation model's answer to natural selection - what does it have to say about it?

Re:Offtopic? -- here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm metamoderating this one right now, and I'm putting it unfair. Because I put all 'offtopic' ratings, excepting 'first post' and the like, as unfair. But if it was rated troll I'd certainly rate that as fair.

I like to understand what I believe - and that has led me to reject evolution.

There are very few possible explanations for such a statement. Either you're a liar, unbelievably stupid, or trolling. There is no scientific basis for any variation of 'creationism' - at best, the version the other poster you're arguing with hints at, where G-d simply sets up the initial conditions and then evolution carries through according to his plan, doesn't contradict science, although occams razor argues against it. All other variations are sheer nonsense which fool only the ignorant, the stupid, and the blind.

This is well documented and anyone smart enough to troll like this should be quite capable of having read enough to ascertain this.

Therefore I call you a troll.