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Counterexamples to an Old Earth

8 bytes added, 17:17, June 26, 2010
/* Astronomy */ fact?
=== Astronomy ===
# The [[moon]] is receding from the [[Earth]] at a rate<ref>[http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/ApolloLaser.html Measuring the Moon's Distance] ''Apollo Laser Ranging Experiments Yield Results'' by Fred Espenak, GSFC Planetary Systems Laboratory (LPI Bulletin, No. 72, August, 1994).</ref> that would have placed it too close to the Earth merely a billion years ago, causing tidal catastrophes and other problems, and colliding {{fact}} with the Earth before that.
# [[Spiral galaxies]] appear to be young, and only implausible proposals of the existence of [[dark matter]] can reconcile the spirals with a belief in an old universe
# The planetary orbits in the solar system - including Earth's - are unstable and unsustainable over the long periods claimed by Old Earth believers.<ref>[http://www.newsweek.com/id/201582 Newsweek: "An embarrassing little secret of astronomy ...."]. (Newsweek has inexplicably taken down its article, but it is quoted by Google and other links)</ref><ref>[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7248/full/nature08096.html Existence of collisional trajectories of Mercury, Mars and Venus with the Earth] by J. Laskar & M. Gastineau, ''Nature'' 459, 817-819 (11 June 2009). Believers in an Old Earth speculate that the instability would not result in problems in a billion years, but other computer simulations could be developed to demonstrate multi-body instability for the solar system far more recent than that.</ref>
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