Lunar Formation, Recession and Deep Time

One of the staples of creation science presentations is how the moon is receding from the earth at a measurable rate, and calculating backward shows that the earth and moon cannot be billions of years old. Residents of the secular science industry dislike this fact.

Another problem for secularists is the many speculations as to the moon's formation fall apart. (Since they are so bad, it has been sarcastically said that the moon does not exist.) The recession rate and the formation of the moon are tied together in rescuing devices.

Moon from space, NASA / ISS / Col. Jeff Williams (usage does not imply endorsement of site's contents)

One Just-So Story for how the earth got its moon is that a wandering big hunk of rock hit our planet when it was still molten, splattered up stuff that accreted into the moon with all of its amazing characteristics. Another story is that something was wandering around minding its own business and got captured by Earth's gravity and kept in orbit. Sure, buddy.

A problem with many formation stories is the roche limit, which is seldom mentioned in the science fiction stories I have seen. Tides are not just for water. They affect celestial objects as well, and something of substantial size approaching a planet will have its own forces overcome and the planet's gravity will break it into pieces. Curiously, roche is French for rock.

So, big rocks that come too close in such a manner would be shredded. That would not do Earth much good, what with all that debris banging around and probably chucks of it plummeting down. Don't worry, remember the moon is moving away from us and is well beyond the roche limit. Wow, it's like planets and moons were created to be where they are — especially ours. Some secularists are considering that the moon formed quickly, which is closer to the truth of creation.

The history of modern lunar origins theories traces back to George Darwin in the 1800s. Such naturalistic theories have presumed that the moon is extremely old, but all have been plagued by irresolvable difficulties. In addition, the moon is slowly receding from the earth, a phenomenon which establishes an upper limit for the moon’s age of approximately one-third the conventional age of 4.6 Ga. This issue has been a long-standing challenge to conventional chronology. Use of adjustable tidal parameters presumes conventional age rather than proving it, so is no support for a long chronology.

To read the rest of this somewhat technical paper, visit "The moon’s recession and age." For a less technical approach, check out the links contained in "Lunar Recession and the Young Earth."