Something new under the sun? A secular case for intentional creation
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Source: S. Beckwith & the HUDF Working Group/HST/ESA/NASA. Is everything you see here part of a high-tech stab at survival by a mega-species? That’s what Clay Naff has proposed recently. Click on the image for a nice high-resolution 19-MB version. It may take a minute to load, but once you [...]
Behold the Kepler Collection
Kepler‘s planets, seen in silhouette, against their parent stars. The star colors — which are accurate — indicate temperature: the redder, the cooler; the bluer, the hotter. These are not images taken by Kepler, but are generated from Kepler data; measurements of the stars’ temperatures and distances help astronomers determine their luminosities, and once these [...]
The Kepler Orrery
Orrery (n.): planetarium consisting of an apparatus that illustrates the relative positions and motions of bodies in the solar system by rotation and revolution of balls moved by wheelwork. Definition lifted from Princeton’s WordNet; see an example of a traditional mechanical solar system orrery here. The Kepler Orrery. The incredible dancing exoplanets. The numbers that [...]
From the Dept. of Followups: On space aliens and abiogenesis
This electrifying scene from Mel Brooks‘s Young Frankenstein wins the prize for best comedic abiogenesis scene ever. Image source: American Movie Classics We just came across a couple of interesting stories at Science & Religion Today that remind us of previous posts here at psnt.net. The first has to do with the data coming in [...]
The view from Gliese 581g
Space Alien Pantocrator. Source: www.tribine.lv This article also appears at Religion Dispatches As you probably know, a couple of weeks ago the pope was in England smack-talking the atheists. What is generally less known is that, at the same moment that pope was having his say with the UK’s radical non-believers, Vatican astronomer Brother Guy [...]
It’s a bottomless sky
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Source: S. Beckwith & the HUDF Working Group/HST/ESA/NASA. Click on the image for a nice high-resolution 19 MB version. It may take a minute to load, but once you have it you can have a boatload of fun getting lost among the jillions of distant and colorful galaxies. Of course, [...]
Space Ranger Jesus rocks the Drake Equation
One of the most entertaining issues that comes up in any discussion about science and Christianity is the question of God, Jesus, the Atonement, and extraterrestrial life. (If you think this is not a serious issue for some people, please look here or here or here or here or even here.) Specifically, if we are [...]
