The Amazing Sun-Earth-Moon System

 

By Clint Bishard

Jesus Created Ministries

 

To find evidence for design in the solar system (outside of the earth), one does not have to go very far.  Our moon, only about 239,000 miles from earth, contains many evidences for design.  One that I want to highlight here deals with the unique sizes and distances involved in the sun-earth-moon system.

Uniquely, our moon is the largest, proportionately, of all the now defined planet-moon systems in our solar system.  Although some of the moons around other planets are bigger than our moon, they all account for less than 5 percent of the diameter of their respective planets.[1]  However, our moon has a diameter (2,160 miles) of more than 27% of that of the earth (7926miles).  Now, what makes this all so special is that although the sun is about 400 times larger than the moon, it is also about 400 times farther away from earth than the moon.  These size/distance ratios are just the right design for both lights to have the same apparent size in the sky, as shown in Figure 1 below:

 

Figure 1: Sun-Moon size comparison as seen from the earth[2]

 

The Bible states in Gen 1:16-19, “¹⁶Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. ¹⁷God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, ¹⁸and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹So the evening and the morning were the fourth day” (NKJV).  

We can see that God delivered us these two great lights just like He said.  Also, in Genesis 1, God is using for us the language of appearance.  The moon is a light via reflection and it is just a speck in comparison to the actual size of the sun (more than 27 million times more massive) and other stars.  Yet, from our viewpoint they are visibly the “two great lights” and of the same size, the sun is clearly “the greater light to rule the day” in the same way the moon is “the lesser light to rule the night.”  All other luminaries from our viewpoint are just small points in the sky compared to our view of these two dominant and uniquely created lights of equal apparent size.  This precisely created sun-earth-moon size/distance relationship must remain a very strange coincidence for the evolutionist, but stands right in line with what would be expected from the Biblical creationist.

This extraordinary sun-earth-moon relationship is also what is required to give observers on earth both solar and lunar eclipses, but that is a whole topic in itself for future discussion J  For now, let us work to let our culture know that the sun-earth-moon system was created to bring God the glory He deserves:

 

¹“Praise the LORD!

Praise the LORD from the heavens;

Praise Him in the heights!

²Praise Him, all His angels;

Praise Him, all His hosts!

³Praise Him, sun and moon;

Praise Him, all you stars of light!”

(Psalms 148:1-3, NKJV)