# Is there a quick, simple answer to this latest young moon claim? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 31, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689 "2017-01-31T19:55:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/1 "2017-01-31T19:55:50Z")
[Read it and weep you profane \* heathens!](http://christiannews.net/2016/10/17/evidence-of-a-young-moon-study-forces-scientists-to-rethink-lunar-dating-techniques/) Years ago there were constant “gotcha!” references to the dust on the moon being surprisingly thin. This was supposed to demolish the alleged assumption of many eons for all of the Solar System bodies. The Apollo astronauts did not sink into tens of meters of accumulated meteoric dust and _ **that was that!** _ Jerry Falwell even tried to “debate” Carl Sagan on Nightline with that little gem. The truth was twofold in rebuttal: The original projection of how much dust was very crudely worked out and grossly overestimated how thick the layer should be after 4.6 or so billion years. More to the point was this observation: There really is quite a depth of accumulated dust nevertheless, and the astronauts would have been unable to safely land, _ **except** _ that it is exists mainly in a compacted form called the [lunar regolith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regolith#Moon), with a little loose dust on top. At least one young-earth creationist site advocated for NOT using such a line of argumentation. [Matt Dillahunty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Dillahunty) had a lot of fun pointing that little fact out to one very confused YEC caller to the [Atheist Experience show](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atheist_Experience). It’s mildly ironic that the article refers to the regolith at all, and the thrust is that there is a recent churning of it. * * * I suppose I’m looking for the most simple and concise way to rebut this new claim should it come up. It strikes me that this is a different “take” than the earlier one and this is why I am asking. - Here is the article I first found, provided by the successor(s) of the late, grating, Jack T. Chick. This explains why I jokingly called real researchers “profane” heathens. > **[Chick.com: How Old is the Moon?](https://www.chick.com/battle-cry/article?id=How-Old-is-the-Moon)** > > 200 new craters since 2009 show the moon is not as old as we\`ve been told. (You can access the entire Battle Cry page by simply placing _ **/bc** _ after the url for the chick site.) ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2017, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/2 "2017-01-31T20:03:34Z")
Two faulty assumptions there off the top of my head; cratering and the increasing distance of the moon may not occur at a constant rate, and cratering is not the primary way of assessing planetary age as noted in the comments. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/3 "2017-01-31T22:31:26Z")
Some quick back-of-the-$100-bill calculations gives 15m years to form the estimated 500m craters 10 km or greater … so the 6k years number isn’t even reasonable … This does NOT include all the craters that were re-cratered … just how many can no longer be seen? … and certainly what **swampspruce** points out about no evidence for a constant rate of cratering … 7 years is hardly enough time to judge the events of the past 4b years … Finally, the age of the surface of a planet-like object isn’t a good measure of the age of the body … noting that the surface of the Earth in the Tuttle River Valley in Washington State is only 35 years old … all made fresh in 1980 … The Moon was spiraling in at first, until enough momentum was bled off and now it’s spiraling out … AFAIK the math that predicts this is sound … I’m surprised Christian scientists ignored that … ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/4 "2017-01-31T22:43:58Z")
[Peter Gold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold#Relationship_with_NASA) once came up with a quick and dirty estimate of moon dust thickness that was ridiculously large. He later corrected it and was fairly close to what the Apollo project found. But … a lot of idiots like to cite his first estimate and not his later correction! How very ethical of them. The receding Moon is just stupid crap by people who don’t know any Physics at all. Hint the rate is not constant! Anyone using this “argument” automatically demonstrates they think that Scientists are remarkably stupid and a common schmo is clearly smarter than them. Very telling about their mental level. “Experts have missed something obvious for hundreds of years! What a genius I am!” Note that the problem with a naive calc of dust accumulation rate misses that a lot of later hits hit dust. Actually making regolith a lot of times and not making more dust. Similar activity happens with craters. Most new craters are quite small, erasing craters the same size quite often. It’s the bigger craters that carry the most information. Those are rarer and longer lasting. Size matters. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2017, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/5 "2017-01-31T22:55:44Z")
I got this DVD from the library and watched it just last night! It, too proposed that the Moon may have been brought here by an advanced race, who lived in it for the trip, about 10,000 years ago. :dubious: It also cites several legends from widely separated cultures (the Zulus and a tribe of South American Indians, among others) about the world before the moon. > **[Amazon.com: Aliens and Astronauts: UFOs On the Moon : -, -: Movies & TV](https://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Astronauts-UFOs-Moon/dp/B01CE21VMM)** > > Amazon.com: Aliens and Astronauts: UFOs On the Moon : -, -: Movies & TV ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2017, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/6 "2017-01-31T22:59:36Z")
Moon rocks have been dated as old as 4.4 billion years old. Wikipedia has an article [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock). TLDR: moon dust isn’t relevant. > [@](#): > > Rocks from the Moon have been measured by radiometric dating techniques. They range in age from about 3.16 billion years old for the basaltic samples derived from the lunar maria, up to about 4.44 billion years old for rocks derived from the highlands.[1] Based on the age dating technique of “crater counting,” the youngest basaltic eruptions are believed to have occurred about 1.2 billion years ago,[2] but scientists do not possess samples of these lavas. In contrast, the oldest ages of rocks from the Earth are between 3.8 and 4.28 billion years old. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/7 "2017-01-31T23:14:28Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Moon rocks have been dated as old as 4.4 billion years old. Wikipedia has an article [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock). TLDR: moon dust isn’t relevant. If you want to use that as evidence, you’re first going to have to answer the objections against radiometric dating. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/8 "2017-02-01T00:41:01Z")
Anybody who lives in the northern half of the country will have seen compaction in action in years when there is a lot of winter snow. The snow accumulates, and snow at the bottom is compacted by the snow on top, and eventually is pressed enough to become ice. (That’s how glaciers are formed, in places where the snow never melts.) But further soutk like our area, when spring (finally) comes, you can see that the very bottom layers are ice, not snow (and they take a lot longer to melt away). The same is true on the moon: the bottom layers of dust are compressed by later layers and turn rock-like (‘regolith’). The same thing happens to dirt here on earth, in fields that are not farmed for years – they become very compacted & hard. They’d probably become rock eventually, but we have water freeze-thaw cycles, plus worms & plants (‘weeds’) that churn them up a bit even if they aren’t farmed. P.S. DAon’t expect that a quick, simple answer will persuade any of these people – they are much more simple than any answer you might get. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/9 "2017-02-01T14:21:29Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I got this DVD from the library and watched it just last night! It, too proposed that the Moon may have been brought here by an advanced race, who lived in it for the trip, about 10,000 years ago. Meteorite analysis and such tells us that the rocky stuff in the Solar System varies quite a bit. But the Moon is surprisingly similar to the Earth. This places severe limits on many Lunar origin hypotheses. So these “aliens” somehow found/created an object with a composition very close to Earth’s. Dragged it here. Oh, and they created all the fossil evidence of Lunar tides going back hundreds of millions of years. The Fail is strong in these people. Nice to know libraries are spreading such useful information. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/10 "2017-02-01T14:40:56Z")
You guys haven’t read the quotes in the Christian News article any more closely than Christian News did. > [@Christian News](#): > > “There are more fresh craters measuring at least 10 meters across than standard cratering calculations would suggest,” wrote “Nature” science journalist Alexandra Witze. “This could mean that some young lunar \*\*\*surfaces \*\*\*may be even younger than thought.” [Quote=ibid] “Planetary geologists will also need to rethink their understanding of _ **the age of the lunar surface** _, which depends on counting craters and estimating how long the terrain has been pummeled by impacts,” Witze said. [/quote] [emphasis mine] The original article says that the _ **surface of the moon** _ is younger than was previously thought. It says nothing about the age of the moon itself. I expect sloppy surficial reading like that from young Earth creationists but I didn’t expect it from you. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/11 "2017-02-01T14:41:40Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Nice to know libraries are spreading such useful information. They even have an entire section devoted to _fiction_! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/12 "2017-02-01T15:02:54Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > You guys haven’t read the quotes in the Christian News article any more closely than Christian News did. > > [emphasis mine] > > The original article says that the _ **surface of the moon** _ is younger than was previously thought. It says nothing about the age of the moon itself. > > I expect sloppy surficial reading like that from young Earth creationists but I didn’t expect it from you. Neither have you. "Citing various pieces of evidence, Christian scientists reason that **the moon’s age is significantly younger than most evolutionary scientists estimate**. Dr. Jason Lisle, an astrophysicist with the Institute for Creation Research, says the moon “moves about an inch and a half farther away from the earth every year” due to tidal interactions with the earth, which means it is almost certainly not billions of years old. “Six thousand years ago, the moon would have been about 800 feet (250 m) closer to the earth (which is not much of a change considering the moon is nearly a quarter of a million miles, or 400,000 km, away),” Lisle writes in his book “Taking Back Astronomy.” “**So this ‘spiraling away’ of the moon is not a problem over the biblical time scale of 6,000 years, but if the earth and moon were over 4,000,000,000 years old (as big-bang supporters teach), then we would have big problems,” he says. “This is because the moon would have been so close that it would actually have been touching the earth less than 1.5 billion years ago. This suggests that the moon can’t possibly be as old as secular astronomers claim**.” Emphasis mine. ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/13 "2017-02-01T16:34:56Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Some quick back-of-the-$100-bill calculations gives 15m years to form the estimated 500m craters 10 km or greater … so the 6k years number isn’t even reasonable … > > This does NOT include all the craters that were re-cratered … just how many can no longer be seen? … and certainly what **swampspruce** points out about no evidence for a constant rate of cratering … 7 years is hardly enough time to judge the events of the past 4b years … > > Finally, the age of the surface of a planet-like object isn’t a good measure of the age of the body … noting that the surface of the Earth in the Tuttle River Valley in Washington State is only 35 years old … all made fresh in 1980 … > > The Moon was spiraling in at first, until enough momentum was bled off and now it’s spiraling out … AFAIK the math that predicts this is sound …\*\* I’m surprised Christian scientists ignored that …\*\* A REAL scientist wouldn’t. They can call themselves anything they want but they are NOT real scientists, whatever their religion is. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/14 "2017-02-01T16:47:46Z")
> [@swampspruce](#): > > Neither have you. > "Citing various pieces of evidence, Christian scientists reason that **the moon’s age is significantly younger than most evolutionary scientists estimate**. Dr. Jason Lisle, an astrophysicist with the Institute for Creation Research, says the moon “moves about an inch and a half farther away from the earth every year” due to tidal interactions with the earth, which means it is almost certainly not billions of years old. > > “Six thousand years ago, the moon would have been about 800 feet (250 m) closer to the earth (which is not much of a change considering the moon is nearly a quarter of a million miles, or 400,000 km, away),” Lisle writes in his book “Taking Back Astronomy.” > > “**So this ‘spiraling away’ of the moon is not a problem over the biblical time scale of 6,000 years, but if the earth and moon were over 4,000,000,000 years old (as big-bang supporters teach), then we would have big problems,” he says. “This is because the moon would have been so close that it would actually have been touching the earth less than 1.5 billion years ago. This suggests that the moon can’t possibly be as old as secular astronomers claim**.” > > Emphasis mine. As you can clearly read, I’m referring to places where the Christian News article quotes actual scientists. I’m not in the least interested in what an “astrophysicist with the Institute for Creation Research” says about the moon “spiralling away”. ---
**Author:** ![pieceoftheuniverse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7993a0/32.png) [@pieceoftheuniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pieceoftheuniverse)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/15 "2017-02-01T17:08:45Z")
> [@swampspruce](#): > > “So this ‘spiraling away’ of the moon is not a problem over the biblical time scale of 6,000 years, but if the earth and moon were over 4,000,000,000 years old (as big-bang supporters teach), then we would have big problems,” he says. “This is because the moon would have been so close that it would actually have been touching the earth less than 1.5 billion years ago. This suggests that the moon can’t possibly be as old as secular astronomers claim.” This ridiculous extrapolation reminds me of a quote: [QUOTE=Mark Twain, in Life on the Mississippi] In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/16 "2017-02-01T17:43:07Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > [snip] … Anyone using this “argument” automatically demonstrates they think that Scientists are remarkably stupid … [snip] > [@swampspruce](#): > > [snip] … “So this ‘spiraling away’ of the moon is not a problem over the biblical time scale of 6,000 years, but if the earth and moon were over 4,000,000,000 years old (as big-bang supporters teach), then we would have big problems,” he says. “This is because the moon would have been so close that it would actually have been touching the earth less than 1.5 billion years ago. This suggests that the moon can’t possibly be as old as secular astronomers claim.” There’s a quick, simple answer … “Astronomers are stupid” … ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/17 "2017-02-01T21:33:23Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > …snip… > > The Moon was spiraling in at first, until enough momentum was bled off and now it’s spiraling out … AFAIK the math that predicts this is sound … > > …snip … > [@ftg](#): > > …snip… > > The receding Moon is just stupid crap by people who don’t know any Physics at all. Hint the rate is not constant! > > …snip… Help me understand this intuitively. Is it A) that when the Moon is closer to the Earth, the system is more strongly coupled and more of the Earth’s rotational angular momentum can be transferred to the Moon’s orbital angular momentum, …or… B) that the young Earth rotated more quickly (before it had transferred angular momentum to the Moon), and therefore there was more angular momentum to transfer, …or… C) both A) and B)? My experience with many multiple choice tests tells me to go with “C”. When in doubt, always choose “C”! What do those who know say? ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/18 "2017-02-01T23:51:07Z")
Or did I get this backward- is the moon leaving Earth’s orbit at an ever faster rate? If so, is this because it’s easier to climb out of the gravity well as you get further away? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/19 "2017-02-02T13:52:54Z")
A couple of sources discussing the changes in Lunar recession are the classic [talk.origins](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html) page on it and [RationalWiki](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Recession_of_the_Moon). The former also discusses the Paleontological tidal evidence. Note that even the clowns who are merely bad at Math and Physics still come up with ages of at least 1 billion years! ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689/20 "2017-02-02T15:37:47Z")
Woot … it appears I was wrong in my claim the Moon at first was spiraling in … so, let’s start with my citation, noting this paper does quickly touch upon the Creationists’ arguments … [“The evolution of the Earth-Moon system based on the dark matter field fluid model”](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0704/0704.0003.pdf) (warning - pdf) In summary, the rate that the Moon was spiraling out was much slower in her first 3b years … and much faster in the past 1b years … either coincidentally or causatively because of the first supercontinent Rodinia and that lil’ witch’s extra tidal friction (the bitch) … Anyway … my apologies for stating faslehoods above … no spiraling in, just much slower spiraling out beforehencehand… > [@](#): > > Creationists argue that based on the tidal friction theory, the tidal friction should be stronger and the recessional rate of the Moon should be greater in the past, the distance of the Moon would quickly fall inside the Roche’s limit (for earth, 15500 km) in which the Moon would be torn apart by gravity in 1 to 2 billion years ago. However, geological evidence indicates that the recession of the Moon in the past was slower than the present rate, i. e., the recession has been accelerating with time. Therefore, it must be concluded that tidal friction was very much less in the remote past than we would deduce on the basis of present-day observations (Stacey 1977). This was called “geological time scale difficulty” or “Lunar crisis” and is one of the main arguments by creationists against the tidal friction theory (Brush 1983). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-quick-simple-answer-to-this-latest-young-moon-claim/778689.md?page=2)