The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel [99]
The creation of ores and their placement close to the Earth’s surface are the result of much more than simple geologic chance. Only an exact series of physical and chemical events, occurring in the right environment and sequence and followed by certain climatic conditions, can give rise to a high concentration of these compounds so crucial to the development of civilization and technology. 41
When I took this together with all of the various “serendipitous” circumstances involving our privileged location in the universe, I was left without a vocabulary to describe my sense of wonder. The suggestion that all of this was based on fortuitous chance had become absurd to me. The tell-tale signs of design are evident from the far reaches of the Milky Way down to the inner core of our planet.
And yet there was more—a whole new dimension of evidence that suggests this astounding world was created, in part, so we could have the adventure of exploring it.
THE POWER OF AN ECLIPSE
The story begins with an unabashed love for solar and lunar eclipses that helped drive a young Guillermo Gonzalez into a life-long study of stellar mysteries.
Mesmerized by the partial eclipses he had witnessed as an amateur astronomer, Gonzalez longed to see the zenith of them all: a total eclipse of the sun, where the moon just barely covers the sun’s photosphere. He finally got his chance in 1995. Aware that an eclipse was going to occur on October 24 of that year, he scheduled his research so he could witness the event in northern India, one of the few places where it was going to be fully visible.
“One thing about eclipses,” he told me, “is that a seasoned astronomer could be standing next to someone from a remote village, and they would both have tears in their eyes. They’re both in awe. At my eclipse camp, as soon as the total phase of the eclipse ended, when you could see the sun’s beautiful corona and it was relatively dark, people spontaneously applauded as if rewarding a show. It was just so beautiful!”
Gonzalez photographed the eclipse and made scientific measurements. But he wasn’t done. His mind wouldn’t let go of an insight: eclipses are better viewed on Earth than they would be from any other planet in our solar system.
“There’s a striking convergence of rare properties that allow people on Earth to witness perfect solar eclipses,” he said. “There’s no law of physics that would necessitate this. In fact, of the nine planets with their more than sixty-three moons in our solar system, the Earth’s surface is the best place where observers can witness a total solar eclipse, and that’s only possible for the ‘near-term’ future. 42
“What’s really amazing is that total eclipses are possible because the sun is four hundred times larger than the moon, but it’s also four hundred times further away. It’s that incredible coincidence that creates a perfect match. Because of this configuration, and because the Earth is the innermost planet with a moon, observers on Earth can discern finer details in the sun’s chromosphere and corona than from any other planet, which makes these eclipses scientifically rich.
“What intrigued me,” he said, “was that the very time and place where perfect solar eclipses appear in our universe also corresponds to the one time and place where there are observers to see them.”
That “coincidence” was so fascinating to me that I asked him to repeat his last statement before we continued. After he did, he added: “What’s more, perfect solar eclipses have resulted in important scientific discoveries that would have been difficult if not impossible elsewhere, where eclipses don’t happen.”
“What discoveries?” I asked.
“I’ll give you just three examples,” he said. “First, perfect solar eclipses helped us learn about the nature of stars. Using