[asa] Light, waters, days of Genesis

I would enjoy getting some comments on several views I have been strongly entertaining for a number of years:

1) First light from the Sun for "Let there be Light"

2) A blue Solar accretion disk that would be described as waters for Day 1 and Day 2.

3) The possibility that the six, or seven, days of Genesis were references to the days of the observer, and not days that creation was performed from scratch.

In no. 1, it seems to me that the first light from our host star would be a major historic moment for the founding of life on Earth. It is the primary energy source for our planet and the others, too. The "Let there be light, and there was light" passage suggests that light came forth in a moment of time, and not gradual over long periods. Can stars suddenly spring forth light? I think the answer to that is yes, but it is not common in observations. Dust and gas shrouds around protostars are known to exist. At some point, light will spring forth from them, but how fast this might happen is not known to me.

Protostars are hot simply from gravitational contraction, but their dull light can be blocked by the dust shroud. Perhaps a few possibilities exist for a sudden burst of light to shine through the shroud:
a) Initial Deuterium fusion. Deuterium will fuse at a lower temperatue than hydrogen, so this short phase in the early centuries of a pre-main sequence star happens first before hydrogen fusion.
b) Initial Hydrogen fusion. This might produce quite a light punch, though I doubt the shroud would have survived this long. I don't really know, however.
c) Flare. The Sun, like most stars in its class, likley displayed rather violent behaior in its early years. T-Tauri class stars are examples of this. Perhaps an early, violent Solar flare burst a hole in the shroud.
d) Planetary migration. Larger objects formed in the accretion disk of a nascent star sytem will migrate inward. Some are believed to get swallowed by the host star. This could trigger a strong burst of light. [V838 Mon is an amazing star that is in a new class of stars known as flashing stars, I think. One theory has suggested the three bright light echos discovered are due to three stellar gulps of planets.]

Of course, the idea here is that an actual eye witness was taken to see our star sytem's first light. It would be the light that would cause us to distinguish day from night. Interestingly, God actually named the light, Day. Perhaps, the daylight we see today is one in the same for our special, biblical observer.

For 2) The existance of stellar accretion disks is no longer conjecture or hypothesis; they are being observed by the hundreds. These disks are comprised of gas and dust. The particle sizes are such that strong illumination by bright neighbors could cause the disk to appear as a beautiful blue ocean. Rayleigh Scattering provides the proper explanation for the scattering of light. The sky is blue for this very reason. Reflection nebula are blue, but at a surface illumination too low for our color cones. The cloudless portion of the norther hemisphere of Saturn is blue, watery blue. [Guess where this is headed. :)]

If our observer saw a very blue relatively flat region billions of square millions in size, wouldn't waters be a reasonable simple term used by a simple witness?

Also, it is very likely our star had neighbors, perhaps in the hundreds or even thousands. Giant molecular clouds (GMC), once triggered, will condense into large numbers of stars creating a stellar nursery. The Hubble images of these regions are stunning. The more massive stars develop much quicker than solar-mass objects, and they are prodigious in light production. Further, these massive stars are hotter and produce a distinctive blue color to them that would also help to cause its neighbor's disk to appear more blue.

For 3) Why not? The Bible is unclear what is meant by... "the evening and morning were the ___ day". Why could that not simply be the rough time period for our observer, in lieu of the hardened idea that it was the Creator's time to create from scratch?

I presented some samples of this before, but no one gave much response. A more detailed text of this is in the ASA forum. I realize this is yet another literal approach and, for some, this may be gravel to the mouth. Yet, I am not stuck on any of this, so don't worry about hurting my feelings (assuming I can find where I last put them). In other words, fire-a-way; I appreciate your thoughts. If you want more elaboration, please ask.

GeorgeA

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Received on Mon Dec 3 18:50:16 2007