Good Heavens! The Human Side of Astronomy goodheavens

The "Standard Model" of particle physics is science's attempt to explain the basic, fundamental building blocks of the universe. In many ways, the Standard Model has accurately predicted many groundbreaking discoveries at the subatomic levels.
But for everything the Standard Model has predicted and described, there are a great many things for which it cannot account. Never in a million years could anyone look at the intricacies of the atom and think that from this tiny Lego-block-like structure things like giant sequoia redwoods, or blue whales, or even enormous variegated swirling arms of stars in galaxies would come about!
And the mysteries just continue to deepen! Last October, astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope discovered a plethora of mysterious objects in the Orion Nebula, things for which there were really no classification schemes. Not stars, not planets, not asteroids, moons, comets, or brown dwarfs.
What exactly was discovered, then?
Haha! Think we would tell you before you listened to the episode? Come and see! (But if you must cheat and find out before you listen, well, ok. You can click below to articles written by Wayne and Dan).
Wayne's article on the subject. https://creationanswers.net/answersblog/2024/05/13/jumbos-in-orion/
Dan's article on the subject. https://thestoryofthecosmos.substack.com/p/a-jumbo-discovery-in-the-orion-nebula
 
Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

Come and hear more on Saturn's rings and what scientists say about how they formed! Despite all science tells us about the sixth planet from the sun, the wondrously ringed world of Saturn, there is still much that remains unknown. And maybe we will never know all there is to know about it. And maybe that unknown is part of what the glory of God is all about, after all He is omniscient and we are not! But God has graciously enabled us to look at what He has made in the heavens in a very up-close and personal way. Saturn and its majestic rings certainly affirm what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians, "Star differs from star in glory" (in Scripture any light in the sky was considered a "star").
So come and enjoy more of Saturn's wonders and mysteries and how they point us to the glory of God in Christ.
 
Clip from ABC News clip from August 1981 interview with Dr. Carl Sagan https://youtu.be/KEYJoTSnolY?si=ekTssEAB03PWduPq
September 2017 Cassini Press Conference Full Video: https://www.youtube.com/live/gs-dscW95PE?si=w6PTY6onccQIQ3Xa
Link to "The Journal of Creation" December 2023 issue, featuring Wayne's article on Saturn's rings. The article is presently through subscription to the Journal only. https://creation.com/journal-of-creation-373
Dan's article on the hexagon high atop Saturn. https://open.substack.com/pub/thestoryofthecosmos/p/saturns-hexagonal-hurricane
Watchman Fellowship's four-page Profile articles on Naturalism, Scientism, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series.
https://www.watchman.org/scientism/ProfileScientism.pdf
https://www.watchman.org/Naturalism/ProfileNaturalism.pdf
https://www.watchman.org/files/ProfileCosmos.pdf
 
 
Image from NASA/JPL, Cassini Mission
 
Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

Wayne made up "eclipsnic" to describe our combination picnic and eclipse we watched with not a little awe and wonder in Waxahachie, Texas on April 8, 2024. On this special episode we try to put into words what words cannot finally adequately describe.
The event was truly wondrous - a carefully choreographed dance of the Sun, Moon, and Earth has to be experienced in person. If you did not get a chance to see this marvel, we try to give you a theater of the mind experience on this broadcast and make you feel like you were right there with us.
From cloudy, inauspicious skies, to a frosted chocolate donut, getting air in Dan's tires, to the sun playing hide-and-seek with us for most of the morning, we bring you along with us on this once-in-a-lifetime event in the heavens.  And of course, we contemplate how it all points to the glory of God in Christ. So come and see!
For a complete list of future total eclipses visit Nationaleclipse.com and start planning your trip!
Audio from FOX 4 in Dallas - https://youtu.be/61FZMurmE1c?si=antS2ZO4zD_vhLzn
 
Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

 
News clip from CBS https://youtu.be/ZSMiQQ7aQKI?si=2KKoL2ECu8YOgOln
Link to "The Journal of Creation" December 2023 issue, featuring Wayne's article on Saturn's rings. The article is presently through subscription to the Journal only. https://creation.com/journal-of-creation-373
Dan's article on the hexagon high atop Saturn. https://open.substack.com/pub/thestoryofthecosmos/p/saturns-hexagonal-hurricane?r=29oa8g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Watchman Fellowship's four-page Profile articles on Naturalism, Scientism, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series.
https://www.watchman.org/scientism/ProfileScientism.pdf
https://www.watchman.org/Naturalism/ProfileNaturalism.pdf
https://www.watchman.org/files/ProfileCosmos.pdf
For over 400 years now, ever since Galileo lifted up his little spyglass toward the enigmatic ringed planet Saturn, we have been fascinated, and not a little stumped, by the sixth planet from the sun's mysteries. Even with the latest advanced technologies, astronomers are still somewhat in the dark about how Saturn's rings came to be.  See how evidence from the NASA Cassini mission shows Saturn's rings cannot be billions of years old!
On the next two episodes of Good Heavens! Wayne and Dan discuss many of the marvelous wonders of our billion-mile distant planetary neighbor. Come and see!
Images of from NASA, STScI, and JWST.
Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

Total eclipses are a spectacular and breathtaking wonder to behold. And a total eclipse is coming over the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex as well as parts of the eastern United States on April 8th, 2024. Totality in the DFW area will last a little over four minutes.  If you are in the vicinity of DFW, come join Wayne and Dan in Waxahachie, Texas on April 8th, 2024 for the Discovery Institute event. You can find tickets here at this link.
https://www.discovery.org/e/eclipse/
Waxahachie, Texas will be nearly in the center of the moon's shadow as it passes over. There will not be another total eclipse over the continental United States for another twenty years. So if you can, get yourself to a spot where you can see this once-in-a-lifetime wonder of the heavens on April 8th.
You can check out this comprehensive eclipse event website, complete with easy-to-read maps of where you can view it. https://nationaleclipse.com/index.html
On this episode of Good Heavens! we had the privilege of talking with Discovery Institute astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez about his experiences in seeing total eclipses and a little bit about the science behind them and how he thinks they reveal the glory of God.
Guillermo's article on Salvo. https://salvomag.com/article/salvo68/signs-in-the-sky
Guillermo and Jay W. Richard's 2004 book, The Privileged Planet. https://www.discovery.org/store/product/privileged-planet/
Four-page Profile articles on Naturalism, Scientism, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series.
https://www.watchman.org/scientism/ProfileScientism.pdf
https://www.watchman.org/Naturalism/ProfileNaturalism.pdf
https://www.watchman.org/files/ProfileCosmos.pdf
 
Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

Stereo repost.  Current models of how our universe came to be are based on a few assumptions the brilliant physicist-genius Albert Einstein made about the universe - things he could not finally physically test or demonstrate.  In order to do his calculations, Einstein simply assumed that matter would be evenly distributed throughout the universe and that the universe would look the same in any direction or location.  If Einstein's assumptions are indeed correct, astrophysicists and cosmologists calculate that the largest structures we should expect to see in the universe would not exceed 1.2 billion light years in size.  But discoveries in recent decades have posed a significant challenge to Einstein's idea of homogeneity and isotropy, with several structures far and away exceeding the the 1.2 billion-light-year limit.  Are these cosmic superstructures for real or just  anomalies? Come and see!
Links:
Press conference with Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Lancashire in the UK who has recently discovered two such structures. https://www.youtube.com/live/86Ps7vE6JHI?feature=shared
Wayne's updated article on things too big for the Big Bang.https://creationanswers.net/answersblog/2017/11/15/structures-too-big-for-the-big-bang/
Dan further ponders the theological implications in his blog about things too big for the Big Bang.https://thestoryofthecosmos.substack.com/p/are-there-things-just-too-big-for
Good Heavens! is a production of Watchman Fellowship, Inc. For more information on apologetics, cults, world religions, and other non-Christian ideologies and spiritual practices, visit our website at http://www.watchman.org
Check out Watchman's main podcast, Apologetics Profile.  https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/jwalker55293
Original Too Big for the Big Bang Good Heavens! episode from 2017. Please excuse Dan's rather juvenile introduction on this one! https://goodheavens.podbean.com/e/good-heavens-are-there-things-too-big-for-the-big-bang/
 
Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.