I hear creationists claim that the verse miraculousl proved that the Pleiades and Orion are bound together. How true is this?
Perhaps Pleiades has some gravitational binding, as a star cluster, but Orion is made of different stars that are going to move individually and eventually Orion as a constellation will no longer exist. I hear his dog is pretty loyal and attached, however. Sirius.
I would love to see this claim. It would be a real hoot.
Courtesy of Hugh Ross in his early Reasons to Believe days:
Pleiades and Orion as gravitationally bound star groups (Job 38:31). NOTE: All other star groups visible to the naked eye are unbound, with the possible exception of the Hyades.
As for the claim, @Reggie_O_Donoghue, Orionās Belt is an asterism- meaning that they only appear to be close together in the night skyā¦ In actuality the closer two are separated by hundreds of light years that are separated by hundreds of more light years from the farthest one:
I have absolutely no idea how anyone in any sense could claim that Orionās belt is gravitationally āboundā beyond the fact that weāll gravity is an attractive force and everything is āboundā- e.g. how everything in the Milky Way galaxy is bound to the supermassive black hole in the middle. I suppose one could even say that our galaxy is bound to the Andromeda galaxy ā as weāre going to collide with it in three billion years or so.
Maybe Iām missing something hereā¦ But I donāt see how anyone ever could ever claim that Orionās belt is āboundā in a special way. In the same sense every Asterism would be ābound:ā
Further edit: now is as good as time as any to remention this excellent piece by @BradKramer:
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Sounds right on par with the āmiraclesā of the singing morning stars from Job 38:7 or the in utero knitting needles from Psalm 139.
The real miracle to behold here is the biblical illiteracy of some 21st century Christians.
I am fortunate to live in an area with only low light pollution and generally clear skies. I enjoy walking in the yard at night and looking around to sort of orient myself to the universe.
It is interesting how many of my city friends have never looked at common constellations and have no idea where to look for the various prominent stars. By the way, Mars is bright in the east now on its closest approach to earth in a while, Saturn is easily visible about half way between Mars and Jupiter, which is the bright object more in the western sky. Venus has been visible in the west in the evening, and for a while you could see it along with with the other planets in the sky at the same time, making Mercury the only planet visible to the naked eye that was not seen. (look at your feet to see the other visible planet.) It is sort of fun to look at them and try to orient yourself in where they are in their relative orbits
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You had to be trying a couple weeks ago to see Mercury in the evening in its āeastern elongationā (when it is farthest east of the sun to our view). Our family did see it, but it takes some persistence in the short window of fading twilight to spot it as a faintly emerging star just before it gets too low into the horizonal haze to see.
Now it is too close to the sun again, so the window is gone, but it will be a morning star reaching its western elongation on August 26. So if youāre an early riser with a clear eastern horizon on any days close to the 26th ā¦ it will rise just before the sun does. If you are an evening person just wait around 44 days from that (half of its 88 day orbit) and youāll have optimal eastern elongation where it sets as far after the sun as it can get.
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It was a great thrill seeing Uranus through binoculars when it was close enough to one of the other planets to find easily. You feel part of a more select group looking at something only discovered a couple of centuries ago and not that obvious. Pretty blue colour.
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