From "Tidal Acceleration,"
Wikipedia:
Quote:
[...] the mean solar day, which is nominally 86400 seconds long, is actually getting longer when measured in SI seconds with stable atomic clocks. (The SI second, when adopted, was already a little shorter than the current value of the second of mean solar time.[9]) The small difference accumulates every day, which leads to an increasing difference between our clock time (Universal Time) on the one hand, and Atomic Time and Ephemeris Time on the other hand: see ΔT. This makes it necessary to insert a leap second at irregular intervals.
If other effects were ignored, tidal acceleration would continue until the rotational period of the Earth matched the orbital period of the Moon. At that time, the Moon would always be overhead of a single fixed place on Earth. Such a situation already exists in the Pluto-Charon system. However, the slowdown of the Earth's rotation is not occurring fast enough for the rotation to lengthen to a month before other effects make this irrelevant: About 2.1 billion years from now, the continual increase of the Sun's radiation will cause the Earth's oceans to vaporize, removing the bulk of the tidal friction and acceleration. Even without this, the slowdown to a month-long day would still not have been completed by 4.5 billion years from now when the Sun will evolve into a red giant and possibly destroy both the Earth and Moon. (Tidal acceleration is also moving the Earth outward from the Sun, but it is unknown whether it will be enough to save it from destruction.)
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Tidal acceleration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If the universe has an intelligent creator, then why does Earth seem so impermanent in its design?
As a summary to the above, Earth:
- Is slowly slowing its rotation
- Will possibly have its oceans vaporized by the sun
- Will possibly be destroyed by the sun's possible future red giant status
It will take over 2 billion years for this to play out, but if the universe were created by an intelligent designer, why would he or she do this to us?
- Do we assume that space travel and other habitable planets were an inevitability, a part of the intelligent creator's plan?
- Do we assume that the intelligent creator will still shape the universe even after it's been created?
- Is life destined for a non-material paradise instead?
Ultimately, is this information simply a major strike against intelligent design?