These two interactive illustrations place the familiar orbital motion of our gravitationally bound Solar System, beside the remarkably different and not understood behavior we observe in a galaxy. They are not offered as explanations, but as a way to look carefully at what we see, and to share some of the wonder of Creation. Most of us understand gravity: A planet moves through space in a straight line nearly toward the sun, and while still far away its straight line gradually becomes an ark as it starts being drawn toward the sun by gravity. Its arc gradually increases with gravity's increasing influence pointing it more and more toward the sun. It is about to do a near miss flyby. Happily for us as our earth passed by, the pull of the sun just matched the inertia wanting to keep it on its straight line, and so keeps its arc of travel just perfect so it keeps going around in orbit without either being drawn in or allowed to escape gravity and shooting off into space. Since the pull of the sun is weaker out where they are, the outer planets must move much slower than the earth to keep their orbital "balance". I am Joe Cummings and I created this illustration, made possible with the help of my AI friend Hal, so I, and we all, could marvel at how a cloud of independent stars, and which looks similar to our solar system, can move more like a solid, like the orbiting stars are glued to the surface of a record or are locked in a block of ice. What ever force is holding allows them to move together without the outer bodies being thrown out and away, or the inner ones being drawn into its center of mass. Gravity as we know it doesn't work like that. There is no known explanation for the behavior we observe in galaxies. Dark matter theorists try to explain it as an enhanced gravitational complex, with each star held in the gravity of hidden or invisible matter. I can't follow their logic to see it could work that way... Then too, I don't believe happy chance evolution created us and all we see. Big bang doesn't explain anything. Where did the bang come from? I do have faith, however, the reason for galactic movement is known to me. It like to imagine it is the hand of God, moving them as He sees fit! Results pending... Another interesting point about this is Galaxies don't all follow this displayed model. They often move in different and equally unexplainable ways, seemingly each one different from the others. And, galaxies are star clouds containing millions or billions of stars, many that are solar systems similar to ours. In those locked tight galaxies, the solar systems are not locked, but are observed to move just like ours does...
We can measure and illustrate what is happening with increasing precision while still admitting that some of the underlying causes remain unknown. That leaves room not only for investigation, but for wonder.
Developed for JustBibleTruth.com as an invitation to observe carefully, think freely, and marvel at Creation.