Your Opinion: Solar eclipses and order in the universe

Norb Plassmeyer, former NASA engineer involved in booster rocket development

Jefferson City

Dear Editor:

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) is considered to be the first to establish and explain the concept of heliocentricity, the idea that the sun is the center of the known universe, not the earth. Solar eclipses have been predicted since as early as 2000 BC and more reliably since about 100 BC based on observation of the orbit of the moon. But Copernicus developed a method of astronomical calculation that provided for prediction of movement of celestial bodies with mathematical precision. The Catholic Church and Martin Luther (1483-1546) vigorously objected to this but it was not until many years later that the works of Copernicus were officially condemned.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), a scientist who developed a much improved telescope, and became a champion of heliocentrism and Copernicism, was controversial during his lifetime. He greatly improved the telescope of his day, and further refined the science of astronomical observation and prediction. He was excommunicated by the Church, a decision that was likely overruled by a Higher Power, and Pope John Paul II acknowledged in 1992 that the Roman Catholic Church had erred in condemning Galileo 359 years before for asserting that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

In 1959, as an aeronautical engineering student I took a course in orbital mechanics, which Wikipedia now defines as the application of ballistics and celestial mechanics to the practical problems concerning the motion of rockets and other spacecraft. It is a core discipline within space mission design and control, and is readily applied to the calculation far into the past and future of the path across the earth of the shadow of the moon, which is a solar eclipse.

So why does this matter to anyone but scientists and rocket engineers? The consistent paths of the rotating earth around the sun and the rotating moon around the earth that can be mathematically predicted are ready examples of extreme order in the universe, surely not accidents of evolution. If the motion of inanimate objects requires an Intelligent Designer, is it reasonable to expect much more complex biological beings, like Homo sapiens, to have developed through a series of accidents?