A discovery about how Earth’s moon formed has sparked claims that the Bible’s creation story has been proven.
Scientists announced earlier this month that they had used an advanced computer simulation to recreate a collision between the young Earth and a Mars-sized planet called Theia about 4.5 billion years ago.
Unlike earlier models, the simulation accounted for how the planets’ internal temperatures would have affected the strength of their rock and metal.
When researchers included those properties, an intact moon appeared in orbit approximately five hours after the simulated impact.
The astonishingly short timeline has now drawn comparisons to the Book of Genesis, which describes God creating the heavens in a matter of days.
Many people reacting online hailed the research as scientific confirmation of what Scripture has said for thousands of years.
‘The Book of Genesis told me this a while ago,’ one person wrote.
Others suggested that the five-hour finding echoes the fourth day of Genesis, when God places the ‘lesser light’ in the heavens to rule the night.
Scientists announced earlier this month that they had used an advanced computer simulation to recreate a collision between the young Earth and a Mars-sized planet called Theia about 4.5 billion years ago
The biblical account appears in Genesis 1:14–19, which describes God placing two lights in the heavens on the fourth day of creation.
The ‘greater light’ is traditionally understood to mean the sun, while the ‘lesser light’ refers to the moon, which was created to ‘rule the night.’
For believers reacting to the study, the crucial detail was the speed at which the moon appeared in the simulation.
‘God can do whatever He wants; whenever He wants,’ one person wrote, adding that it could have taken ‘five seconds’ rather than five hours.
Another X user posted: ‘God can create anything by word.’
‘Wow, it’s almost like Genesis suggested that,’ one user shared on X.
While another said, ‘We know, while citing Genesis 1:3-5, which states: ‘And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
‘And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.’
The astonishingly short timeline has now drawn comparisons to the Book of Genesis, which describes God creating the heavens in a matter of days
The researchers, however, did not set out to test Genesis and made no claim that their work proves the biblical account.
Their study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, investigated what happened after Theia, a young planet approximately the size of Mars, slammed into Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.
Scientists have long believed the violent collision hurled molten rock and debris into orbit, where it gradually came together to form the moon.
But earlier simulations treated Earth and Theia almost like enormous drops of fluid because the impact was expected to melt or vaporize large portions of both worlds.
The new model introduced a factor that had largely been ignored: the strength of the rock and metal inside the colliding planets.
Researchers also accounted for temperature, because hotter planetary material would have been weaker and easier to deform than colder, more rigid rock.
When those realistic properties were added, some simulations still produced a vast ring of debris that would slowly assemble into the moon.
In another scenario, however, a fully intact moon emerged in orbit within approximately five hours.
Lead researcher Dr Adeene Denton said: ‘When we used the same parameters as original impact modeling, down to the equal temperature structures inside both bodies, within around five hours, an intact moon emerged.’
That result fueled the biblical comparisons because it suggested one of the most important events in Earth’s history may have unfolded within hours rather than across a vast stretch of time.
However, Genesis does not specify how long the physical formation of the moon took, and the computer model presents only one possible outcome of the ancient collision.
The simulation therefore does not scientifically prove that God created the moon on the fourth day, but it has given believers a striking new reason to revisit the account written in Genesis.
