Here we look at a concept suggested by fundamentalist Christians that attempts to “prove” the Earth’s age as only some 6,000 years by way of lunar features.

This YE theory suggests that the layer of dust on the surface is so low that it could only have been deposited over a few thousand years. This refers to dust incoming from space, which on the Moon would be categorized as micrometeorite impacts.

However, surface dust on the Moon in any location is the sum of at least three components-

•  incoming micrometeorite particles
• secondary ejecti from larger incoming meteorites within a large area
• redistribution from surface dust accumulating a static electric charge and then levitating above the surface.

The sum of these components creates the regolith blanket that covers the lunar surface, of which the top couple of centimeters is the finer dust.

In reading assertions by the fundamentalist Christians of this dust argument, one does not get the impression that they understand these phenomena at all.   However, it may also be that this “lunar dust” theory has been abandoned by advocates of Creationism in their efforts to support the Young Earth theory, as it truly doesn’t seem to make sense.

If the Moon was only a few thousand years old, it would be hot, not cold.  Large meteorite impacts such as Tycho, Copernicus, and Aristarchus would likely still show differences in heat from the surrounding Mares, which would have cooled off.  But the internal temperature of the moon is a constant -20C ten or twenty meters under the ground.

This does present a problem for attempts to validate the Young Earth religious view.  It presents contrary evidence.  But that is no different than considering rock on Earth as contrary evidence.  Such as sedimentary rock, formed by subterranean water streams over very long periods of time,  resulting in the aggregation of gold into lumps as they are found by gold miners.