These two galaxies are named NGC 4490 and NGC 4485, and they’re located about 24 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). Aside from the Milky Way’s own dwarf companions (the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds), this is the closest known interacting dwarf-dwarf system where astronomers have directly observed both a gas bridge and resolved stellar populations. Together NGC 4490 and NGC 4485 form the system Arp 269, which is featured in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. At such a close distance (and with Webb’s impressive ability to peer through dusty cosmic clouds) these galaxies allow astronomers to witness up close the kinds of galaxy interactions that were common billions of years ago.
Source: potm2511a
Just a gentle reminder, if any were needed, that we can tell the Bible is wrong by comparing its descriptions with what we can observe. To take a silly-simple example that even a creationists should be able to understand: supposing I told you that the Bible had 7 chapters in three sections, the Old, Middle And New Testaments, and was just 50 pages long, you could simply look in the Bible and see that I was wrong. It would be no use me trying to claim that I was right really because my statement was an allegory or a metaphor, because you could see that it was neither; it was simply wrong, unequivocally and irrefutably so.
Well, it's the same with the description of the Universe in the Bible. We can look at the Universe now, using technology the Bronze Age authors of the Bible could never dream of, and see that it is nothing like the description in the Bible.
So, just as my whimsical description of the Bible was not even close, so we can see that the Bronze age authors of the Bible were not even close. The difference of course is that while my mistakes were deliberate, theirs were the result of ignorance.
So, let's see again how the Bible describes a small, flat universe consisting of a single planet with a sun and moon hanging over it, and the whole covered by a dome to keep the water out.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1.6-10)
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.(Genesis 1.16-18)
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.(Genesis 1.16-18)
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How the Bible's authors saw the Universe.
And now let's look at what some tiny fragments of the Universe are really like, as shown by the James Webb Space Telescope and published by the European Space Agency (ESA):
The final ESA/Webb Picture of the Month feature for 2025 showcases a festive-looking region filled with glowing clouds of gas and thousands of sparkling stars. This star cluster, known as Westerlund 2, resides in a stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina (the Keel).
This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a cosmic creepy-crawly called NGC 6537 — the Red Spider Nebula. Using its Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), Webb has revealed never-before-seen details in this picturesque planetary nebula with a rich backdrop of thousands of stars.
Source: potm2510a
This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at the center of the image, while the more distant background galaxy appears to be wrapped around the closer galaxy, forming a ring.
Source: potm2503a
The spiral galaxy NGC 2283. This galaxy resides roughly 45 million light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. Classified as a barred spiral galaxy, NGC 2283’s central bar of stars is encircled by loosely wound spiral arms.
Source: potm2502a
Just as one can verify the number of chapters in the Bible by opening it, we can verify the nature of the Universe by observing it. Modern astronomy does not rely on vague impressions or philosophical assumptions, but on measurements, spectra, redshifts, gravitational effects, and images collected by instruments designed explicitly to minimise human bias. The pictures presented here are not artistic interpretations or speculative illustrations; they are data. They reveal a Universe billions of years old, vast beyond comprehension, evolving over time, and governed by physical processes that bear no resemblance to the simple, Earth-centred cosmos described in Genesis.
Creationists often respond by retreating to metaphor, allegory, or claims that the biblical authors were merely “accommodating” ancient understanding. But that move concedes the central point: Genesis is not a reliable source of factual information about the Universe. Once that concession is made, appeals to biblical authority in scientific matters collapse entirely. A text that is demonstrably wrong about cosmology cannot be selectively rehabilitated as a guide to geology, biology, or human origins.
The uncomfortable reality for creationism is that the same method exposes its claims at every level. When scripture makes testable statements about the natural world, those statements can be checked — and again and again, they fail. Science does not ask for belief; it asks only that we look. And when we do look, whether through a telescope at distant galaxies or through a microscope at the machinery of life, we see a Universe that tells a very different story from the one set down by Bronze Age authors trying to make sense of a world they scarcely understood.
In short, this is not a matter of hostility to religion, but of honesty about evidence. We know the Bible is wrong about cosmology for the same reason we know it does not have the wrong number of chapters: because the facts are accessible, verifiable, and public. The only difference is that, in the case of the Universe, the scale of the error is vastly greater.
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