1

. “About 16% of near-Earth asteroids larger than 200 meters in diameter [those detected by Earth-based radar] may be binary systems.” J. L. Margot, “Binary Asteroids in the Near-Earth Object Populations,” Science, Vol. 296, 24 May 2002, p. 1445.

One asteroid, Sylvia, has two moons, both in circular, prograde, equatorial orbits. [See Franck Marchis, “Discovery of the Triple Asteroidal System 87 Sylvia,” Nature, Vol. 436, 11 August 2005, pp. 822-824.

2

. D. T. Britt et al., “Asteroid Density, Porosity, and Structure,” Asteroids III, editors W. F. Bottke et al. (Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 2002), pp. 485–500.

3

. “A common misconception is that asteroids are the remains of a large planet that mysteriously exploded long ago. Today there is hardly enough material in the asteroid belt to make a small moon.”  Derek C. Richardson, “Giants in the Asteroid Belt,” Nature, Vol. 411, 21 June 2001, p. 899.

4

. Jupiter’s gravity is often given as a simplistic reason a planet did not form. If that were true, why didn’t Jupiter prevent even dust or the tiniest grains of sand from forming big rocks? Actually, Jupiter’s gravity flings asteroids from the asteroid belt at a rate that is rapid relative to the evolutionist’s age for the solar system—4,600,000,000 years.

One of the big problems in the current story on how asteroids evolved is: “How do gas and dust in a hypothetical solar nebula condense into dense boulders (asteroids, planetesimals, and meteoroids)?” As one expert on meteorites admitted,

even Earth’s most evolved brains still haven’t grasped why space dust condensed into boulders. William Speed Weed, “Philip Bland: Meteor Man,” Discover, Vol. 22, March 2001, p. 46.

5

. “The Problem of the Asteroid Belt ... Although Jovian perturbations [stopping asteroid-size planetesimals from growing into a planet in the asteroid belt] are widely invoked to explain the asteroid belt, the precise mechanism that halted planet formation is still a subject of some dispute.”  Jack J. Lissauer and Glen R. Stewart, “Growth of Planets from Planetesimals,” Protostars and Planets III, editors Eugene H. Levy and Jonathan I. Luine (London: The University of Arizona Press, 1993), pp. 1080–1081.

These authors then explain why the several explanations proposed are unsatisfactory.

6

. “The predicted mean time between major asteroid collisions [for each asteroid] is about 5% of the age of the solar system. All asteroids should already be highly fragmented unless their origin is relatively recent, as in the exploded planet theory.”  Tom C. Van Flandern, Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets (Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books, 1993), p. 216.

7

. The estimated mass of all asteroids is 2.6 x 10²¹ grams. [See page 437.] About 90% of all asteroid mass is in the main belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

8

. How large were the blocks? Clumps of rocks in space, held together by only their weak mutual gravity, will fly apart if they spin faster than ten times a day. Asteroids larger than 650 feet in diameter (200 meters) never spin faster than ten times a day, so they may be clusters of loose rocks. Asteroids smaller than 650 feet in diameter often spin hundreds of times a day. Therefore, they may be single rocks or multiple rocks held together by ice.  [See Erik Asphaug, “The Small Planets,” Scientific American, Vol. 282, May 2000, p. 48.]

9

. Some of this water vapor also condensed as frost in permanently shadowed craters on the Moon, Mercury, and Mars.

10

. P. C. Thomas et al., “Differentiation of the Asteroid Ceres as Revealed by Its Shape,” Nature, Vol. 437, 8 September 2005, pp. 224–226.

11

. Sunlight would quickly break down a free water molecule into hydroxyl (OH) and atomic hydrogen (H). Other gases would also be present.

12

. Each particle of mass launched from Earth carried with it about the same rotational angular momentum as it had before the rupture. Later, as each swarm of particles merged in space to become an asteroid, the various spin rates and directions within a swarm homogenized, so asteroids typically had earthlike spins.

The hottest “time of day” on a spinning asteroid was not “high noon,” but “several hours after noon,” as it is on Earth. Therefore, the thrust acting on asteroids had a tangential component as well as a radial component. The tangential component steadily added angular momentum to each asteroid’s orbit, allowing it to spiral outward.

13

. This effect is similar to the much more feeble Yarkovsky force in which light provides a thrust on the hot side of an asteroid or satellite. Light’s thrust is trivial as compared with a rarefied gas. If sunlight provided much force, radiometers (Figure 156) would spin the opposite way, because more sunlight reflects off the white side of the vanes.

14

. Some asteroids, called C-type asteroids, are darker than coal! They typically lie in the outer part of the asteroid belt. Lighter-colored, S-type asteroids are generally in the inner part of the belt. Darker asteroids have both hotter hot sides and colder cold sides. [See Figure 156.] Therefore, opposite sides of darker asteroids have greater temperature differences that would have produced greater thrust and moved those asteroids farther from the Sun—accounting for their present location.

15

. A body’s orbital path around the Sun is described by three numbers:

a (the semimajor axis or size of the orbit),

e (the eccentricity or shape of the orbit), and

i (the inclination or tilt of the orbital plane with respect to the Earth’s orbital plane).

In other words, in a special three-dimensional coordinate system (a, e, and i), every defined point represents a different orbit. The initial orbits of the hundreds of thousands of asteroids can be represented by hundreds of thousands of widely scattered points in the above coordinate system.

The forces that acted on asteroids were gravity, drag, and thrust. (Today, the drag and thrust are zero.) Although gravity is easy to model, it is virtually impossible to determine what the drag and thrust were and how they diminished in the years after the flood, because so many experimentally determined relationships are involved. Also, the amount of water vapor placed in orbit will probably never be known—even approximately. However, drag and thrust can be described with just a few simplifying parameters. (For example, drag is equal to some parameter times velocity squared. That parameter depends on several unknowns, including the density of water vapor which diminishes over time according to a second parameter.)

I scattered hundreds of points in the a-e-i coordinate system. By arbitrarily fine tuning several parameters for drag and thrust and then simulating the changing orbits as time progressed, I could watch on a computer monitor all those points simultaneously migrate toward the single point (a = 2.8 AU, e = 0, i = 0) representing today’s asteroid belt.

While these functional relationships for drag and thrust are not derivable, they are consistent with the way drag and thrust generally act. It was remarkable that with only a few arbitrary parameters, nearly an infinite number of points could be “mapped” almost into one point. (In physical terms, almost all simulated asteroids, regardless of their initial orbit somewhere in the inner solar system, slowly migrated into the asteroid belt.)

16

. O. Richard Norton, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 186.

17

. Consider two gravitational forces acting on a mass, m, at the Earth’s surface. The first, F_E, is caused by the Earth’s mass, M_E, acting, in effect, from the Earth’s center—a distance D_E (4,000 miles) away. The second gravitational force, F_S, is caused by the Sun’s mass, M_S, acting from a distance of D_S (93,000,000 miles). Letting G be the gravitational constant, these forces are:

The Sun is 332,900 times more massive than Earth. Dividing the left equation by the right gives:

This means that a steady, 1-pound force could lift and accelerate a rock away from the Sun if the rock weighed 1,600 pounds on Earth and the rock were more than 93,000,000 miles above the Sun and far from Earth.

18

. Temperatures probably reached 3,000°F (1,650°C). [See “Chondrules” on page 305.] If so, as temperatures steadily rose, quartz would have been the first major mineral in granite to melt.

19

. Claims are sometimes made that radioactive decay generated the heat, but standard calculations that would support those speculations are never shown.

20

. “... we lack compelling scenarios leading to the origin of iron meteorites ... Early solar system collisions have been called upon to excavate this iron [from the cores of the largest asteroids], although numerical impact models have found this task difficult to achieve, particularly when it is required to occur many dozens of times.”  Erik Asphaug et al., “Tides Versus Collisions in the Primordial Main Belt,” October 2000, www.aas.org/publications/baas/v32n3/dps2000/545.htm.

21

. “[NASA’s model] predicts a dust concentration in the asteroid belt about an order of magnitude higher than the dust density near earth.” J. S. Dohnanyi, “Sources of Interplanetary Dust: Asteroids,” Interplanetary Dust and Zodiacal Light, editors H. Elsässer and H. Fechtig (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1976), p. 189.

22

. J. M. Alvarez, “The Cosmic Dust Environment at Earth, Jupiter and Interplanetary Space: Results from Langley Experiments on MTS, Pioneer 10 and 11,” Ibid., p. 181.

“It can be seen, Fig. 2, that the number density of interplanetary dust inferred from the penetration data is a slowly decreasing function with heliocentric distance [R] ... a distribution that varies as R^-1 [for 1 AU < R < 4 AU].” Dohnanyi, p. 190.

23

. This is a major problem for evolutionists who visualize chondrules being formed at the extremely low pressures of outer space. (At low pressures, volatiles bubble out quickly—like gas escaping from the sudden opening of a carbonated beverage.) However, the hydroplate theory explains the retention of volatiles, because they formed under the high confining pressures inside rocks in the subterranean chamber. Also, they froze seconds after they were launched from the high-pressure chamber.

24

. Naoyuki Fujii and Masamichi Miyamoto, “Constraints on the Heating and Cooling Processes of Chondrule Formation,” Chondrules and Their Origins, editor Elbert A. King (Houston: Lunar and Planetary Institute, 1983), pp. 53–60.

Neither impact melting nor electrical discharges would duplicate characteristics in and around chondrules.  [See J. A. Wood and H. Y. McSween Jr., “Chondrules as Condensation Products,” Comets, Asteroids, Meteorites, editor A. H. Delsemme (Toledo, Ohio: The University of Toledo, 1977), pp. 365–373.  Also see T. J. Wdowiak, “Experimental Investigation of Electrical Discharge Formation of Chondrules,” Chondrules and Their Origins, pp. 279–283.] Donald E. Brownlee et al. give seven other reasons why impact melting did not produce chondrules. [See “Meteor Ablation Spherules as Chondrule Analogs,” Chondrules and Their Origins, p. 23.]

25

. T. D. Swindle et al., “Radiometric Ages of Chondrules,” Chondrules and Their Origins (Houston: Lunar and Planetary Institute, 1983), pp. 246–261.

“CAIs [calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions] are believed to have formed about two million years before the chondrules. Here we report the discovery of a chondrule fragment embedded in a CAI.”  Shoichi Itoh and Hisayashi Yurimoto, “Contemporaneous Formation of Chondrules and Refractory Inclusions in the Early Solar System,” Nature, Vol. 423, 12 June 2003, p. 728. [See also “Mixed-Up Meteorites” on page ix and “A Question of Timing” on page 691.]

26

. Richard Ash, “Small Spheres of Influence,” Nature, Vol. 372, 17 November 1994, p. 219.

27

. “As already described, the separated chondrules in the polished mount frequently grade into material similar to the matrix around their peripheries. ... boundaries between chondrules and matrix are frequently very gradational.” R. M. Housley and E. H. Cirlin, “On the Alteration of Allende Chondrules and the Formation of Matrix,” Chondrules and Their Origins, p. 152.

28

. Pyroxenes, the second most common mineral in chondrules, often form from cooling melted olivine and quartz. [See L. G. Berry et al., Mineralogy, 2nd edition (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1983), p. 475.] Why so much olivine and quartz melted and cooled in isolated pockets will soon be clear.

29

. This phase transformation occurs when the pressure corresponds to that at depths in the Earth of about 400 km (250 miles). While pillars were at a depth of 16 km (10 miles), each pillar carried not just the weight of the crust directly above it, but up to half the weight of the crust between surrounding pillars—whatever that was. Furthermore, pillars were probably tapered to some unknown degree, somewhat like a thick icicle. [See Figure 54 on page 118.] Therefore compressive stresses near a pillar tip would have been even greater. Finally, the loading on pillars minutes after the flood began would have been dynamic, not static. (A static hammer, resting on the head of a nail, cannot be expected to drive the nail into wood, but a moving hammer can.) The crust would have fluttered vertically, even more than with earthquakes today, giving the pillars hammerlike blows.

The high confining pressure of the subterranean water surrounding the pillars would have delayed their fragmentation and increased the maximum compression in the pillars. Being stubby and tapered, pillars would also have resisted buckling.

30

. “Eros, indeed, has no detectable magnetic field. That’s puzzling because meteorites, which are believed to be fragments of asteroids, possess magnetic fields. How could a chip of an asteroid be magnetic if the parent asteroid isn’t?” Ron Cowen, “Asteroid Eros Poses a Magnetic Puzzle,” Science News, Vol. 159, 2 June 2001, p. 341.

31

. Kazushige Tomeoka, “Phyllosilicate Veins in a CI Meteorite: Evidence for Aqueous Alteration on the Parent Body,” Nature, Vol. 345, 10 May 1990, pp. 138–140.

32

. “Meteorites and probably all meteoroids contain the same materials as those contained in the earth itself.” Franklyn M. Branley, Comets, Meteoroids, and Asteroids: Mavericks of the Solar System (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974), p. 38.

“Modern mass spectrometry techniques had revealed that the isotopic compositions of many of the more refractory elements in meteorites, including a primitive class of meteorite called chondrites, are, within error, identical to those found on Earth itself.” Alex N. Halliday, “Inside the Cosmic Blender,” Nature, Vol. 425, 11 September 2003, p. 137.

33

. W. J. Merline et al., “Discovery of a Moon Orbiting the Asteroid 45 Eugenia,” Nature, Vol. 401, 7 October 1999, pp. 565–568.

34

. Some have claimed that mining asteroids could be profitable. See John S. Lewis, Mining the Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1997).

35

. “The most primitive meteorites, the carbonaceous chondrites, are primarily mixtures of many distinct materials that reflect a variety of solar nebular environments as well as planetary processing.”  Qingzhu Yin et al., “Diverse Supernova Sources of Pre-Solar Material Inferred from Molybdenum Isotopes in Meteorites,” Nature, Vol. 415, 21 February 2002, p. 881.

Why do they say “a variety of solar nebular environments”? Had the solar system and the molybdenum isotopes found in meteorites come from the debris of one exploded star and millions of years of mixing, these different isotopes should be spread somewhat uniformly in meteorites. They are not. Therefore, many exploding stars are needed. Furthermore, evolutionists must maintain that millions of years of mixing would not have mixed the molybdenum isotopes. Every statistician knows that with enough variables (in this case, enough stars exploding in different ways for millions of years), many untestable explanations can be proposed.

36

. Besides iron meteorites, which were once 1,300°F, chondrules were once about 3,000°F. [See page 302 and Figure 157 on page 302.] Also, the matrix material encasing chondrules shows thermal metamorphism requiring temperatures of at least 750°F.  [See O. Richard Norton, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 92.]

37

. The following concerns Vesta, the third-largest asteroid (diameter 320 miles, or 516 kilometers).

Spectroscopic observations of Vesta’s surface indicate that it is covered with volcanic basalt, leading researchers to conclude that Vesta’s interior once melted. The cause of the heating cannot be long-lived radioisotopes; given the primordial concentrations of the isotopes and the expected rate of heat loss, calculations show that the radioactive decay could not have melted Vesta or any other asteroid. Another heating mechanism must therefore be responsible, but what is it? This question has dogged planetary scientists for decades. Alan E. Rubin, “What Heated the Asteroids,” Scientific American, Vol. 292, May 2005, p. 82.

“It is thus clear that many asteroids were once quite hot. But what mechanism could have raised the temperatures of the asteroids to this extent if the rocky bodies were too small to retain the heat from long-lived radioisotopes?”  Ibid., p. 84.

38

. “The water content (by weight) of the meteorites is about 11 percent for type 1 chondrites, about 9 percent for type 2, and 2 percent or less for type 3.”  Ibid., p. 83.

39

. “... every metamorphosed ordinary chondrite has been shocked and subsequently heated, some of them multiple times.”  Ibid., p. 86.

40

. “First, a single impact cannot raise the global temperature of an asteroid-size body by more than a few degrees. Second, the high surface-to-volume ratios of such bodies promote heat loss, so they cool quickly between successive impacts. Third, a typical impact generates minuscule amounts of melted rock relative to the volume of the impact-generated debris. And last, the low escape velocities of asteroids allow much of the most strongly heated material to escape.”  Ibid., p. 86.

41

. The following prediction was made on page 222 of the 7th edition of In the Beginning.

Ceres, the largest asteroid, will be found to have a very earthlike spin.

It is now known that Ceres rotates once every 9.075 hours and its spin axis points 31° from true north. [See P. C. Thomas et al., p. 224.] The Earth rotates once every 23.93 hours and its spin axis points toward true north. This prediction missed the mark more than I expected.

I selected Ceres because it is the most massive asteroid, having about 1.28% of the mass of the Moon. Therefore, Ceres is least likely to have its spin rate and spin direction altered much by the inevitable impacts within the asteroid belt. Using random guesses for the orientation of Ceres’ spin axis, one could have done better 7% of the time.

42

. Almost all astronomers mistakenly visualize moons of asteroids forming from an impact, in which case only a small “chip” could be expelled and, in extremely rare circumstances, placed in orbit around the main asteroid by the gravitational attraction of other debris.  For example:

What was particularly surprising was that it [asteroid Hermes] was binary with equal components. Jean-Luc Margot, as quoted by K. Ramsayer, “Out of Hiding,” Science News, Vol. 164, 1 November 2003, p. 277.

“I’m stunned and astonished [at seeing a double asteroid].” Planetary physicist Jay Melosh, as quoted by Richard A. Kerr, “Double Asteroid Puzzles Astronomers,” ScienceNOW, 21 September 2000.

43

. R. P. Binzel and T. C. Van Flandern, “Binary Asteroids: Evidence for Their Existence from Lightcurves,” Science, Vol. 203, 2 March 1979, pp. 903–905.

44

. The smaller moons of the giant planets tend to have irregular orbits. For example, Jupiter has at least 31 irregular moons, the largest, Himalia, is 150 kilometers (93 miles) in diameter. Their orbits generally have high inclinations and eccentricities. Many are retrograde. These characteristics show that they were captured.

To capture an asteroid, much of its orbital energy must be removed (or dissipated), so the planet’s gravity can hold on to the asteroid. Captures rarely result from chance gravitational encounters with other large bodies. An easy way to dissipate an asteroid’s energy is by friction with an atmosphere: the planet’s, the asteroid’s, or both. This is called aerobraking. Bloated atmospheres existed for only a few centuries after the flood, so the key evidence for these captures is absent today. However, dozens of other evidences are available, all pointing to the fountains of the great deep.

45

. Craig Covault, “Historic Japanese Asteroid Data Amaze Researchers,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, 20 March 2006, p. 28.

46

. “Finding such active geology on such a tiny moon is a big surprise. ... tiny Enceladus produces a plume large enough to drench the whole Saturn system. The origin of Enceladus’ internal heating is also still a major puzzle.” Joanne Baker, “Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright,” Science, Vol. 311, 10 March 2006, p. 1388.

“Enceladus has been found to be one of the most geologically dynamic objects in the solar system. Among the surprises are a watery, gaseous plume; a south polar hot spot; and a surface marked by deep canyons and thick flows.” Jeffrey S. Kargel, Enceladus: Cosmic Gymnast, Volatile Miniworld,” Science, Vol. 311, 10 March 2006, p. 1389.

Ten other papers in the 10 March 2006 issue of Science, pages 1391–1428, report on these observations from the Cassini spacecraft.

47

. “[German scientists] reported the clear detection of sodium in [Saturn’s] E ring’s ice particles. Six percent of the particles are rich in sodium and contain salts such as sodium chloride and sodium bicarbonate, along with smaller amounts of potassium. Cassini has traced the ice grains to a towering plume rising from Enceladus’s south pole. ... The salts—resembling terrestrial [Earth] sea salt ...” Richard A. Kerr, “Tang Hints of a Watery Interior for Enceladus,” Science, Vol. 323, 23 January 2009, pp. 458–459.

48

. “... the amount of tidal energy being injected into [Enceladus today] falls short of the energy coming out of Enceladus’s south pole by a factor of five.” Carolyn Porco, “The Restless Worlds of Enceladus,” Scientific American, Vol. 299, December 2008, p. 60.

So what is the source of the heat energy Enceladus is expelling? Answer: The tidal heating was generated recently, since the flood and after Enceladus was captured by Saturn. Enceladus hasn’t had time to cool off. (To understand tidal heating using an example closer to home, see “Tidal Pumping” on page 116.)

49

. Margaret Galland Kivelson, “Does Enceladus Govern Magnetospheric Dynamics at Saturn?” Science, Vol. 311, 10 March 2006, pp. 1391–1392.

50

. Baker, p. 1388.

The plume escaping from Enceladus contains methane (CH₄) and a smattering of other organics such as propane (C₃H₈), ethane (C₂H₆), benzene (C₆H₆), and formaldehyde (CH₂O). [See Porco, p. 58.] To understand their likely origin, see pages 106–138.

51

. “Could the MBCs [main belt comets] be comets from the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud that have become trapped in asteroid-like orbits? Published dynamical simulations suggest not, having failed to reproduce the transfer of comets to main-belt orbits.” Henry H. Hsieh and David Jewitt, “A Population of Comets in the Main Asteroid Belt, Science, Vol. 312, 28 April 2006, p. 562.

52

. “... there is an excess of Earth-approaching asteroids with diameters less than 50 m, relative to the population inferred from the distribution of larger objects.”  D. L. Rabinowitz et al., “Evidence for a Near-Earth Asteroid Belt,” Nature, Vol. 363, 24 June 1993, p. 704.

53

. “[Based on the numbers of larger asteroids] ... current theories can’t adequately explain why so many of these small bodies should follow such circular routes.” D. L. Rabinowitz, as quoted by Ron Cowen, “Rocky Relics,” Science News, Vol. 145, 5 February 1994, p. 88.

54

. “We find that these asteroids can also undergo solar collisions, through several dynamical routes involving orbital resonances with the giant planets, on timescales of the order of 10⁶ years.”  Paolo Farinella et al., “Asteroids Falling into the Sun,” Nature, Vol. 371, 22 September 1994, p. 315.

55

. Tony Phillips, “Corkscrew Asteroid,” http://science.nasa .gov/headlines/y2006/09jun_moonlets.htm.

56

. Paul A. Wiegert et al., “An Asteroidal Companion to the Earth,” Nature, Vol. 387, 12 June 1997, pp. 685–686.

57

. Ron Cowen, “Hidden Companion,” Science News, Vol. 152, 12 July 1997, p. 29.

58

. Michael E. Zolensky et al., “Asteroidal Water within Fluid Inclusion-Bearing Halite in an H5 Chondrite, Monahans (1998),”Science, Vol. 285, 27 August 1999, pp. 1377–1379.

59

. “... crystals of sylvite (KCl) are present within the [meteorite’s] halite crystals, similar to their occurrence in terrestrial evaporites [salt deposits on Earth].”  Ibid., p. 1378.

60

. George Cooper et al., “Carbonaceous Meteorites As a Source of Sugar-Related Organic Compounds for the Early Earth,” Nature, Vol. 414, 20/27 December 2001, pp. 879–883.

The sugars in these meteorites (Murchison and Murray) were rich in heavy hydrogen, another indicator that they came from the subterranean chambers. [See pages 273 and 282.]

61

. James Whitby et al., “Extinct ¹²⁹I in Halite from a Primitive Meteorite,” Science, Vol. 288, 9 June 2000, p. 1821.

Ulrich Ott, “Salty Old Rocks,” Science, Vol. 288, 9 June 2000, pp. 1761–1762.

“An H3–6 chondrite called Zag fell in the Moroccan Sahara desert five months [after the Monahans meteorite] that also had halite crystals with water inclusions.”  Norton, p. 91.

John L. Berkley et al., “Fluorescent Accessory Phases in the Carbonaceous Matrix of Ureilites,” Geophysical Research Letters,” Vol. 5, No. 12, December 1978, pp. 1075–1078.

D. J. Barber, “Matrix Phyllosilicates and Associated Minerals in C2M Carbonaceous Chondrites,” Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Vol. 45, June 1981, pp. 945–970.

62

. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Lifecloud (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1978), p. 112.

63

. Magnus Endress et al., “Early Aqueous Activity on Primitive Meteorite Parent Bodies,” Nature, Vol. 379, 22 February 1996, pp. 701–703.

64

. “The exact mechanism of terrestrial amino acid incorporation and retention by meteorites is not known.” Jeffrey L. Bada et al., “A Search for Endogenous Amino Acids in Martian Meteorite ALH84001,” Science, Vol. 279, 16 January 1998, p. 365.

A. J. T. Jull et al., “Isotopic Evidence for a Terrestrial Source of Organic Compounds Found in Martian Meteorites Allan Hills 84001 and Elephant Moraine 79001,” Science, Vol. 279, 16 January 1998, pp. 366–369.

M. H. Engel and S. A. Macko, “Isotopic Evidence for Extraterrestrial Non-Racemic Amino Acids in the Murchison Meteorite,” Nature, Vol. 389, 18 September 1997, pp. 265–267.

65

. Ian D. Hutcheon, “Signs of an Early Spring,” Nature, Vol. 379, 22 February 1996, pp. 676–677.

“The salts we found mimic the salts in Earth’s ocean fairly closely.”  Carleton Moore as reported at www.cnn.com on 23 June 2000. For details, see Douglas J. Sawyer et al., “Water Soluble Ions in the Nakhla Martian Meteorite,” Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Vol. 35, July 2000, pp. 743–747.

“... a variety of minerals in three nakhlite meteorites, including a fragment of the Nakhla meteorite collected within days of its fall, seem to have precipitated from a brine.” Richard A. Kerr, “A Wetter, Younger Mars Emerging,” Science, Vol. 289, 4 August 2000, p. 715.

66

. E. Deloule et al., “Deuterium-Rich Water in Meteorites,” Meteoritics, Vol. 30, No. 5, September 1995, p. 502.

Ron Cowen, “Martian Leaks: Hints of Present-Day Water,” Science News, Vol. 158, 1 July 2000, p. 15.

Laurie Leshin Watson et al., “Water on Mars: Clues from Deuterium/Hydrogen and Water Contents of Hydrous Phases in SNC Meteorites,” Science, Vol. 265, 1 July 1994, pp. 86–90.

Although Cowen and Watson believe that these meteorites came from Mars, page 311 explains why this is unlikely.

67

. “Some different microbial species, derived from samples of [two] meteorites, have been cultured, cloned and classified by 16S rDNA typing and found to be not essentially different from present day organisms [here on Earth]; they also appear sensitive to growth inhibition by specific antibiotics.”  Giuseppe Geraci et al., “Microbes in Rocks and Meteorites,” Rendiconti Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Vol. 12, No. 9, 2001, p. 51.

These DNA studies also rule out contamination, because the bacteria recovered and cultured from the meteorites were sufficiently different from modern strains. Great precautions were taken to prevent contamination.

“Bruno D’Argenio, a geologist working for the Italian National Research Council, and Giuseppi Geraci, professor of molecular biology at Naples University, identified and brought back to life extraterrestrial microorganisms lodged inside [a supposedly] 4.5 billion-year-old meteorites kept at Naples’ mineralogical museum.”  Rossella Lorenzi, “Scientists Claim to Revive Alien Bacteria,” Discovery News, www.discovery.com, 10 May 2001.

68

. “The foregoing analysis, sketchy as it is, seems to strengthen the grounds of the old speculation—that meteorites are disrupted fragments of a planet of the terrestrial type.” Reginald A. Daly, “Meteorites and an Earth-Model,” Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 54, 1 March 1943, p. 425.

Because meteorites are so similar to the material inside Earth, many researchers believe that the Earth formed from infalling meteoroids. One should also consider whether the Earth produced meteoroids. Failure to consider both possibilities is the same logical fallacy described in Endnote 3, page 288.  Much evidence opposes the former.

69

. “Curiously, there are many more [asteroids] in the leading Lagrange point (L4) than in the trailing one (L5).”  Bill Arnett, “Asteroids,” www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/asteroids.html.

Data provided by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics on 17 February 2005.  See
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/JupiterTrojans.html.

70

. Franck Marchis et al., “A Low Density of 0.8 g cm^-3 for the Trojan Binary Asteroid 617 Patroclus,” Nature, Vol. 439, 2 February 2006, pp. 565–567.

Ker Than, “Asteroids Near Jupiter Are Really Comets,” Science & Space, 1 February 2006, www.cnn.com/2006/ TECH/space/02/01/jupiter.comets/index.html.

71

. Birger Schmitz et al., “Sediment-Dispersed Extraterrestrial Chromite Traces a Major Asteroid Disruption Event,” Science, Vol. 300, 9 May 2003, pp. 961-964.

72

. Jonathan Gradie and Joseph Veverka, “The Composition of the Trojan Asteroids,” Nature, Vol. 283, 28 February 1980, pp. 840–842.

73

. Asphaug, “The Small Planets,” p. 46.

74

. Joshua L. Bandfield et al., “Spectroscopic Identification of Carbonate Minerals in the Martian Dust,” Science, Vol. 301, 22 August 2003, pp. 1084–1087.

“Two Phoenix [Mars Lander] experiments identified calcium carbonates and clays in soil samples scooped up by the crafts robotic arm. On Earth, both minerals are associated with the presence of liquid water.” Ron Cowen, “More Clues to Martian Chemistry,” Science News, Vol. 174, 25 October 2008, p. 13.

75

. “[A sample of dirt from an asteroid] could finally explain why the most common type of asteroid looks different—spectroscopically more red—from the most common type of meteorite. Apparently, some sort of ‘space weathering’ is reddening the surface of S-type asteroids.” Richard A. Kerr, “Beaming to Itokawa,” Science, Vol. 309, 16 September 2005, p. 1797. [Yes, most asteroids were “weathered” (rusted) by oxygen gas in the inner solar system soon after the flood. That oxygen has long since been absorbed or diffused.]

76

. “The evidence disturbed the scientists in more than one respect. First, conditions on Mars are such that any water reaching the surface supposedly would not remain liquid for very long but would boil, freeze, or poof into vapor. Second, from the absence of craters, sand dunes, or anything else on top of the [eroded] gullies, they appeared to have formed very recently, possibly as recently as yesterday. ... Most of the evidence was found, strikingly, in some of the coldest places on the surface—on shadowed slopes facing the poles, in clusters scattered around latitudes higher than 30 degrees—rather than at the warmer equatorial latitudes. ... And proposals for other substances that might behave as liquids on the martian surface raised so many other questions that they failed to solve the problem.” Kathy Sawyer, “A Mars Never Dreamed Of,” National Geographic, Vol. 199, No. 2, February 2001, p. 37.

77

. Michael C. Malin et al., “Present-Day Impact Cratering Rate and Contemporary Gully Activity on Mars,” Science, Vol. 314, 8 December 2006, pp. 1573–1577.

78

. “... near the poles, Mars Odyssey [spacecraft] has shown, as much as 50 percent of the upper meter of soil may be [water] ice.” Arden L. Albee, “The Unearthly Landscapes of Mars,” Scientific American, Vol. 288, June 2003, p. 46.

79

. Ibid., p. 50.

80

. Richard A. Kerr, “Signs of Ancient Rain May Stretch Mars’ Balmy Past,” Science, Vol. 305, 2 July 2004, p. 26.

81

. “But the limited amount of erosion suggests that it wasn’t the result of a ‘warm and wet’ early Mars.” Richard A. Kerr, “Running Water Eroded a Frigid Early Mars,” Science, Vol. 300, 6 June 2003, p. 1497.

82

. “Most of the tens of thousands of gullies identified to date occur on slopes in craters, pits, and other depressions at latitudes > 30°; a few exceptions occur at latitudes of 27° to 30°.”  Malin et al., p. 1575.

83

. Crater-producing impacts often leave peaks in the center of the crater as the crater floor rebounds from the impact. Seconds later, it grows upward from the inward pressure exerted by the crater walls.

“On the other hand, Edgett has noted a central peak of an impact crater replete with gullies. Where would the water come from to feed a seep high on a central peak, he wondered.” Richard A. Kerr, “Rethinking Water on Mars and the Origin of Life,” Science, Vol. 292, 6 April 2001, p. 39.

84

. Liquid water cannot exist for long at temperatures below 32°F or at pressures below 6 mbar (0.0888 psia). This pressure-temperature combination, called the triple point, allows water to exist simultaneously in three states: solid, liquid, and gas. Because the average surface temperature of Mars is -80°F and the atmospheric pressure is 6–10 mbar, liquid water cannot exist for long on Mars.

85

. “The surface of Mars is so cold—on average -70° to -100°C [-94°F to -148°F]—that any water within 2 or 3 kilometers of the surface, never mind a meter or two, should be permanently frozen, they noted.”  Kerr, “Rethinking Water,” p. 39.

Many Mars researchers cling to the belief that Mars once had oceans or considerable subsurface water. Why? If Mars once had liquid water, they argue, life might have evolved, because life (as we know it) requires liquid water.

Notice the faulty logic. If A (life) requires B (water), the presence of B does not mean the presence of A. (Water is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for life.) Ignored is the extreme complexity of life. [Pages 13 – 20 explain why life is so complex that it could not have evolved anywhere.] When scientists hold out hope of discovering life on Mars, funding for their research is more likely. Also, an excited media will sensationalize and publicize that research, raising hopes that life may be found on Mars.

Most scientific researchers are in a perpetual hunt for money to fund their work and pay their salaries. If comets briefly placed water on Mars, few evolutionists would expect to find life on Mars. Therefore, a major reason for funding the exploration of Mars disappears.

86

. “Carving them, researchers calculated, would take water gushing at 10 million to 1 billion cubic meters per second.” Richard A. Kerr, “An ‘Outrageous Hypothesis’ for Mars: Episodic Oceans,” Science, Vol. 259, 12 February 1993, p. 910.

87

. On 9 July 2000, after the 30 June 2000 (Volume 288) issue appeared containing pictures of erosion channels on Mars, I wrote the following letter to Science magazine. My letter was titled “Comets Carved the Mars’ Gullies.”

Dear Editor:

Why aren’t comets considered as the source of the water that carved Mars’ erosion features? Impact energy would convert a comet’s ice to liquid water. A typical comet, perhaps 10¹⁶ grams and 85% H₂O, could easily provide the volume of water estimated in Endnote 35 on page 2335.

Assume that large rocks are in the center of comets (a point I will not try to justify here). Those rocks, decelerating less than the surrounding ice as the comet passes through Mars’ thin atmosphere, strike the ground an instant earlier than the ice and create the crater. The ice, suddenly converted to liquid and splattered onto the crater walls, carves the gullies.

The typical ground temperatures of -70°C (or colder) in the gully regions is fatal to claims that large volumes of liquid water suddenly “seeped” from several hundred meters below Mars’ surface. Straining to overcome this fact by imagining saline solutions, unusually high heat flow on Mars, exotic liquids, lower than expected thermal conductivities, and Mars tipped on its axis is speculation on top of speculation. Why not consider the simple possibilities first?

If the water could not come from below, maybe it came from above.

Science magazine did not print this letter.

Today (2008), after the Deep Impact space mission to comet Tempel 1, the best estimate for the amount of water on a comet is 38% by mass.

88

. “... episodes of scalding rains followed by flash floods.” Teresa L. Segura et al., “Environmental Effects of Large Impacts on Mars,” Science, Vol. 298, 6 December 2002, p. 1979.

“... great craters appear to have been filled to overflowing by rain on early Mars.”  Richard A. Kerr, “A Smashing Source of Early Martian Water,” Science, Vol. 298, 6 December 2002, p. 1866.

89

. Richard A. Kerr, “Minerals Cooked Up in the Laboratory Call Ancient Microfossils into Question,” Science, Vol. 302, 14 November 2003.

90

. R. O. Pepin, “Evidence of Martian Origins,” Nature, Vol. 317, 10 October 1985, pp. 473–475.

91

. Richard L. S. Taylor and David W. Mittlefehldt, “Missing Martian Meteorites,” Science, Vol. 290, 13 October 2000, pp. 273–275.

92

. “... we estimate that the probability of finding on Earth a fragment ejected from Mars is about 10^-6 to 10^-7.” James N. Head et al., “Martian Meteorite Launch: High-Speed Ejecta from Small Craters,” Science, Vol. 298, 29 November 2002, p. 1753.

93

. “... there remains the question of whether we should not be up to our necks in lunar meteorites—that is, what would be the expected relative fluxes of objects from the Moon and Mars and why have we seen so few from the Moon?”  Pepin, p. 474.

94

. “About 20% of the ejecta are rock vapors; most of the rest is melt.” Segura et al., p. 1977.