In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood

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[ The Scientific Case for Creation > Astronomical and Physical Sciences > The Universe, the Solar System, the Earth, and Life Were Recently Created. > Most Scientific Dating Techniques Indicate That the Earth, Solar System, and Universe Are Young. > Young Comets]

85. Young Comets

As comets pass near the Sun, some of their mass vaporizes, producing a long tail and other debris.^a Comets also fragment frequently or crash into the Sun^b or planets. Typical comets should disintegrate after several hundred orbits. For many comets this is less than 10,000 years. There is no evidence for a distant shell of cometary material surrounding the solar system, and there is no known way to add comets to the solar system at rates that even remotely balance their destruction.^c Actually, the gravity of planets tends to expel comets from the solar system rather than capture them.^d So, comets and the solar system appear to be less than 10,000 years old. [For more on comets, see “The Origin of Comets” on pages 266–296.]