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46. Evolving Planets?
Contrary to popular opinion, planets should not form from just the mutual gravitational attraction of particles orbiting the Sun.a Orbiting particles are much more likely to be scattered or expelled by their gravitational attraction than they are to be permanently pulled together. Experiments have shown that colliding particles almost always fragment rather than stick together.b (Similar difficulties exist in trying to form a moon from particles orbiting a planet.)
Despite these problems, let us assume that pebble-size to moon-size particles somehow evolved. “Growing a planet” by many small collisions will produce an almost nonspinning planet, because spins imparted by impacts will be largely self-canceling.c
The growth of a large, gaseous planet (such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune) far from the central star is especially difficult for evolutionists to explain for several reasons.d
a. Gases dissipate rapidly in the vacuum of outer space, especially the lightest two gases—hydrogen and helium, which comprise most of the mass of the giant planets.
b. Because gas molecules orbiting a star do not gravitationally pull in (or merge with) other gas molecules in the orbiting ring, a rocky planet, about ten or more times larger than Earth, must first form to attract all the gas gravitationally. This must happen very quickly, before the gas dissipates.e (Jupiter’s hydrogen and helium are 300 times more massive than the entire Earth.)
c. Stars like our Sun—even those which evolutionists say are young—do not have enough orbiting hydrogen or helium to form one Jupiter.f
Computer simulations show that Uranus and Neptune could not have evolved anywhere near their present locations.g The planets that have been found outside our solar system also contradict the theories for how planets supposedly evolve. [See “Have Planets Been Discovered Outside the Solar System?” on page 350.]
Based on demonstrable science, gaseous planets and the rest of the solar system did not evolve.