Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.

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[ The Fountains of the Great Deep > The Origin of Comets > Details Relating to the Hydroplate Theory ]

Details Relating to the Hydroplate Theory

1. Formation Mechanism, Ice on Moon and Mercury. About 38% of a comet’s mass is frozen water. Therefore, to understand comet origins, one must ask, “Where is water found?” Earth, sometimes called “the water planet,” must head the list. (The volume of water on Earth is ten times greater than the volume of all land above sea level.) Other planets, moons, and even interstellar space⁸⁶ have only traces of water, or possible water. Some traces, instead of producing comets, may have been delivered by comets or by water vapor that the fountains of the great deep launched into space.

How could so many comets have recently hit the Moon and planet Mercury that ice remains today? Ice on the Moon, and certainly on hot Mercury, should disappear faster than comets deposit it today. However, if the material that formed 50,000 comets were ejected recently from Earth and an “ocean” of water vapor was injected into the inner solar system, the problem disappears. On Mars, comet impacts created brief saltwater flows, which then carved “erosion” channels. [See Figure 180 on page 337.]

To form comets in space, should we start with water as a solid, liquid, or gas?

Gas. In space, gases (such as water vapor) will expand into the vacuum if not gravitationally bound to some large body. Gases by themselves would not contract to form a comet. Besides, the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation breaks water vapor into hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and hydroxyl (OH). Comets would not normally form from gases.

Solid.  Comets might form by combining smaller ice particles, including ice condensed as frost on microscopic dust grains that somehow formed. However, one icy dust grain could not capture another unless their speeds and directions were nearly identical and one of the particles had a rapidly expanding sphere of influence or a gaseous envelope. Because ice molecules are loosely bound to each other, collisions among ice particles would fragment, scatter, and vaporize them—not merge them.

Liquid.  Large rocks and muddy water were expelled by the powerful fountains of the great deep. Their expansion rapidly cooled and froze the water. [See "Rocket Science" on page 525.] The ice partially evaporated (sublimated) but left dirt behind, encasing the remaining ice. (Recall that the nucleus of Halley’s comet was black, and a comet’s tail contains dust particles.)

High-velocity water escaping from the subterranean chamber would erode dirt and rocks of various sizes. Water vapor would concentrate around the larger rocks escaping from Earth. These “clouds” and expanding spheres of influence would capture other nearby particles moving at similar velocities. Comets would quickly form.⁸⁹

Other reasons exist for concluding that water in a gas or solid state cannot form comets.⁹⁰ Water from the fountains of the great deep meets all requirements.

2. Crystalline Dust.  Sediments eroded by high-velocity water escaping from the subterranean chamber would be crystalline, much of it magnesium-rich olivine.

3. Near-Parabolic Comets.  Because the same event launched all comets from Earth, those we see falling from the farthest distance (near-parabolic comets) are falling back for the first time and with similar energy. Other comets, launched with slightly more velocity, will soon be detected.

The comets represented by the tall red bar in Figure 163 on page 292 have the largest range of aphelions and, therefore, should include more comets than are represented by all the blue bars.

If the red bar simply represented comets falling in from 50,000 AU (as claimed by the Oort Cloud theories), they would have orbital periods that are about 4 million years. How then could they have been launched from anywhere in the solar system if the flood began only about 5,000 years ago?

The distance (50,000 AU) is in error. Comets more than about 12 AU from the Sun cannot be seen, so both the distances they have fallen and their orbital periods must be calculated from the small portions of their orbits that can be observed. Both calculations are extremely sensitive to the mass of the solar system. If this mass has been underestimated by as little as about 17 parts in 10,000 (about the mass of two Jupiters), the true distance would be 585 AU and the period only 5,000 years.⁹²

Where might the missing mass be hiding? Not in the planetary region. The masses of the Sun, planets, and some moons are well known, because masses in space can be accurately measured if something orbits them and the orbit is closely observed.⁹³ However, if extra mass is thinly spread within 40–600 AU from the Sun (beyond Pluto’s orbit), only objects outside 40 AU would be gravitationally affected. (Recall the hollow-sphere result on page 288 and the more than 1200 large trans-Neptunian objects orbiting 30-90 AU from the Sun.)  That mass will shorten the periods of near-parabolic comets to some degree, because they spend 99% of their time at least 40 AU from the Sun.

Of the periodic comets (comets that have been observed on at least two passes through the inner solar system), three travel farther from the Sun that all others. All three returned earlier than they should have based on the accepted mass of the solar system. Presumably, they encountered extra mass beyond 40 AU that pulled them back early. The Great Comet of 1680 is explained on page 301. Comet Ikeya-Zhang’s earliest observed perihelion was on 29 January 1661. Its orbital period, based on the accepted mass of the solar system, should have been 367 years. However, it returned on 19 March 2002, 26 years early. Comet Herschel-Rigollet’s earliest observed perihelion was on 20 November 1788. Its orbital period, based on the accepted mass of the solar system, should have been 162 years. However, it returned on 9 August 1939, 11 years early.⁹⁴

What if two comet sightings, a century or more apart, were of comets which we assumed had such long periods that they should not be the same comet, but whose orbits were so similar they probably were the same comet? We might suspect that both sightings were of the same comet, and it encountered some extra mass beyond 40 AU that pulled it back much sooner than expected. Twelve “strange pairs” are known, suggesting that extra, unseen mass beyond Pluto’s orbit affects long-period comets but is not felt within the planetary region. These “strange pairs” are explained in Figure 164 and Table 15.

This “missing” mass could be composed of particles as small as gas molecules or as large as asteroid-size objects (or trans-Neptunian objects) 100 or more miles wide. They would be difficult to detect with our best telescopes.

Much is unknown about the distant region 40–600 AU from the Sun. For example, spacecraft launched from Earth decades ago are now entering that region’s inner fringes. These spacecraft are experiencing a slight, but additional, gravity-like acceleration toward the Sun. So far, efforts to explain this acceleration have failed. While its magnitude is too small to give near-parabolic comets 5,000-year periods, the effect is strengthening as the spacecraft begin to penetrate this region.⁹⁵ 

   

4. Random Perihelion Directions. Comets were launched in all directions, because the rupture encircled the rotating Earth and crossed high and low latitudes.  

5. Orbit Directions and Inclinations, Two Separate Populations. A ball tossed in any direction from a high-speed train will, to an observer on the ground, initially travel almost horizontally and in the train’s direction. Likewise, low-velocity cometary materials launched in any direction from Earth received most of their orbital velocity from Earth’s high, prograde velocity (18.5 miles per second) about the Sun. Earth, by definition, has zero angle of inclination. This is why almost all short-period comets, those launched with low velocity, are prograde and have low angles of inclination.

Cometary materials launched with greater velocities than Earth’s orbital velocity traveled in all directions. They formed long-period comets with randomly inclined orbital planes. Prograde cometary materials launched with the highest velocities escaped the solar system, because they had the added velocity of Earth’s motion. Therefore, about half the long-period comets are retrograde. [See Table 12 on page 290.] (Almost all other bodies orbiting the Sun are prograde: planets, asteroids, meteoroids, and short-period comets.)

While this explains how two populations formed, one must ask if comets could be launched from Earth with enough velocity to blast through the atmosphere, escape Earth’s gravity, and enter large, even retrograde, orbits. To learn the answer, one must first recognize the huge, mind-boggling energy in the subterranean water, which, in turn, requires understanding tidal pumping and supercritical water—explained on page 120 and pages 532–533.

To escape Earth’s gravity and enter only a circular orbit around the Sun requires a launch velocity of 7 miles per second. However, to produce near-parabolic, retrograde orbits requires a launch velocity of 32 miles per second! Earth’s atmosphere would offer comparatively little resistance at such speeds. In seconds, the pulsating, jetting fountains would push the thin atmosphere aside, much as water from a fire hose quickly penetrates a thin wall.

Water pressurized by only the weight of 10 miles of rock would launch comets from Earth’s surface at a mere 0.5 mile per second. However, calculations show that other powerful effects, including water hammers and expanding gases from supercritical water, would do the job. [See "Energy in the Subterranean Water" on pages 534–539.]

6. Jupiter’s Family.  A bullet fired straight up slows to almost zero velocity near the top of its trajectory—its farthest point from Earth. A comet also moves very slowly near its aphelion. If a comet’s aphelion is ever near Jupiter during any orbit, Jupiter’s large gravity will pull the nearly stationary comet steadily toward Jupiter. Because a comet spends a relatively long time near its farthest point, Jupiter’s gravity acts strongly for an equally long time, gently pulling the nearly stationary comet toward Jupiter’s orbit. Even a comet’s orbital plane is slowly but steadily aligned with Jupiter’s. Thus, aphelions of short-period comets tend to be pulled toward Jupiter’s nearly circular orbit, regardless of whether the aphelion is inside, outside, above, or below that circle. The closer a comet’s aphelion is to Jupiter’s orbit, the more likely it is that the comet will be rapidly drawn toward Jupiter’s orbit. [See Figure 166.]

One can think of Jupiter’s mass as being spread out in a hoop that coincides with Jupiter’s orbit. (This “hoop analogy” simplifies the analysis of many long-term gravitational effects.) Comets feel more pull toward the nearest part of the hoop.

My statistical examination of all historical sightings of every orbit (almost 500) of every comet in Jupiter’s family confirms this effect. The hydroplate theory places the source of comets at Earth—well inside Jupiter’s orbit. Therefore, many comets reach their slowest speeds within a few astronomical units of Jupiter’s hoop. Thousands of years of gentle gravitational tugs by this hoop have gathered Jupiter’s family. Although Jupiter sometimes destroys comets or ejects them from the solar system, many comets in its family remain, because they were recently launched. A similar but weaker effect is forming Saturn’s family.  [See Figure 160.]

7. Composition, Heavy Hydrogen.  When the fountains of the great deep erupted, rocks were crushed, eroded, and sometimes reduced to clay. Mixed with that debris was carbonate-rich, salty, subterranean water (containing sodium, because salt, NaCl, contains sodium) and minerals that form only in the presence of hot liquid water.⁴⁵ Organic compounds—including methane, ethane, and the amino acid glycine—are found in comets,¹ because that water contained pulverized vegetation from preflood forests (as well as bacteria and other traces of life) from within hundreds of miles of the globe-encircling rupture.

Comets are rich in heavy hydrogen, because the water in the subterranean chambers was isolated from other water in the solar system. Our oceans have half the concentration of heavy hydrogen that comets have. So, if half the water in today’s oceans came from the subterranean chambers (as assumed on page 118), then almost all heavy hydrogen came from the subterranean chambers. (This will become even more clear after reading the radioactivity chapter on pages 350–395.)

Page 292 lists six surprising materials discovered on comet Tempel 1 by the Deep Impact mission in 2005. Only the hydroplate theory seems to explain the fluffy, porous texture of comets, and items a–e on page 292: crystalline silicates, clays, calcium carbonates, organic material, sodium, oxygen, and, of course, liquid water. Dust particles brought back to Earth by the Stardust Mission in 2006 were also crystalline and contained “organics” and “water.”

Item f (thick surface layers of very fine dirt with the consistency of talcum powder) is probably loess, a type of dirt composed of fine particles in the muddy ice that formed comets. Each time Tempel 1 came near the Sun in its 5 1/2-year orbital period, more of the ice on the comet’s surface sublimated, leaving behind the embedded powdery dirt. Loess is described in more detail on pages 259 and 264.

8. Small Comets.  Muddy droplets launched with the slowest velocities could not move far from Earth, so their smaller spheres of influence produced small comets. Their orbits about the Sun tend to intersect Earth’s orbit more in early November than mid-January. Because small comets have been falling on Earth for only about 5,000 years, little of our oceans’ water came from them—or from any comets. Few small comets can reach Mars.

9. Recent Meteor Streams, Crater Ages.Disintegrating comets produce meteor streams. If meteor streams were older than 10,000 years, the particles in them would be sorted by size. [See "Poynting-Robertson Effect" on page 41.] Because this is not seen, meteor streams and comets must be younger than 10,000 years. Only the hydroplate theory claims that comets began this recently.  Impact craters on Earth are also young.

10. Other/Enough Water.  Did the subterranean chamber have enough water to produce all the comets the solar system ever had?

Consider these facts. The oceans contain 1.43 × 10⁹ cubic kilometers of water. Also, Marsden and Williams’ Catalogue of Cometary Orbits (1996 edition) lists 124 periodic comets—comets observed on at least two different passages into the inner solar system. (Halley’s comet, for example, has been observed on 30 consecutive orbits dating back to 239 B.C.) In recorded history, 790 other comets have been observed with enough detail to calculate orbits. So, we know of 914 comets. (Small comets and fragments of a few comets torn apart by passing too close to the Sun are numerous. However, their mass is only about 1% of the mass of all known comets combined, so they will not be considered here.)

Some comets escaped from the solar system—either directly at launch, or later when perturbed by a planet’s gravity. Other comets have never been counted, because they never came close enough to Earth in modern times to be seen, or because they collided with the Sun or a planet.  So, let’s presume that 50,000 comets were launched.

The average radius of a short-period comet nucleus is about 4.9 kilometers.⁹⁷ If comet Tempel 1 (the most accurately measured comet as of this writing) is typical of all comets, then a comet nucleus is about 38% water by mass and has a density of about 0.62 gram per cubic centimeter.⁴ If the subterranean chamber contained half of the water now in the oceans, then less than one-hundredth of the subterranean water was expelled as comets.

With such a small fraction of the available water required, the material that formed comets could have easily come from Earth.

11. Other/Death and Disaster.  Comets, launched at the onset of the flood, are being steadily removed from the solar system. For centuries after the flood, comets would have been seen much more frequently than today. Some must have collided with Earth, just as Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter in 1994. People living soon after the flood would have seen many comets grow in size and brightness in the night sky over several weeks. Some of those frightening sights would have been followed by impacts on Earth, skies darkened with water vapor dumped by comets, and dramatic stories of destruction. Somehow, memories of these experiences spread worldwide. Early cultures probably learned from their ancestors that comets and their destruction were seen right after the flood, so comets became associated with death and disaster worldwide—hence the word “disaster”: dis (evil) + aster (star).

12. Other/Near Side of Moon. Moonquakes, lava flows, and large multiringed basins are concentrated on the side of the Moon now facing Earth. [See Figure 158 on page 288 and Figure 167.] Before the flood, the Moon’s spin was probably faster. For years after the flood, large rocky debris, launched from Earth and orbiting the Sun, often intersected Earth’s orbit, so many extremely high-velocity impacts occurred during the fraction of the Moon’s orbit in which the Moon traveled in the opposite direction to that debris flow. The largest, most frequent, and most powerful impacts (perhaps occurring in only a few days) probably impacted the Moon’s leading side, altered the Moon’s spin balance, causing the heavily impacted side of the Moon to oscillate like a decaying pendulum swinging above the earth. Eventually, tidal stretching removed most of that spin energy, so the oscillations subsided and the denser, heavier side of the Moon now always faces Earth. (Five large, dense mass concentrations, called mascons, were discovered in 1968 just below the surface on today’s near side of the Moon.⁹⁸)

The Moon has been heavily bombarded. If these impacts removed only 2% of the Moon’s orbital energy, the Moon’s preflood orbital period would have been 30 days, as viewed from Earth. A 30-day period, coupled with the preflood 360-day year (as explained on page 156 and Endnote 35 on page 176), would have provided excellent clocks for everyone on Earth. [See “Did the Preflood Earth Have a 30-Day Lunar Month?” on page 530.]

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