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13.
Formation Mechanism. Explosions produce a wide range of fragment sizes. Rock fragments from an exploded planet would vary from the size of dust up to maybe a quarter of the planet itself. The rocks seen in comets and on asteroids are much more uniform in size. Also, comet dust is mixed uniformly within comet ice. How would a planet, before exploding, have dust mixed within its water?
14.
Ice on Moon and Mercury. It is highly unlikely that billions of tons of ice from a distant explosion 3,200,000 years ago would still survive and be found in craters on the Moon and Mercury.
15.
Jupiter’s Family. If comets suddenly formed 3,200,000 years ago, why would Jupiter’s large family now have so many comets with life spans of only about 12,000 years?
16.
Composition. If comets formed as this theory claims, why would they have organic matter, including methane and ethane? Vegetation and bacteria could not originate in the cold, dim asteroid belt, 2.8 AU from the Sun. This theory does not explain any of the discoveries of the Stardust mission or the six discoveries of the Deep Impact mission listed on page 267.
17.
Small Comets. Comets originating 2.8 AU or farther from the Sun 3,200,000 years ago would not concentrate small comets at Earth’s orbit today. Certainly, they would not tend to strike Earth ten times more frequently in early November than in mid-January.
18.
Missing Meteorites. If comets are as old as this theory claims, many more iron meteorites should have been found below the topmost layers of the Earth’s sediments.
19.
Recent Meteor Streams. See item 9 above.
20.
Crater Ages. If a planet exploded 3,200,000 years ago, many craters on Earth should have corresponding ages. Even if one accepts evolutionary dating techniques, craters do not cluster at that age, or at any age.90
21.
Other/Scattering. The total mass of all asteroids is less than 0.05% (about 1/2,300) of the Earth’s mass. Combining all asteroids would hardly produce a planet.
Exploding and dispersing a typical planet requires enormous energy.91 Even if a planet composed of pure TNT suddenly exploded, it would collapse back upon itself because of the large, mutual gravitational attraction of all its pieces. Napier and Dodd have shown that no known chemical, gravitational, or plausible nuclear source of energy appears capable of exploding and scattering any known planet.92 A head-on collision between two planets at 2.8 AU could provide the needed energy but would not evenly disperse comet-size chunks or give them the energy distribution shown in Figure 147 on page 265.