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.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
Until a spacecraft lands on a comet’s nucleus and analyzes its undisturbed structure and chemistry, much will remain unknown about comets. However, light from a comet can identify some of the dust and gases in its head and tail.
Light Analysis. Each type of molecule, or portion thereof, absorbs and gives off specific colors of light. The color combination, seen when this light passes through a prism or other instrument to reveal its spectrum, identifies some components in the comet. Even light frequencies humans cannot see can be analyzed in the tiniest detail. Some components, like sodium, are easy to identify, but others, such as chlorine, are difficult, because the light they emit is dim or masked by other radiations. Curved tails in comets have the same light characteristics as the Sun; therefore, those tails must contain solid particles (dust) which are reflecting sunlight. Also detected in comets are water, carbon dioxide, argon,32 and many combinations of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Some molecules in comets, such as water and carbon dioxide, have broken apart and recombined to produce many other compounds. Comets contain trace amounts of methane, ethane, and the amino acid glycine (a building block of life on earth). On Earth, bacteria produce almost all methane, and ethane comes from methane. How could comets originating in space get high concentrations of these compounds?33
Plumes of methane are seen escaping up into Mars’ atmosphere from a few locations,34 but sunlight destroys methane in Mars’ atmosphere within a few centuries, so something within Mars must be producing methane.35 (Martian volcanoes are not, because Mars has no active or recent volcanoes. Nor do comets today deliver methane fast enough to replace what solar radiation is destroying.)36 Does this mean that bacterial life is in Martian soil?37 Probably. [See "Is There Life on Mars?" on page 483.] Later in this chapter, a surprising explanation will be given.
Dust particles in comets vary in size from pebbles to specks smaller than the eye can detect. How dust could ever form in space is a recognized mystery.38 Light analysis shows that the atoms in comet dust are arranged in simple, repetitive, crystalline patterns, primarily that of olivine,39 the most common of the approximately 2,500 known minerals on Earth. The type of olivine in comet dust appears to be rich in magnesium, as is the olivine in rocks beneath oceans and in continental crust. In contrast, interstellar dust does not appear to be crystalline.
Crystalline patterns form because atoms and ions tend to arrange themselves in patterns that minimize their total energy. An atom whose temperature and pressure allow it to move about will eventually find a “comfortable” slot (next to other atoms) that minimizes energy. (This is similar to the motion of marbles rolling around on a table filled with little pits. A marble is most “comfortable” when it settles into one of the pits. The lower the marble settles, the lower its energy, and the more permanent its position.) Minerals in rocks, such as in the mantle or deep in Earth’s crust, have been under enough pressure to develop a crystalline pattern.40
Deep Impact Mission. On 4 July 2005, the Deep Impact spacecraft fired an 820-pound “bullet” into comet Tempel 1, revealing as never before the composition of a comet’s surface layers.41 The cometary material blasted into space included:
a. silicates, which constitute about 95% of the Earth’s crust and contain considerable oxygen; both are thinly concentrated in the near vacuum of space
b. crystalline silicates that could not have formed in frigid (about -450°F) outer space unless the temperature reached 1,300°F and then slowly cooled under some pressure
c. minerals that apparently form only in liquid water,42 such as calcium carbonates (limestone) and clays
d. organic material of unknown origin
e. sodium, which is seldom seen in space
f. very fine dirt—like talcum powder—that was “tens of meters deep” on the comet’s surface
Comet Tempel 1 is fluffy and extremely porous. It contains about 60% empty space, and has “the strength of the meringue in lemon meringue pie.”43
On 4 November 2010, the Deep Impact spacecraft passed by comet Hartley 2 and found that the most abundant of its gases being expelled was carbon dioxide (CO2). [For details and an explanation, see Figure 175 on page 330.]
Stardust Mission. In July 2004, NASA’s Stardust mission passed within 150 miles of comet Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt 2”), caught dust particles from its tail, and returned them to Earth in January 2006. The dust was crystalline and contained “abundant organics,”1 water molecules, and many chemical elements common on Earth but, compared to hydrogen and helium, rare in space: magnesium, calcium, aluminum, titanium, and sulfur. Crystalline material—minerals—should not form in the cold weightlessness of outer space.44
In 2011, it was announced that Wild 2 contained the mineral cubanite that forms only in the presence of scalding hot liquid water: 122°F–392°F. According to all standard explanations for comets, it is impossible to form liquid water inside a comet.45 Besides, liquid water cannot reach those extremely hot temperatures in a comet’s low-pressure environment! Indeed, even cold liquid water inside comets will instantly flash into steam, leaving a remnant of ice. Something very unique must have happened.
The discovery [in Wild 2] of minerals requiring [scalding] liquid water for their formation challenges the paradigm of comets as “dirty snowballs” frozen in time.45
Could those minerals have come out of a very hot, high-pressure solution as the comet was forming? What can explain the observations of these two space missions?
What is “Interstellar Dust”? Is it dust? Is it interstellar? While some of its light characteristics match those of dust, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe have shown that those characteristics have a much better match with dried, frozen bacteria and cellulose—an amazing match.46
Dust, cellulose, and bacteria may be in space, but each raises questions. If it is dust, how did dust form in space? “Cosmic abundances of magnesium and silicon [major constituents of dust] seem inadequate to give interstellar dust.”47 A standard explanation is that exploding stars (supernovas) produced dust. However, supernovas radiate the energy of about 10 billion suns, so any expelled dust or nearby rocks would vaporize. If it is cellulose, the most abundant organic substance on Earth, how could such a large, complex molecule form in space?48 Vegetation is one-third cellulose; wood is one-half cellulose. Finally, bacteria are so complex it is absurd to think they formed in space. How could they eat, keep from freezing, or avoid being destroyed by ultraviolet radiation?
Is all “interstellar dust” interstellar? Probably not. Starlight traveling to Earth passes through regions of space that absorb specific wavelengths of light. The regions showing the spectral characteristics of cellulose and bacteria may lie within or near the solar system. Some astronomers mistakenly assume that because much absorption occurs in interstellar space, little occurs in the solar system.
Heavy Hydrogen. Water molecules (H2O) have two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. A hydrogen atom contains one proton in its nucleus. On Earth, about one out of 6,400 hydrogen nuclei has, besides its proton, a neutron, making that hydrogen—called heavy hydrogen, or deuterium—twice as heavy as normal hydrogen.
Surprisingly, in most comets, one out of 3,200 hydrogen atoms is heavy—twice that in water on Earth.49 Therefore, comets did not deliver most of Earth’s water, as many writers have speculated. In comets, the ratio of heavy hydrogen to normal hydrogen is 20–100 times greater than in interstellar space and the solar system as a whole.50 Evidently, comets came from an isolated reservoir rich in heavy hydrogen. Many efforts by comet experts to deal with this problem are simply unscientific guesswork. No known process will greatly increase or decrease the heavy hydrogen concentration in comets.