This is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood
(7th Edition) by Dr. Walt Brown. The online version of the book is designed to be read online.
A PDF version or hardbound print version may be ordered.
Copyright © 1995–2008, Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound print edition of this online book.
Comet Composition
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 gas and dust 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, and therefore are reflecting sunlight. In space, only solid particles reflect sunlight, so we know that these curved tails are primarily dust. Also detected in comets are water, carbon dioxide, argon,36 and many combinations of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Probably, some molecules in comets, such as water and carbon dioxide, have broken apart and recombined to produce many other compounds. Comets contain methane and ethane. On Earth, bacteria produce almost all methane, and ethane comes from methane. How could comets originating in space get high concentrations of these compounds?37
Mars’ atmosphere also contains small amounts of methane. Because solar radiation should destroy that methane within a few hundred years, something within Mars must be producing methane. (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.)38 Does this mean that bacterial life is in Martian soil?39 Probably. [See “Is There Life on Mars?” on page 381.] 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.40 Light analysis shows that the atoms in comet dust are arranged in simple, repetitive, crystalline patterns, primarily that of olivine,41 the most common of the approximately 4,000 known minerals on Earth. In fact, 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, dust between stars (interstellar dust) has no repetitive atomic patterns; it is not crystalline, and certainly not olivine.
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.42
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.43 The cometary material blasted into space included:
a. silicates, which constitute about 95% of the Earth’s crust and contain considerable oxygen—a rare commodity in 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 form only in liquid water,44 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.”45
Stardust Mission. In July 2004, NASA’s Stardust mission passed within 150 miles of the nucleus 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, contained “abundant organics,”1 “abundant water,” and many chemical elements common on Earth but rare in space: magnesium, calcium, aluminum, and titanium. Crystalline material—minerals—should not form in the cold, weightlessness of outer space.46 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.47
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.”48 A standard explanation is that exploding stars (supernovas) produced dust. However, each second, 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?49 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 surround 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, in addition to its proton, a neutron, making that hydrogen—called heavy hydrogen, or deuterium—twice as heavy as normal hydrogen.
Surprisingly, in comets, one out of 3,200 hydrogen atoms is heavy—twice the richness, or concentration, of that in water on Earth.50 The concentration of heavy hydrogen in comets is 20–100 times that of interstellar space and the solar system as a whole.51 Evidently, comets came from an isolated reservoir. Many efforts by comet experts to deal with this problem are simply unscientific guesswork. No known naturally occurring process will greatly increase or decrease the heavy hydrogen concentration in comets.