COMET DUST IS DRIVING NASA SCIENTISTS WILD TOO!
by Michael Fishwick
Tiny particles collected from the tail of the Wild 2 comet, by the Stardust spacecraft, are perplexing scientists attached to the project. Back in January 2004, the spacecraft flew within 150 miles of the comet and collected samples of its 'stardust' trail. It successfully landed in the Utah desert, U.S.A. on January 15th, 2006, and its samples are now being studied back on terra firma. The project's purpose is an attempt to ascertain the origin of comets by studying, with precision, their natural composition. www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/main/index.html
But the Stardust researchers have found a rather big surprise awaiting them. It turns out that the comet, which traveled a lonely path in the coldest regions of the solar system, is not just made from ice, space dust and gasses, as assumed, but contains a large amount of mineral substances that only form at extremely high temperatures. "Remarkably enough, we have found fire and ice", confirmed the leader of the project, Professor Donald Brownlee.
Evolutionary science hypothesizes that comets form in the deepest, coldest regions of space. They believe that Wild 2 originated more than four and a half billion years ago, at the beginning of our solar system, beyond the orbit of Neptune. Up until 1974, Wild 2 skirted this deepest region of the solar system until a near collision with Jupiter altered its course, and brought it into the inner solar system. This made the Stardust project possible, but the research team were not prepared for the latest set of data which has presented them with a serious enigma. www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=23093
The out of place minerals, that seem to be getting NASA scientists a bit hot under the collar, consist of forsterite (a type of olivine), calcium, aluminum and titanium. Forsterite condenses at more than 1,120 degrees Celsius and calcium-aluminum inclusions form at even higher temperatures.
"It's certain such materials never formed inside this icy, cold body", stated Dr. Brownlee. "I would say these materials came from the inner, warmest parts of the solar system or from hot regions around other stars", he added, rather confusedly. Dr. Brownlee believes that the project samples could give an indication of not just how comets formed, but how the solar system itself originated.
Stardust co-investigator, Dr. Mike Zolensky, was more circumspect: "This raises as many questions as answers. We can't answer them all just yet." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4801968.stm
Evolutionary science believes that everything that exists can be explained by natural causes. The trouble is, it cannot empirically explain a great deal of what it claims it should be able to. It must begin with big assumptions that are not supported by data, and add assumption upon assumption in a confusing attempt to make some sort of sense of the known data points. Cosmology is probably worse than any other scientific discipline in this regard. Hypothesis and the building of theories is important in science, but they must be tested. Scientists must be careful that what we are left with is not largely smoke and mirrors, a great deal of philosophical assumption and little hard science. Hence the importance of rock solid data such as that returned by the Stardust mission.
Creation scientists follow the scientific method in hypothesizing, testing and building models and theories in accordance with the known data, and within the framework of historical outlines as revealed by Holy Scripture. The big difference between evolutionary science and Creation science is that Creation scientists understand the limits of scientific enquiry and endeavor.
One broad based model that seeks to explain the mechanism of the Genesis Flood is known as the hydroplate theory. This model, as with others promoted by Creation scientists, seeks to explain a great deal of data that evolutionary models of Earth science cannot convincingly come to terms with. An interesting aspect of the hydroplate theory in regard to the Stardust data is that, so far, the new data appear to fit the model perfectly. Without going into details, it hypothesizes that comets originated from Earth as a result of the proposed Flood mechanism. http://webtools.kolbenet.com/shopcart.php?n=2&p=detail&i=364
All of the mineral elements announced by the Stardust project, at present, are contained within the basalts and granites of the Earth's crust. Olivine is the most common of the 2000 known minerals on Earth. Calcium is the fifth most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Aluminum is its most abundant metallic element, and titanium is its ninth most common element. Indeed, in considering the formation of minerals, such as those collected by Wild 2, Sir Fred Hoyle and C. Wickramasinghe state in their paper, 'Where Microbes Boldly Went', New Scientist, vol. 91, August 13th 1981, p.413, that "...there is no reasonable astronomical scenario in which mineral grains can condense [in space]."
This presents yet another seemingly unsolvable problem for evolutionary models of cosmology. As analysis of the millions of particles collected by Stardust gets seriously underway, perhaps evolutionists should prepare themselves to hear a litany of minerals that constitute planet Earth. Other Creation science models of Earth history have no such problems. After all, comets could just as easily have been made ex nihilo. See www.newgeology.us and www.globalflood.org
"I made the earth: and I created man upon it: My hand stretched forth the heavens, and I have commanded all their host." Is. 45:12
