WHAT EXACTLY IS AN ORT CLOUD?
Hi everyone!
How have you been this fine week? I have had ups and downs and cramming work, being busy so I was able to take a few days and visit with family. My one daughter an grandson are here for a short visit and then we were able to travel to visit my wonderful in-laws for a few days. So we were able to make the rounds one more time this year!
And speaking of making the rounds… that’s exactly what comets do. Comets are pieces of debris and ice that fling around our solar system once every so often (or not so often in some cases). But were do they come from to begin with? Let’s take a deeper look.
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| Comet Enke |
But first there are a few things we must clear up. Because comets have little mass each close pass to the sun greatly reduces a comet’s size, and eventually comets fade away. They can’t survive billions of years. Astronomers cannot directly observe a comet forming or observe the origin. All these scientists can do is observe that comets have a limited life span due to, 1) loss of material every time it slings around the sun. By the way this is what causes the bright tail flaring out behind the comet. 2) Some are ejected from the solar system due to gravitational pull with the planets (in particular Jupiter). This phenomenon has be observed and recorded many times. And 3) There is catastrophic loss due to collisions with other celestial objects including planets. The first time it was observed was in 1994.
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| Comet Lovejoy a long period comet |
So when these three above mentioned loss mechanisms are factored into the equation, comets have a limited life-span much less than the estimated 4.6 billion year age of the universe that secular scientists have come up with. Well, this is a problem with the evolutionary estimate mentioned above. And secular scientists recognize this. So they came up with a theory to explain why long-period comets (those with orbital periods more than 200 years) are still visible today when the loss mechanisms would have deteriorated all comets long ago. Evolutionary astronomers have hypothesized (came up with an idea) that an “Oort cloud” and “Kuiper belt” exist far out somewhere in the outer regions of space thousands of times further from the sun than earth. They believe it is these clouds that resupply the solar system with comets.
While the supposed Kuiper belt (located beyond the orbit of Neptune) is believed to contain short-period comets (those with orbits under 200 years), the Oort cloud is thought to contain
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| Halley’s comet; the most famous short period comet |
billions of comet nuclei that secular scientists believe gets released when an occasional passing star or other celestial object (possibly a galactic tide) pulls comets from the Oort cloud that then fall into the inner solar system. “According to the theory, this icy material was sent out to the Oort cloud in the outer reaches of the solar system by the gravity of the newly formed planets during the big bang. All earlier studies ignored collisions between the comet nuclei during this process.
“[But a] new study has considered these collisions and has found that most of the comets would have been destroyed by collisions. Thus, instead of having a combined mass of perhaps 40 Earths, the Oort cloud should have at most the mass of about a single Earth. It is doubtful that this is enough mass to account for the comets that we see. The researchers postulate ‘escape valves’3 that could supply up to 3.5 Earth masses, but this is still ‘low compared to recent estimates of the mass of the Oort cloud’. They go on to ‘speculate that a distant source region for Oort cloud comets’ could resolve some other problems [emphasis added].
“Of course, if the solar system is much younger than most
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| The Kuiper Belt is added hear as if it was fact. |
astronomers think, then there is no need for the Oort comet cloud. Since it cannot be detected, the Oort cloud is not a scientific concept. This is not bad science, but non-science masquerading as science. The existence of comets is good evidence that the solar system is only a few thousand years old, just as the recent-creation model suggests.”1 “To explain why we see comets today, evolutionists have to assume that both the Oort cloud and the Kuiper belt exist. Recent creationists know from the Bible that the solar system is only thousands of years old, so there is no reason to assume that either the Oort cloud or Kuiper belt exist.”2
Notice all the speculation these evolutionary astronomers come up with. I hope that someday they can see it takes far more faith to believe in these assumptions than in an Intelligent Designer.
Until next time, take care and God bless!
Willow Dressel
This week in the night skies: For the northern lats; “Thursday, January 22, mutual event among Jupiter's moons. Early on Friday morning, from 4:06 to 4:20 a.m. EST, Callisto casts its shadow onto its neighbor moon Ganymede, dimming Ganymede by an obvious 1.4 magnitudes around the middle of that time. Ganymede is normally the brightest of Jupiter's four big moons. Even with just a small telescope, you can watch it briefly become a trace fainter than Callisto, which normally is the faintest. Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa will all appear close together. Friday, January 23; The Moon, dim Mars, and bright Venus form a big diagonal line in the west in twilight. And can you still detect Mercury? It's been fading fast day by day. Three shadows on Jupiter. Late this night Callisto, Io, and Europa are all casting their tiny black shadows onto Jupiter at once, from 1:27 to 1:52 a.m. Saturday morning EST (10:27 to 10 52 p.m. Friday evening PST). Then all three satellites themselves appear in front of Jupiter at once (and hence are practically invisible) from 2:08 to 2:12 a.m. EST.”1
For the souther lats; “Starting tonight there are a series of bright evening passes of the International Space Station lasting at least the 23rd. For many places in Southern Australia this series has the ISS gliding either above, through or under the Southern Cross, depending on where you are. On the 20th there is a bright pass which takes the ISS close to the bright star Sirius (in Melbourne it passes close to Orion's Belt instead). Some of the passes are very short although bright as the ISS enters Earth's shadow, but it is interesting to see the ISS wink out abruptly. When and what you will see is VERY location dependent, so you need to use either Heavens Above or CalSky to get site specific predictions for your location (I'm using Adelaide only as an example as ther are just too many of them).”2
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