Comet landing could answer big questions, claim ESA scientists, according to articles in ScienceDaily 12 November 2014 and BBC News 13 November 2014. After spending 10 years chasing Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for 4 billion miles around the solar system the European Space Agency has landed a space probe named Philae on the surface of the comet. The probe was deployed from a larger probe named Rosetta that had rendezvoused with the comet earlier this year, and is now orbiting it.
What is the purpose of this technological feat? The BBC reported: “Scientists are hoping 67P’s surface materials will hold fresh insights into the origins of our Solar System more than 4.5 billion years ago. One theory holds that comets were responsible for delivering water to the planets. Another idea is that they could have ‘seeded’ the Earth with the chemistry needed to help kick-start life. Philae will test some of this thinking”.
According to Matt Taylor, an ESA Rosetta project scientist, “Rosetta is trying to answer the very big questions about the history of our Solar System. What were the conditions like at its infancy and how did it evolve? What role did comets play in this evolution? How do comets work?”
Editorial Comment: The Rosetta project can only answer the last of these questions, i.e. it can tell us what comets are made of, and what happens as they approach the sun in their orbits. Never forget that all scientific projects, no matter how clever the technology used, can only study what exists in the present. The questions about the origin of the solar system, the origin of earth’s water and the origin of life can only be answered by the Creator who was there in the beginning, and has left a clear, unambiguous record in Genesis. Everybody else’s thoughts are self prejudiced guesses, and that’s the one thing that Genesis specifically denies being.
Genesis tells us that the earth was created with all its water in the beginning, and that living things were created from the substance of the earth when God spoke, i.e. added the information needed to assemble non-living molecules into living cells. Therefore, there is no need to speculate about comets delivering water or life to the earth from some other source.
The Rosetta scientists, and the journalists who report on the project, are fulfilling the prophecy given through the Apostle Peter, who tells us that in the last days people will deliberately forget that the earth was formed “through water and out of water by the word of God” (2 Peter 3:5). (Ref. astronomy, solar system)
Evidence News vol. 14 No. 20
19 November 2014
Creation Research Australia