Ceres and the Asteroid Belt: Remains of an Exploded
Planet
By Clint Bishard
Jesus Created Ministries
Elsewhere, we introduced the concept of a
catastrophe occurring in the past within our solar system. A catastrophe, or
catastrophes, in the past would explain why we have the clear evidence for
design within our solar system, yet it shows some signs of corruption with some
minimal areas of disorder. Additionally, a past catastrophe in the solar
system would explain why God’s perfectly created home for His creatures has in
the past and present experienced harmful impacts from space. One of the past catastrophes in our solar system appears to be the
explosion of a planet. We will now look at the evidence in support of this
hypothesis.
Interestingly, the concept that a planet exploded
in the past is not new. In fact, this was a common belief among astronomers during
the 1800s and early 1900s, and the past planet was given the name Phaeton.
What brought the scientific community to this viewpoint was the mathematical
formula already discussed that predicted the orbital distances of the planets
before they were found. Additionally, the discovery of Ceres in 1801 (which
filled in the only missing orbital position predicted by the formula) was
followed by the discovery of many more such smaller objects at similar orbital
distances as Ceres (between Mars and Jupiter). As more fragments continued to be
found at this orbit location, they were named asteroids and the idea that they
were the remains of a once larger intact planet between Mars and Jupiter was a
simple deduction from the evidence.
So what changed? Well, nothing has changed
concerning the evidence, but instead, the belief system of most within the
scientific community has changed from one of believing in a universe perfectly
and supernaturally created by God to a belief system that everything evolved
from chaos through naturalistic processes. As a result of this change in
belief system, the reigning naturalistic hypothesis for the development of the
solar system became the nebular hypothesis. This view teaches that the entire
solar system was once a single cloud of dust and gas molecules that collapsed
to form our sun and planets. As a result of the new belief system, most
scientists now view the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter as some of that
original dust that failed to accumulate into a planet.
However, as a scientist who rejects the naturalistic
nebular hypothesis due to my Biblical beliefs that there is a God who perfectly
and supernaturally created the solar system (Gen 1:14-19), I will now make the
case that the explosion of a planet sometime in the past between Mars and
Jupiter better fits the evidence we currently observe. The main points of
evidence are as follows:
- Ceres, now classified as a “dwarf planet,” comprises about
a third of the estimated mass of the asteroids in the solar system. Additionally, 90% of all asteroids are in the asteroid belt between Mars
and Jupiter, near the orbit of Ceres. The fact that the orbit of Ceres, being the largest of the objects in the
asteroid belt, matches the 5th planet position as predicted
from the mathematical formula appears to be more than coincidental. Conservation of momentum would tell us that one would expect to see the largest intact piece of an exploded planet to be closer to the original orbit than the smaller fragments. And this observation fits the exploded planet hypothesis.
- The nebular hypothesis predicts that the asteroids would
have developed via the accretion of small dust particles into the
different sized “planetesimals” now making up the asteroid belt. However,
the asteroids do not represent these collected dust “planetesimals,” but
instead are fused solid bodies similar to the composition of the earth. Interestingly,
the composition of the asteroid belt has actually been studied from meteor
“falls” here on earth. “When the trajectories of falls are traced, the
majority indicate an origin within the asteroid belt…A small number of ‘found’
meteorites show similarity to moon rocks, and a few others have gaseous
inclusions similar in compositions to the atmosphere of Mars, so it has
been suggested that these might have been blasted off those celestial
bodies during the giant impacts that scarred their surfaces. However, the
vast majority appear to come from the direction of the asteroid belt and
they match the asteroids in composition”
“Of those that survive and reach the ground, about 95 percent of recorded
‘falls’ (those that are seen and then recovered, as opposed to those that
are simply ‘found’) are of the ‘stony’ kind – similar in composition to
earth rocks. About 4 percent of falls are of the ‘iron’ type – similar in
composition to the earth’s iron/nickel core. Because they tend to be
larger, the ‘irons’ make up about two-thirds of the total mass of recorded
falls. About 1 percent of falls are a stony-iron mixture.” Therefore, “Asteroids and meteorites look very much like the rubble of a
disrupted planet. The ‘stony’ types correspond with the outer mantle
crust of an earth-like planet, while the ‘iron’ type exactly parallels the
inner core region of the earth.” The
composition of the asteroids being these different types of solid rigid bodies better fits the exploded planet view than the
accretion of small dust particles over a long period of time.
- The nebular hypothesis with its millions/billions of years
of accretion would predict that the meteor/asteroid craters visible on the
planets and moons in the solar system would be uniform given the random
nature of these impacts. “Astronomers call this even spacing of craters
‘symmetrical cratering.’ Astronomers have not observed symmetrical
cratering anywhere. In fact, every moon and planet with craters has more
craters in one hemisphere than the other. This shows that the nebular
hypothesis is false. The earth, for example, has more craters in the Old
World than the New World. This situation is called ‘asymmetrical
cratering,’ and is exactly what we would expect if a massive one-time
planetary explosion had thrown debris through the solar system to hit
whatever was in its path.”
- The two small moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, do not
match that of something formed via collected “planetesimals” as expected
by the nebular hypothesis, but instead they appear to be captured
asteroids. “Space probes have photographed both Phobos and some asteroids
at very close range, confirming that they look quite similar.”
- The objection that it would take too much energy to
explode a planet is no problem for an infinite God who has judged our
universe in the past.
In conclusion from this evidence, I
(as well as many other leading creationists) view Ceres not as a planet; but it,
as well as the asteroids, as part of the remnants of a past planet that blew up.
I believe this planet was part of God’s original perfect design as indicated by
Ceres and most of the asteroids being located at the orbit location as
predicted by the mathematical formula for the position of the planets.
Since we are dealing with
historical events, we cannot prove that a planet blew up in the past by the
scientific method (no observable and repeatable experiments here), so Phaeton
will have to remain a hypothesis. I only wish the scientific community would
realize the same thing about the hypothesis of evolution and quit discussing it
as a fact or even a theory. However, we can take note that a lot of evidence
exists in support of this Phaeton hypothesis. Additionally, we can see that
the evidence in our solar system fits with a perfectly created solar system,
which now appears to have been corrupted in the past. The Biblical Christian
can take comfort that the evidence in our solar system is consistent with the
Bible’s history.
