Similar to "One French Fry Short of a Happy Meal."
Posted on 09/13/2003 5:17:25 PM PDT by bondserv
Not Enough Comets in the Cupboard 09/03/2003
There’s a shortage of comets. The Hubble Space Telescope peered into the Kuiper Belt cupboard, and found it nearly empty – only 4% of the predicted supply was found.
Astronomers needed a bigger storehouse to explain the number of short-period comets now inhabiting the solar system. The Kuiper Belt, a region of small icy bodies beyond Neptune, has been the favored source of comets with orbital periods 200 years or less, but the new measurements, soon to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, are “wildly inconsistent” with the observed number of comets. Astronomers expected to find 85 trans-Neptunian objects in the cupboard, and found only three.
Science News1 calls this a riddle. For this region to be a viable source, there should be hundred or even thousands of times as many objects as were actually found. Perhaps the objects expected had been dashed into dust by collisions. The measurements indicate that another hoped-for source at the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt “might not be sufficiently massive to spawn the short-period comets.”
As quoted in the report in Science Now, how does one researcher describe the finding? “This is very exciting work.”
1Science News Week of Sept. 6, 2003 (164:10): Ron Cowen, “Hubble Highlights a Riddle: What's the source of quick-return comets?”
A true scientist should be excited that a hypothesis proves false, as much as when it proves true; what is undesirable in science is ambiguity. Unfortunately, no amount of evidence seems to ever cause naturalistic planetary scientists to falsify the idea that the solar system formed out of undirected, purposeless natural forces billions of years ago. “Exciting” becomes their euphemism for baffled, disappointed, and clueless. What would really be exciting would be to see a planetary scientist follow the data where it leads, and question the assumption that the solar system is so old.
This empirical measurement leaves planetary scientists in a quandary. Why do we still have comets after the assumed 4.5 billion years the solar system has existed, when we know they are burning out within just thousands of years? Several recent comet stories reported here are leaving them with diminishing options:There aren’t enough sources, and they are burning out too fast to last 4.5 billion years. This is very exciting work.
- Comets are not pristine objects (Aug. 12).
- Comets fizzle fast (March 27).
- Nanodiamond counts too low (Jul 12, 2002).
- Comet deficit puzzling (June 21, 2002).
- Comets commit suicide (Feb. 26, 2001).
- Oort cloud only 10% of theory (Jan 31, 2001).
Thanks for the ping.
I don't want to miss any of these blurbs.
Whose commentary, yours?
Vey vey good.
I don't want to miss any of these blurbs.
No problem.
The commentary is from Creation-Evolution Headlines, not me. I believe most of the commentary is by David Coppedge, but I could be wrong. David is a scientist at JPL working on the Cassini project for NASA.
I can't believe that a scientific guess, umm, I mean theory, could be wrong
Similar to "One French Fry Short of a Happy Meal."
Similar to "One French Fry Short of a Happy Meal."
Apropos, Bravo!
The point is that science is always changing. How many planetarium shows or science TV programs have you heard that made the claim that comets are pristine objects, unmodified for 4.6 billion years? That they give us glimpses into the earliest state of the solar nebula before the planets formed? We’ve seen some radical rewriting of solar system formation theories recently. What commonly-accepted truths are being spouted today that are in for radical revision tomorrow? Darwinian evolution, maybe?
Be sure to check out the above Darwinian evolution link as well.
No, the problem is after 4.6 billion years there should be no comets left. Comets release material continuously. However the "just-so" stories of the scientists try to explain that there has to be a reservoir of comets "that have preserved them in a pristine state" to account for the percentage that we do see still in flight.
You can follow the other links to get the complete logic involved with the scientific model for comets.
The evidence continues to reveal their ignorance, and for some reason has a mounting desire to refute their faulty assumptions.
The Kuiper belt is not the origin of comets. The Oort Cloud, beyond Pluto, is where all these little wandering icy astral bodies originate.
Dem guys don't know much.
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