Ceres: Remains of an Exploded Planet

 

By Clint Bishard

Jesus Created Ministries

 

            Last time, I 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.  Last time, I also noted that I believe one of the catastrophes in our solar system included the explosion of a planet.  Today, I want to explain 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.[1]  What brought the scientific community to this viewpoint was the mathematical formula already discussed in the past weeks 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: