WORMWOOD: Clues from asteroids

The NASA Osiris-Rex spacecraft recently sampled the asteroid Bennu in a one-billion-dollar project to collect at least 2 ounces of dust and pebbles in what is a “cosmic puzzle” (“Press”).

Rather than astronomers always defaulting to the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter as being “leftovers” from the formation of the Solar System, there is another possibility.

Astronomer Olbers (1802) and others since suggest that a large planet between Mars and Jupiter was destroyed. Many asteroids and larger bodies are remnants of this catastrophic event.

An “astronomical zoo” of asteroids and comets with unstable orbits, even at right angles to the planetary plane, again suggests a catastrophic model rather than an evolutionary model.

In an explosion or collision event in space, planetary fragments may go in all directions.

However, all those micro-size to huge fragments that exploded outwards in the same direction will often be reunited, as they are gravitationally linked. Many will form rubble piles such as Bennu.

Currently more and more asteroids are zooming past Earth. What might this mean?

Do we have some of the missing debris from a destroyed planet now returning to the Solar System? Is it close enough now to effect Earth’s weather, volcanism, and frequencies of earthquakes?

As smaller asteroids come in first-- “And the stars of heaven fell to the earth…” (Revelation 6:13).

Then larger asteroids will follow — “And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch … The name of the star is Wormwood” (Revelation 8:10-11).

JIM PEARL, Geologist

Hayden Lake