How long can a comet last? Not as long as some would like to think. Here’s the scoop:

As we resume our study of the “10 Best Evidences from Science that confirm a Young Earth” from Answers in Genesis, we look at:

#8 Short-Lived Comets

“A comet spends most of its time far from the sun in the deep freeze of space. But once each orbit, a comet comes very close to the sun, allowing the sun’s heat to evaporate much of the comet’s ice and dislodge dust to form a beautiful tail. Comets have little mass, so each close pass to the sun greatly reduces a comet’s size, and eventually comets fade away. They can’t survive billions of years.”

Could it be that the ice that forms comet tails came from earth during the Great Flood? The moon’s surface (the side that faces us) is covered with droplets of water. The energy coming from the underground super-heated water was three times the amount needed to overcome our gravity. Did the earth literally spray the face of the moon? Many meteors and asteroids are comprised of earth’s mantle, so why not water in comets? If so, then comets are around 5,000 years old.

The root of the matter lies in whether a person believes in a young or old earth and universe. God told us in His talks with Moses how He created the earth and how long it took,

⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

God was giving us a pattern of work and rest. It’s been this way from the beginning,

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

If we can believe God for salvation, why is it so difficult for us to believe Him for creation? About the time I get to thinking that I am smarter and more knowledgeable than God, I read Job. Chapters 40-42 are about God asking Job where he was when Jesus was doing all the creating; He also asked him a lot of questions that only God could know. Here is Job’s answer:

42 Then Job answered the Lord and said:
² “I know that you can do all things,
    and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
³ ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

Rather than letting the origin of comets burn brain cells, why don’t we give God glory for His creation, whether it was in the first creation or because of the Great Flood? All natural events find their origin in God. Let’s glorify Him.

Abba, because I believe that You created the universe and everything in it in six literal days, I tend to think about scientific mysteries from the standpoint of how You did it rather than how something came into being on its own. The neat thing is that inventions and discoveries are being made all the time that shed light on many of these mysteries and how they prove that You really did create everything! Thank You for being patient with mankind. May we all look to Jesus for all the answers concerning salvation and creation. Amen.