Older Than Dirt

A headline yesterday on the Google news feed from NBC News certainly grabbed my attention:

Study Finds Solar System's Water Is Older Than the Sun

The lead paragraph explained:

Water found in Earth’s oceans, in meteorites and frozen in lunar craters predates the birth of the solar system, a study published in this week's issue of the journal Science shows. The finding has implications for the search for life on other planets: Scientists have long debated whether the solar system’s water came from ice ionized during the formation of the solar system, or if it predated the solar system and originated in the cold interstellar cloud of gas from which the sun itself was formed.

It brought me up short. The frozen water in places on our very planet or our moon is older, repeat, OLDER than the sun. It existed prior to the existence of the planet where it now resides.

Wow!

Actually, double WOW! and WOW!

These are the kinds of things that force my poor human mind to stretch to its limits. Water is old. It has been around longer than the very core of our solar system. This is all conjecture based on extrapolation of information. It will probably prove to be a short-sighted observation and far more nuanced than a simple NBC News headline. But the idea that we can even begin to postulate such a thing is incredible.

It took me back to a thought I wrote in my journal a number of years ago. I was reflecting on the "young earth" and "intelligent design" views out there. They postulate that much of what we see as "old" (older than 6000 years) was put there as a kind of puzzle from God to keep us off-base. They are all red herrings since the world, solar system and universe is not billions of years old. God did all that creating in 4004 BC, or so.

That causes me to shake my head in dismay and wonder why a Creator God would even think of doing that. It is more about making sure that what they take as "truth" must remain "true." All other "truths" must then be "lies."

Anyway, what is even more awe-inspiring and downright miraculous is how the universe is put together, with all the intricacies, chaos, repeating fractal-design and on and on. The Creator God who did THIS is, in my mind far more powerful and far more transcendent than an "intelligent design-god" playing mind games with the creation. The world IS a miracle.

Each morning is another one.

Did you see the sunrise this morning or the sunset last night?

Did you see the pictures of the Northern Lights from last week?

How about those exploding colors those of us in the northern latitudes are experiencing?

And I've only just begun.

And we are all made of the same substances, created at the beginning of time and consistently being recycled into what is right in front of us today.

We truly are stardust!


So, as a sidelight, here is a wonderful video to ponder along with the billion year-old frozen stardust water.