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By David Bachelor, PhD

A baby is making headlines this week, and for once the baby is not from the House of Winsor. This “baby” is not actually a baby except in relation to the other members of its family. The “baby” in the headlines is a star named V883 Orionis. It is only 500,000 years old, and as one researcher noted, “V883 Orionis is… a mere infant in stellar terms.” Scientific journals are featuring this “baby” because it has much to teach us about the Blue Planet (aka Earth).

The reason Earth is called the Blue Planet is because it is 71% water. The March 10th online edition of The Weather Network proclaims, “Distant Baby Star Reveals the Origin of Water in Our Solar System.” Scientists have been wrangling over the origin of water on Earth for some time. Many theories have been advanced. The best way (other than a time machine) to settle the matter is to observe a “baby” star and the galactic material surrounding it. The article notes, “One such protostar, V883 Orionis, located around 1,300 light years away in the constellation Orion, has now given astronomers the missing link to complete the puzzle and trace our water back to its origins.”

The science webpage Earth.com also chose Friday to explore the origin of Earth’s water in its article, “How Does Water Travel Through Our Solar System?” This article likewise derived its conclusion from the “baby” V883 Orionis. Usually, water in space is frozen which makes it difficult to measure from our planet. Gaseous water is more readily observable but requires a huge amount to stand out from the cosmic dust cloud around a proto star. The article notes, “[S]ince the V883 Orionis disc is unusually hot, it contains vast amounts of gaseous water – at least 1,200 times the amount of water in all the Earth’s oceans.”

The “baby” V883 was the centerpiece of the March 10th article “Water’s Epic Journey to Earth Began Before the Sun Formed” on the science news website Universe Today. This article noted that a recent study claimed to see the “fingerprint” of the water in V883.The author of the study said in a press release, ““We can now trace the origins of water in our Solar System to before the formation of the Sun.”

The Bible has always maintained that water is older than the Sun. The second sentence of the Bible says, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Gen 1:2). This occurs on the first day of Creation. It is thirteen more verses and two complete days (in which God creates light and darkness, forms dry land, creates all the planet’s vegetation) before God turns his hand to making the Sun. Genesis 1:16 says, “For God had made two huge lights, the sun and moon, to shine down upon the earth—the larger one, the sun, to preside over the day and the smaller one, the moon, to preside through the night.” When God finished the sky, he returned to his work in the waters of the Earth (Gen 1:20-21).

It took 21 centuries from the birth of Jesus for the wise men on the Blue Planet to prove what God revealed to his people long ago. Believers should not be surprised that it took a “baby” to make these scholars pay attention. The Bible says, “Lord of Heaven and earth, you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babies” (Matt 11:25).