Earths Uniqueness Need to steer Thanksgiving conversations away from politics, sports, or gossip? Dazzle family and friends with your astronomical knowledge about why intelligent life in our universe might be very, very rare. Plus, open the door to loads of ad-hoc jokes re what intelligent life on earth? (my dog can do tricks!) Entirely from memory, daytrading crude oil, sipping first cup of day: 1) 80% of all stars are binary stars - two stars revolving around each other - as the distances between them changes, so does the gravitational effect on their planets - so a planet gets shuttled from boiling hot to freezing cold, thereby never getting a chance to fully form. 2) 10% of all stars are red giants - very short life spans, not enough time for planets to form and thrive 3) approx 65% of all known planets are gas giants. You did know Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are just whirling gas with no solid surface? Most of the planets discovered outside our solar system are gas giants. 4) The Goldilocks zone: consider the two planets that border us - Venus is close enough to the sun so theres no liquid water and Mars is far enough so that all water is frozen. A planet needs to be within a narrow band distance from the sun to have liquid water. So what? No liquid water, no erosion of minerals from rocks and soil, hence no way to derive a mixture of elements for life to form. ---Even with all of the above, the universe is so immense theres still most likely billions of planets out there with capable suns that could support life, right? Heres where you dazzle everyone: 5) while Earth was cooling just enough to form a crust about 4.5 billion years ago a planet the size of Mars collided into Earth.: --- The core of that planet sunk into Earth and melded with our core giving us an extra large planetary core; that gives us a very strong electro-magnetic field circling earth (why a compass works) and that is incredibly important - DNA would never form if the full force of Solar radiation hit us --- Much of the crusts of both planets blew off and began circling Earth like the rings of Saturn; within a few hundred million years they coalesced into...our oversized Moon! So what? Billions of years ago the Moon was MUCH closer filling about 25% of the sky (it recedes about 2 inches a year) - that resulted in tides that were daily tidal waves, reaching over a hundred miles in land with massive force. And that resulted in massive erosion of minerals into water allowing the basic buidling blocks of life to coalesce. So without that planetary collision 4.5 billion years ago this would be another dead solar system. ---And thats why intelligent life throughout the universe is very rare. So the next time you hear that famous Carl Sagan quote about the Earth being a tiny insignificant speck in a vast... tell em Yuri said he was wrong. Theres nothing insignificant about me or you! ---Plus, I did 3 crude oil daytrades while writing this...
Posted on: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 17:26:38 +0000
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