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So why did evolution stop on the asteroid? Why didn't the amino acids evolve into intelligent creatures that drilled into the asteroid and send us radio broadcast?
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Organic Materials Essential for Life on Earth are Found for the First time on the Surface of an Asteroid
- Thread starter abu afak
- Start date
- Mar 3, 2006
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- #22
Why did it start?So why did evolution stop on the asteroid? Why didn't the amino acids evolve into intelligent creatures that drilled into the asteroid and send us radio broadcast?
Natural tendencies which cut your amount of zeros by 95%.
And perhaps it stopped because conditions were too hostile. No atmosphere, near absolute zero Temps.
Nothing like earth which was covered with such material and friendly climes x billions.
Ooops!
`
- May 20, 2009
- 144,258
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You actually think that the amino acids "evolved" from component parts while on the asteroid???????Why did it start?So why did evolution stop on the asteroid? Why didn't the amino acids evolve into intelligent creatures that drilled into the asteroid and send us radio broadcast?
Natural tendencies which cut your amount of zeros by 95%.
And perhaps it stopped because conditions were too hostile. No atmosphere, near absolute zero Temps.
Nothing like earth which was covered with such material and friendly climes x billions.
Ooops!
`
So, why did the gods put amino acids on the asteroid? Why didn’t the gods wipe the amino acids from the asteroid with a flood and put Ark building space aliens in their place?So why did evolution stop on the asteroid? Why didn't the amino acids evolve into intelligent creatures that drilled into the asteroid and send us radio broadcast?
You know otherwise???????You actually think that the amino acids "evolved" from component parts while on the asteroid???????Why did it start?So why did evolution stop on the asteroid? Why didn't the amino acids evolve into intelligent creatures that drilled into the asteroid and send us radio broadcast?
Natural tendencies which cut your amount of zeros by 95%.
And perhaps it stopped because conditions were too hostile. No atmosphere, near absolute zero Temps.
Nothing like earth which was covered with such material and friendly climes x billions.
Ooops!
`
- Mar 3, 2006
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- Thread starter
- #26
Possible, but more likely picked up in collision or interstellar dust where it may it may perhaps be seen regularly.You actually think that the amino acids "evolved" from component parts while on the asteroid???????
Let you know when they get more asteroidal material.
Ooops.
`
Fort Fun Indiana
Diamond Member
- Mar 10, 2017
- 92,521
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No, that is not what they mean. Please read articles in the science section before commenting.You mean... hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen?
So those aren't organic elements?No, that is not what they mean. Please read articles in the science section before commenting.You mean... hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen?
How do you know evolution stopped on the asteroid?So why did evolution stop on the asteroid? Why didn't the amino acids evolve into intelligent creatures that drilled into the asteroid and send us radio broadcast?
How long have the amino acids been on the asteroid?
- Mar 3, 2006
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- Thread starter
- #30
Ionise it.
buckyballs - Google Search
www.google.com
[Of the 92 natural elements, ninety-nine percent of the living matter we know is composed of just four: hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), and carbon (C). That is bound to be true wherever life exists in the universe, for only those four elements possess the unique properties upon which life depends.
Their unique position in chemistry can be stated in a sentence: They -- in the order given -- are the lightest elements that achieve stable electronic configurations (i.e., those mimicking the inert gases) by gaining respectively one, two, three, and four electrons. Gaining electrons, in the sense of sharing them with other atoms, is the mechanism of forming chemical bonds, hence molecules. The lightest elements make not only the tightest bonds, hence the most stable molecules, but introduce a unique property crucial for life: of all the natural elements, only oxygen, nitrogen and carbon regularly form double and triple bonds with one another, so saturating all their tendencies to combine further. These four elements, Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, also provide an example of the astonishing togetherness of our universe. They make up the “organic” molecules that constitute living organisms on a planet, and the nuclei of these same elements interact to generate the light of its star. Then the organisms on the planet come to depend wholly on that starlight, as they must if life is to persist. So it is that all life on the Earth runs on sunlight. I do not need spiritual enlightenment to know that I am one with the universe -- that is just good physics.
Now let’s go up a step, to molecules. By far the most important molecule for living organisms is water. I think we can feel sure that if there is no liquid water, there is no life, anywhere in the universe. Water also happens to be the strangest molecule in all chemistry; and its strangest property is that ice floats. If ice did not float, I doubt that life would exist in the universe.
Virtually everything contracts on cooling. That is how we make thermometers: a bit of red-dyed alcohol, mercury if you can afford it, put in a capillary tube contracts on cooling, and you read the temperature. Everything does this. So does water, down to four degrees centigrade. But between four and zero degrees centigrade, where it freezes, it expands, so rapidly that the ice that forms is less dense than liquid water. The complete hydrogen bonding among the water molecules in ice holds them more widely spaced than in liquid water, so ice floats.
Nothing else does that. But what if water behaved like virtually everything else, and continued to contract on cooling? Then the increasingly dense water would constantly be sinking to the bottom, and freezing would begin at the bottom, , not as now at the top, and would end by freezing the water solidly. A really large mass of ice takes forever to melt, even at higher temperatures. On any planet in the universe, if a freeze occured even once in many millions of years, that would probably be enough to block the rise of life, and to kill any life that had arisen.
And now another step up, to stars. The first generation of stars began as hydrogen, and lived by fusing it to helium. A hydrogen atom is composed of a proton as nucleus and one electron moving about it; but at temperatures of about five million degrees they are driven apart, and one is dealing with naked protons, hydrogen nuclei. Now four such protons, each of mass 1, begin to fuse to a helium nucleus of about mass 4, but in this process a very small amount of mass is lost -- four protons have a slightly larger mass than a helium nucleus -- and this tiny loss of mass is converted into radiation according to Einstein’s equation, E=mc2. Even so small a loss of mass yields a huge amount of radiation, and that flood of radiation pours out in the interior of what had been a collapsing mass of gas and stops its further collapse, stabilizing it, and is also the source of starlight.
Eventually, though, this process runs every star short of hydrogen. With that, it generates less energy and so begins to collapse again, and as it collapses it heats up some more. When the temperature in its deep interior reaches about one hundred million degrees, the helium nuclei begin to fuse. Two helium nuclei, each of mass 4, fuse to make beryllium, of mass 8, a nucleus so unstable as to disintegrate within 10-16 second (ten million billionths of a second).Yet in these enormous masses of material and at such high temperatures there are always a few beryllium nuclei, and here and there one of them adds another helium: 8 and 4 make 12, the mass of carbon. That is how carbon comes into the universe. Then a carbon nucleus can add another helium: 12 plus 4 make 16, the mass of oxygen, and that is how oxygen enters the universe. Also carbon, even at somewhat lower temperatures, can add hydrogens, and carbon-12 plus two hydrogens make 14, the mass of nitrogen. That is how nitrogen enters the universe.
These new processes, together with its heating by collapse, have by now puffed up our star to enormous size. It has become a Red Giant, a dying star. In its dying, it has made the elements of which life is composed. It is a moving realization that stars must die before organisms can live.
These Red Giants are in a delicate condition, and by distillation and in such stellar catastrophes as flares, novas, and supernovas they spew their substance out to become part of the great masses of gases and dust that fill all interstellar space. Over eons of time, great masses of those gases and dust are drawn together by their mutual gravitation to form new generations of stars. But such latecomers, unlike the first generation of stars made wholly of hydrogen and helium, contain also carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. And we know that our Sun is such a later-generation star because we are here, because the Earth is one of those planets in the universe that supports life.
Finally, we have a cosmic principle: To have such a universe as this requires an extraordinary balance between two great cosmic forces: that of dispersion (expansion), powered by the Big Bang, and that of aggregation, powered by gravitation. If the forces of expansion were dominant, that would yield an isotropically dispersed universe lacking local clusters, galaxies or planetary systems; all the matter would be flying apart, and there would be no large solid bodies, hence no place for life. If, on the contrary, gravitation were dominant, the initial expansion produced by the Big Bang would have slowed up and come to an end, followed by a universal collapse, perhaps in preparation for the next Big Bang. There would be no time for life to arise, or it would be quickly destroyed.
We live in a universe in which it has just lately been realized that those two forces are in exact balance, so that the universe as a whole is expanding wherever one looks, everything very distant is going away from us, but locally there are so-called local groups and clusters, where whole clusters of galaxies are held together by gravitation. Our own relatively small cluster contains, in addition to the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy (M31). It is very much like our galaxy, but a little smaller, and there is also a still smaller galaxy, all part of our local group. Most of you have probably heard that we measure the expansion of the universe by the so-called red shift. The further one looks out into space, the redder the light is, compared to the same sources on earth. That is interpeted as an expression of the Doppler Effect, and taken to mean that the more distant an astronomical body, the faster it is receding from us. But the first such color shift ever to be discovered, by the astronomer Slipher back in 1912, was not a red shift by a blue shift. He was looking at our sister galaxy, Andromeda, and observed a blue shift because, far from receding, the Andromeda galaxy is coming toward us at about 125 miles per second. It is just this exact balance between the steady expansion of the universe as a whole and its stability locally that affords both enormous reaches of time and countless sites for the development of life.
I have here only sampled briefly an argument that extends much further. The nub of that argument is that our universe possesses a remarkably detailed constellation of properties, and as it happens, it is just that constellation that breeds life. It takes no great intelligence or imagination to conceive of other universes, indeed any number of them, each of which might be perfectly good, stable universes, but lifeless.
How did it happen that, with what seem to be so many other options, our universe came out just as it did? From our own self‑centered point of view, that is the best way to make a universe: But what I want to know is, how did the universe find that out?
It may be objected that the question would not arise if we were not here to ask it. Yet here we are, and strangely insistent on asking that kind of question. Perhaps that indeed is the answer: That this is a life‑breeding universe precisely in order eventually to bring forth creatures that ask and attempt to answer such questions, so that through them the universe can come not only to be, but to be known; indeed can come to know itself. That leads me to my other great problem, that of consciousness.]
George Wald, Nobel Laureate
Their unique position in chemistry can be stated in a sentence: They -- in the order given -- are the lightest elements that achieve stable electronic configurations (i.e., those mimicking the inert gases) by gaining respectively one, two, three, and four electrons. Gaining electrons, in the sense of sharing them with other atoms, is the mechanism of forming chemical bonds, hence molecules. The lightest elements make not only the tightest bonds, hence the most stable molecules, but introduce a unique property crucial for life: of all the natural elements, only oxygen, nitrogen and carbon regularly form double and triple bonds with one another, so saturating all their tendencies to combine further. These four elements, Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, also provide an example of the astonishing togetherness of our universe. They make up the “organic” molecules that constitute living organisms on a planet, and the nuclei of these same elements interact to generate the light of its star. Then the organisms on the planet come to depend wholly on that starlight, as they must if life is to persist. So it is that all life on the Earth runs on sunlight. I do not need spiritual enlightenment to know that I am one with the universe -- that is just good physics.
Now let’s go up a step, to molecules. By far the most important molecule for living organisms is water. I think we can feel sure that if there is no liquid water, there is no life, anywhere in the universe. Water also happens to be the strangest molecule in all chemistry; and its strangest property is that ice floats. If ice did not float, I doubt that life would exist in the universe.
Virtually everything contracts on cooling. That is how we make thermometers: a bit of red-dyed alcohol, mercury if you can afford it, put in a capillary tube contracts on cooling, and you read the temperature. Everything does this. So does water, down to four degrees centigrade. But between four and zero degrees centigrade, where it freezes, it expands, so rapidly that the ice that forms is less dense than liquid water. The complete hydrogen bonding among the water molecules in ice holds them more widely spaced than in liquid water, so ice floats.
Nothing else does that. But what if water behaved like virtually everything else, and continued to contract on cooling? Then the increasingly dense water would constantly be sinking to the bottom, and freezing would begin at the bottom, , not as now at the top, and would end by freezing the water solidly. A really large mass of ice takes forever to melt, even at higher temperatures. On any planet in the universe, if a freeze occured even once in many millions of years, that would probably be enough to block the rise of life, and to kill any life that had arisen.
And now another step up, to stars. The first generation of stars began as hydrogen, and lived by fusing it to helium. A hydrogen atom is composed of a proton as nucleus and one electron moving about it; but at temperatures of about five million degrees they are driven apart, and one is dealing with naked protons, hydrogen nuclei. Now four such protons, each of mass 1, begin to fuse to a helium nucleus of about mass 4, but in this process a very small amount of mass is lost -- four protons have a slightly larger mass than a helium nucleus -- and this tiny loss of mass is converted into radiation according to Einstein’s equation, E=mc2. Even so small a loss of mass yields a huge amount of radiation, and that flood of radiation pours out in the interior of what had been a collapsing mass of gas and stops its further collapse, stabilizing it, and is also the source of starlight.
Eventually, though, this process runs every star short of hydrogen. With that, it generates less energy and so begins to collapse again, and as it collapses it heats up some more. When the temperature in its deep interior reaches about one hundred million degrees, the helium nuclei begin to fuse. Two helium nuclei, each of mass 4, fuse to make beryllium, of mass 8, a nucleus so unstable as to disintegrate within 10-16 second (ten million billionths of a second).Yet in these enormous masses of material and at such high temperatures there are always a few beryllium nuclei, and here and there one of them adds another helium: 8 and 4 make 12, the mass of carbon. That is how carbon comes into the universe. Then a carbon nucleus can add another helium: 12 plus 4 make 16, the mass of oxygen, and that is how oxygen enters the universe. Also carbon, even at somewhat lower temperatures, can add hydrogens, and carbon-12 plus two hydrogens make 14, the mass of nitrogen. That is how nitrogen enters the universe.
These new processes, together with its heating by collapse, have by now puffed up our star to enormous size. It has become a Red Giant, a dying star. In its dying, it has made the elements of which life is composed. It is a moving realization that stars must die before organisms can live.
These Red Giants are in a delicate condition, and by distillation and in such stellar catastrophes as flares, novas, and supernovas they spew their substance out to become part of the great masses of gases and dust that fill all interstellar space. Over eons of time, great masses of those gases and dust are drawn together by their mutual gravitation to form new generations of stars. But such latecomers, unlike the first generation of stars made wholly of hydrogen and helium, contain also carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. And we know that our Sun is such a later-generation star because we are here, because the Earth is one of those planets in the universe that supports life.
Finally, we have a cosmic principle: To have such a universe as this requires an extraordinary balance between two great cosmic forces: that of dispersion (expansion), powered by the Big Bang, and that of aggregation, powered by gravitation. If the forces of expansion were dominant, that would yield an isotropically dispersed universe lacking local clusters, galaxies or planetary systems; all the matter would be flying apart, and there would be no large solid bodies, hence no place for life. If, on the contrary, gravitation were dominant, the initial expansion produced by the Big Bang would have slowed up and come to an end, followed by a universal collapse, perhaps in preparation for the next Big Bang. There would be no time for life to arise, or it would be quickly destroyed.
We live in a universe in which it has just lately been realized that those two forces are in exact balance, so that the universe as a whole is expanding wherever one looks, everything very distant is going away from us, but locally there are so-called local groups and clusters, where whole clusters of galaxies are held together by gravitation. Our own relatively small cluster contains, in addition to the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy (M31). It is very much like our galaxy, but a little smaller, and there is also a still smaller galaxy, all part of our local group. Most of you have probably heard that we measure the expansion of the universe by the so-called red shift. The further one looks out into space, the redder the light is, compared to the same sources on earth. That is interpeted as an expression of the Doppler Effect, and taken to mean that the more distant an astronomical body, the faster it is receding from us. But the first such color shift ever to be discovered, by the astronomer Slipher back in 1912, was not a red shift by a blue shift. He was looking at our sister galaxy, Andromeda, and observed a blue shift because, far from receding, the Andromeda galaxy is coming toward us at about 125 miles per second. It is just this exact balance between the steady expansion of the universe as a whole and its stability locally that affords both enormous reaches of time and countless sites for the development of life.
I have here only sampled briefly an argument that extends much further. The nub of that argument is that our universe possesses a remarkably detailed constellation of properties, and as it happens, it is just that constellation that breeds life. It takes no great intelligence or imagination to conceive of other universes, indeed any number of them, each of which might be perfectly good, stable universes, but lifeless.
How did it happen that, with what seem to be so many other options, our universe came out just as it did? From our own self‑centered point of view, that is the best way to make a universe: But what I want to know is, how did the universe find that out?
It may be objected that the question would not arise if we were not here to ask it. Yet here we are, and strangely insistent on asking that kind of question. Perhaps that indeed is the answer: That this is a life‑breeding universe precisely in order eventually to bring forth creatures that ask and attempt to answer such questions, so that through them the universe can come not only to be, but to be known; indeed can come to know itself. That leads me to my other great problem, that of consciousness.]
George Wald, Nobel Laureate
Fort Fun Indiana
Diamond Member
- Mar 10, 2017
- 92,521
- 58,289
- 2,645
It had to turn out some way or another. Did magical sky fairies set it up just right so that life would form? Maybe. But now we have to ask who created them and their universe."How did it happen that, with what seem to be so many other options, our universe came out just as it did?"
So this is just mental masturbation best left to religious goobers to keep them busy and out of the way.
Actually it is exploring the origin questions. An endeavor which requires a great deal of thought. Our universe - which has life and intelligence hardwired into its laws and the fabric of matter - is decidedly unnatural. In other words, it is unusual for a universe to exist that produces life and intelligence.It had to turn out some way or another. Did magical sky fairies set it up just right so that life would form? Maybe. But now we have to ask who created them and their universe.
So this is just mental masturbation best left to religious goobers to keep them busy and out of the way.
I don't believe you possess the intellectual capacity or the disposition for this discussion. You act too much like a spoiled brat when people don't agree with you.
Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
Abu, are you doing that old trick of dredging up threads from eight months ago that no one was much interested in then, just to have some of your threads on the top list?buckyballs - Google Search
www.google.com
If so, I'm happy to bump it for you. I like people to be happy, no matter how lame what makes them happy is.
- Mar 3, 2006
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- Thread starter
- #35
Actually my STALKER Ding will cover/bump ANY threads I have started with his handle.Abu, are you doing that old trick of dredging up threads from eight months ago that no one was much interested in then, just to have some of your threads on the top list?
If so, I'm happy to bump it for you. I like people to be happy, no matter how lame what makes them happy is.
You want to find my threads? Just see which threads he's at the end of.
Thus my many disclaimers.
In 20 years on mbs I've never see anything like it.
It's also at work even on my posts even in other threads.
When I first looked at the board this AM.. before you came on or I posted..,.
Four of my threads were at the top of the section, all put there by Ding's last-wording/STALKING.
Complain to him please.
Same thing happens in Env section.
Then he STALKED me here too.
Shouldn't be happening.
Otherwise he wasn't a poster here!
He's a hateful little mongrel.
`
Last edited:
Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
Wow, you are a victim alright.Actually my STALKER Ding will cover/bump ANY threads I have started with his handle.
You want to find my threads? Just see which threads he's at the end of.
Thus my many disclaimers.
In 20 years on mbs I've never see anything like it.
It's also at work even on my posts even in other threads.
When I first looked at the board this AM.. before you came on or I posted..,.
Four of my threads were at the top of the section, all put there by Ding's last-wording/STALKING.
Complain to him please.
Same thing happens in Env section.
Then he STALKED me here too.
Otherwise he wasn't a poster here!
`
But it was you who bumped this thread after it had been dormant for 8 months. Were you somehow under your stalker's diabolical influence when you did that?
Have you ever tried ignoring your stalker? I'm not saying it will work, I don't know. I'm currently not responding to my stalker to see how long it takes for them to give up. I'll let you know how that goes.
Or I may throw my stalker a bone, for laughs. You know, to see how long they will keep it up . . .
- Mar 3, 2006
- 7,209
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- 315
- Thread starter
- #37
Yes, I often do that!Wow, you are a victim alright.
But it was you who bumped this thread after it had been dormant for 8 months. Were you somehow under your stalker's diabolical influence when you did that?
Have you ever tried ignoring your stalker? I'm not saying it will work, I don't know. I'm currently not responding to my stalker to see how long it takes for them to give up. I'll let you know how that goes.
Or I may throw my stalker a bone, for laughs. You know, to see how long they will keep it up . . .
Because the Same issues come up.
Should I start a new one very time "quote-Mining" happens.
"God of the Gaps" has new posters weekly. THEE #1 creationist attempt.
etc, etc.
Yes, been there, done that, on every big issue. I have covered it.
Not going to start a new thread with same links/documentation weekly/monthly.
I did just start a new one on 'Evidence for Common Descent'!
I'm sure I'll be using/bumping that More than a few times too when someone says there is none.
I have tried to hit all the main issues with my OPs.
`
Last edited:
Brick Gold
Gold Member
- Jan 30, 2022
- 1,234
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That was a great read.[Of the 92 natural elements, ninety-nine percent of the living matter we know is composed of just four: hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), and carbon (C). That is bound to be true wherever life exists in the universe, for only those four elements possess the unique properties upon which life depends.
Their unique position in chemistry can be stated in a sentence: They -- in the order given -- are the lightest elements that achieve stable electronic configurations (i.e., those mimicking the inert gases) by gaining respectively one, two, three, and four electrons. Gaining electrons, in the sense of sharing them with other atoms, is the mechanism of forming chemical bonds, hence molecules. The lightest elements make not only the tightest bonds, hence the most stable molecules, but introduce a unique property crucial for life: of all the natural elements, only oxygen, nitrogen and carbon regularly form double and triple bonds with one another, so saturating all their tendencies to combine further. These four elements, Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, also provide an example of the astonishing togetherness of our universe. They make up the “organic” molecules that constitute living organisms on a planet, and the nuclei of these same elements interact to generate the light of its star. Then the organisms on the planet come to depend wholly on that starlight, as they must if life is to persist. So it is that all life on the Earth runs on sunlight. I do not need spiritual enlightenment to know that I am one with the universe -- that is just good physics.
Now let’s go up a step, to molecules. By far the most important molecule for living organisms is water. I think we can feel sure that if there is no liquid water, there is no life, anywhere in the universe. Water also happens to be the strangest molecule in all chemistry; and its strangest property is that ice floats. If ice did not float, I doubt that life would exist in the universe.
Virtually everything contracts on cooling. That is how we make thermometers: a bit of red-dyed alcohol, mercury if you can afford it, put in a capillary tube contracts on cooling, and you read the temperature. Everything does this. So does water, down to four degrees centigrade. But between four and zero degrees centigrade, where it freezes, it expands, so rapidly that the ice that forms is less dense than liquid water. The complete hydrogen bonding among the water molecules in ice holds them more widely spaced than in liquid water, so ice floats.
Nothing else does that. But what if water behaved like virtually everything else, and continued to contract on cooling? Then the increasingly dense water would constantly be sinking to the bottom, and freezing would begin at the bottom, , not as now at the top, and would end by freezing the water solidly. A really large mass of ice takes forever to melt, even at higher temperatures. On any planet in the universe, if a freeze occured even once in many millions of years, that would probably be enough to block the rise of life, and to kill any life that had arisen.
And now another step up, to stars. The first generation of stars began as hydrogen, and lived by fusing it to helium. A hydrogen atom is composed of a proton as nucleus and one electron moving about it; but at temperatures of about five million degrees they are driven apart, and one is dealing with naked protons, hydrogen nuclei. Now four such protons, each of mass 1, begin to fuse to a helium nucleus of about mass 4, but in this process a very small amount of mass is lost -- four protons have a slightly larger mass than a helium nucleus -- and this tiny loss of mass is converted into radiation according to Einstein’s equation, E=mc2. Even so small a loss of mass yields a huge amount of radiation, and that flood of radiation pours out in the interior of what had been a collapsing mass of gas and stops its further collapse, stabilizing it, and is also the source of starlight.
Eventually, though, this process runs every star short of hydrogen. With that, it generates less energy and so begins to collapse again, and as it collapses it heats up some more. When the temperature in its deep interior reaches about one hundred million degrees, the helium nuclei begin to fuse. Two helium nuclei, each of mass 4, fuse to make beryllium, of mass 8, a nucleus so unstable as to disintegrate within 10-16 second (ten million billionths of a second).Yet in these enormous masses of material and at such high temperatures there are always a few beryllium nuclei, and here and there one of them adds another helium: 8 and 4 make 12, the mass of carbon. That is how carbon comes into the universe. Then a carbon nucleus can add another helium: 12 plus 4 make 16, the mass of oxygen, and that is how oxygen enters the universe. Also carbon, even at somewhat lower temperatures, can add hydrogens, and carbon-12 plus two hydrogens make 14, the mass of nitrogen. That is how nitrogen enters the universe.
These new processes, together with its heating by collapse, have by now puffed up our star to enormous size. It has become a Red Giant, a dying star. In its dying, it has made the elements of which life is composed. It is a moving realization that stars must die before organisms can live.
These Red Giants are in a delicate condition, and by distillation and in such stellar catastrophes as flares, novas, and supernovas they spew their substance out to become part of the great masses of gases and dust that fill all interstellar space. Over eons of time, great masses of those gases and dust are drawn together by their mutual gravitation to form new generations of stars. But such latecomers, unlike the first generation of stars made wholly of hydrogen and helium, contain also carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. And we know that our Sun is such a later-generation star because we are here, because the Earth is one of those planets in the universe that supports life.
Finally, we have a cosmic principle: To have such a universe as this requires an extraordinary balance between two great cosmic forces: that of dispersion (expansion), powered by the Big Bang, and that of aggregation, powered by gravitation. If the forces of expansion were dominant, that would yield an isotropically dispersed universe lacking local clusters, galaxies or planetary systems; all the matter would be flying apart, and there would be no large solid bodies, hence no place for life. If, on the contrary, gravitation were dominant, the initial expansion produced by the Big Bang would have slowed up and come to an end, followed by a universal collapse, perhaps in preparation for the next Big Bang. There would be no time for life to arise, or it would be quickly destroyed.
We live in a universe in which it has just lately been realized that those two forces are in exact balance, so that the universe as a whole is expanding wherever one looks, everything very distant is going away from us, but locally there are so-called local groups and clusters, where whole clusters of galaxies are held together by gravitation. Our own relatively small cluster contains, in addition to the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy (M31). It is very much like our galaxy, but a little smaller, and there is also a still smaller galaxy, all part of our local group. Most of you have probably heard that we measure the expansion of the universe by the so-called red shift. The further one looks out into space, the redder the light is, compared to the same sources on earth. That is interpeted as an expression of the Doppler Effect, and taken to mean that the more distant an astronomical body, the faster it is receding from us. But the first such color shift ever to be discovered, by the astronomer Slipher back in 1912, was not a red shift by a blue shift. He was looking at our sister galaxy, Andromeda, and observed a blue shift because, far from receding, the Andromeda galaxy is coming toward us at about 125 miles per second. It is just this exact balance between the steady expansion of the universe as a whole and its stability locally that affords both enormous reaches of time and countless sites for the development of life.
I have here only sampled briefly an argument that extends much further. The nub of that argument is that our universe possesses a remarkably detailed constellation of properties, and as it happens, it is just that constellation that breeds life. It takes no great intelligence or imagination to conceive of other universes, indeed any number of them, each of which might be perfectly good, stable universes, but lifeless.
How did it happen that, with what seem to be so many other options, our universe came out just as it did? From our own self‑centered point of view, that is the best way to make a universe: But what I want to know is, how did the universe find that out?
It may be objected that the question would not arise if we were not here to ask it. Yet here we are, and strangely insistent on asking that kind of question. Perhaps that indeed is the answer: That this is a life‑breeding universe precisely in order eventually to bring forth creatures that ask and attempt to answer such questions, so that through them the universe can come not only to be, but to be known; indeed can come to know itself. That leads me to my other great problem, that of consciousness.]
George Wald, Nobel Laureate
Brick Gold
Gold Member
- Jan 30, 2022
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This should have settled the argument.Also:
'Fireball' meteorite that crashed in Michigan holds extraterrestrial organic compounds
'Fireball' meteorite that crashed in Michigan holds extraterrestrial organic compounds
The space rock landed on a frozen lake on Jan. 16, 2018.www.livescience.com
BackAgain
Neutronium Member & truth speaker #StopBrandon
It’s unbelievigable ! It’s incredibabble! It’s astoundulating!You mean... hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen?
Yeah, that must have been a real shocker.
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