How the Big Bang Evolved into Life On Earth
Should we as humans expect to find intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe? There are many reasons for and against this concept, but first we should trace just how our terrestrial life started.
The beginning of time and the universe began with the Big Bang. This was an explosion that started the expansion of the universe. In the most basic sense, the standard model is simply the idea that every bit of the matter and energy in the universe was once compressed to an unimaginable density. In the big bang, the material exploded outward into the formation of matter that we see today. Shortly after this event everything in the universe was very dense and very hot. It was only until 500,000 years later that it cooled enough so that hydrogen and helium could form by fusion processes. Even then, it took another two billion years of cooling for enough clumps of interstellar dust and gas, called molecular clouds, to achieve stability in the universe.
From these molecular clouds, stars were able to form due to compression of the material by gravitational forces. In the core of a star fusion takes place that causes it to emit light. If the star is initially large enough, its death happens in the form of a supernova explosion. During this explosion, in less than one second, every element up to and including uranium is synthesized by fusion and dispersed into space. As time passed in the universe, the heavy element content as a whole increased, so new stars were more enriched.
Production of planets is an entirely different process. Planets form from the accretion disk surrounding newly formed stars. This material, comprised of dust and rock, collides and sticks together eventually gaining ...
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...ls. Or, we presently may have the technology, but since humans have only had the ability to send detectible waves (like radio) outward from the planet for the last 100 years or so, and taking into account the great distances these waves have to travel, it is quite possible that nothing intelligent has heard us yet. In my opinion, if indeed we are alone in this universe, wouldn't it just be a terrible waste of space?
Bibliography:
1. http://www.setileague.org/articles/little.htm
2. Ward, Peter D. and Brownlee, Donald. Rare Earth -- Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe. Copernicus, 2000
3. Kuhn, Karl F. In Quest of the Universe. 2nd Edition. West Publishing Company. 1994
4. http://www.u-net.com/ph/mas/home.htm
5. Hawking, Stephen. The Big Bang and Black Holes. Vol. 8. World Scientific Publishing Co. 1993
6. http://www.edventure.com
It is during this phase of planetary formation that all the requirements for life were most likely gathered (Lammer et al., 2009)
Are we alone in the Universe? This has been the big question all semester. We know that life can develop in the universe because of our presence here, but there is no simple definition of life. There is an essential characteristic of life and that is the ability to reproduce. Dr. Frank Drake developed the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence). Drake believed if extraterrestrial civilization were going to communicate with us, this would be the signal. Not every star is home to an intelligent, communicative civilization, but what keeps SETI going is the idea that perhaps some solar star is. To guide the SETI, the drake equation was established. (N=R*fp ne fl fi L) It is an
Over a 1950 summer lunch at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the great physicist Enrico Fermi asked his colleagues an unexpected question – “Don’t you ever wonder where everybody is?” Laughter went around the table as everyone immediately knew that he was talking about extraterrestrial intelligence [1]. If life arises fairly commonly, as Fermi believed, it follows that there should be advanced civilizations with the desire to visit and colonize Earth close enough to do so. However, there is no incontrovertible evidence of aliens on Earth, either now or in the past. This is called the Fermi Paradox. The lack of observational evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence is known as the ‘Great Silence.’[13]
Solar nebula is a rotating flattened disk of gas and dust in which the outer part of the disk became planets while the center bulge part became the sun. Its inner part is hot, which is heated by a young sun and due to the impact of the gas falling on the disk during its collapse. However, the outer part is cold and far below the freezing point of water. In the solar nebula, the process of condensation occurs after enough cooling of solar nebula and results in the formation into a disk. Condensation is a process of cooling the gas and its molecules stick together to form liquid or solid particles. Therefore, condensation is the change from gas to liquid. In this process, the gas must cool below a critical temperature. Accretion is the process in which the tiny condensed particles from the nebula begin to stick together to form bigger pieces. Solar nebular theory explains the formation of the solar system. In the solar nebula, tiny grains stuck together and created bigger grains that grew into clumps, possibly held together by electrical forces similar to those that make lint stick to your clothes. Subsequent collisions, if not too violent, allowed these smaller particles to grow into objects ranging in size from millimeters to kilometers. These larger objects are called planetesimals. As planetesimals moved within the disk and collide with one another, planets formed. Because astronomers have no direct way to observe how the Solar System formed, they rely heavily on computer simulations to study that remote time. Computer simulations try to solve Newton’s laws of motion for the complex mix of dust and gas that we believe made up the solar nebula. Merging of the planetesimals increased their mass and thus their gravitational attraction. That, in turn, helped them grow even more massive by drawing planetesimals into clumps or rings around the sun. The process of planets building undergoes consumption of most of the planetesimals. Some survived planetesimals form small moons, asteroids, and comets. The leftover Rocky planetesimals that remained between Jupiter and Mars were stirred by Jupiter’s gravitational force. Therefore, these Rocky planetesimals are unable to assemble into a planet. These planetesimals are known as asteroids. Formation of solar system is explained by solar nebular theory. A rotating flat disk with center bulge is the solar nebula. The outer part of the disk becomes planets and the center bulge becomes the sun.
After discovering the approximate age of the universe to be roughly 14 billion years old I was fascinated. To even try to fathom the idea that everything within the Universe has probably existed for such a vast amount of time is almost incomprehensible. It makes one wonder what our own significance is in this world which makes up a small amount of the Universe. Why were we even put here? Honestly, the Earth would probably be a lot happier if we were never put here because all we have done to this planet is destroy nature and use all of the natural resources available to us. So why are we apart of this vast scale of the Universe? Will mankind eventually discover more of the Universe and find other planets that are inhabitable? Similar questions were asked and answered in an essay written by Alan Lightman.
Giant clouds form around a star that creates pressure--nebula. Differences in temperature create a gravitational collapse which creates protostar
Baum et al. further point out that ETI could harm us intentionally as they could attack us out of selfishness or out of a more altruistic desire to protect the galaxy from us or harm us unintentionally as they might give us a biological or computer disease that our defences cannot handle (p.2122-2125). While there is some justification for this point of view but there are reasons to believe that extraterrestrials would be cooperative, ETI being more intelligent and intellectual beings would tend to choose cooperative options as a non-cooperative measure is a risky strategy and can hinder the evolutionary process ( Baum et al., 2011, p.2119) .Searching for life beyond the confines of our very own planet, Earth, has been an ongoing obsession by astronomers and merely detecting the existence of ETI can be beneficial because it will be such a monumental discovery - arguably the most important discovery in human history (Baum et al., 2011, p.2118; SETI, n.d., p.109). If ETI cooperates with us, then they might be of assistance to many of humanity’s biggest challenges such as poverty, global warming, and enlighten us to the truth of our existence.
Around 15 billion years ago, a huge explosion occurred and it started the expansion of the universe. This explosion is known as the big bang. What existed before this event is completely unknown can only be speculated upon. The Big Bang basically involved an explosion of space within itself unlike a normal explosion of a bomb were fragments are thrown outward. The Big Bang then began laying the foundations for the universe. The first stars form 100-200 million years after the Big Bang, and reionized the Universe. After that, the first supernova exploded and spread nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, carbon, and iron through uranium throughout the Universe. A supernova is a the explosion of a star, it is the largest explosion which takes place in space, radiating as much energy as the sun is supposed to in its entire life span. The solar system then formed 4.6 billion years ago.
Stars are born in the interstellar clouds of gas and dust called nebulae that are primarily found in the spiral arms of galaxies. These clouds are composed mainly of hydrogen gas but also contain carbon, oxygen and various other elements, but we will see that the carbon and oxygen play a crucial role in star formation so they get special mention. A nebula by itself is not enough to form a star however, and it requires the assistance of some outside force. A close passing star or a shock wave from a supernova or some other event can have just the needed effect. It is the same idea as having a number of marbles on a trampoline and then rolling a larger ball through the middle of them or around the edges. The marbles will conglomerate around the path of the ball, and as more marbles clump together, still more will be attracted. This is essentially what happens during the formation of a star (Stellar Birth, 2004).
Gravity collapsed the matter, forming the sun in the center of the nebula. As the sun came to be, the rest of the material began to clump up and small particles came together and became into bigger and better particles. Solar wind took light elements such as hydrogen and helium, and only left rocky materials such as earth. The solar winds led the rest of the materials to become into gas giants. This also led to asteroids, comets, planets, and moons to be created. Earths rocky core was made first with dense elements binded together. As dense material went to the middle, the lighter material was then made into the crust. Eventually, earths magnetic field was made and gravity took light elements. As Earth was evolving, earth was impacted by a large mass that made pieces of the planets mantle go into space. Gravity made it possible for these pieces to form the moon. The mantle under the crust caused plate tectonics and the movement of the large plates on the surface of earth. Such impacts and a lot of friction made mountains and volcanoes possible, which then began to throw gasses into the atmosphere. The planet was in a state where liquid water neither freezes nor evaporates but can remain as a liquid, the water remained at the surface, which was the key role in the development of life. According to a new theory, disk instability, clumps of dust and gas collided together early in life. Over
One argument that supports the panspermia theory is the emergence of life soon after the heavy bombardment period of earth, between 4 and 3.8 billion years ago. During this period, researchers believe the Earth endured an extended and very powerful series of meteor showers. However, the earliest evidence for life on Earth suggests it was present some 3.83 billi...
One of the most common unanswered questions scientists find themselves asking is "Is there life on other planets?" Since the first famously documented UFO sighting in 1947, the idea of extra-terrestrial life has been debated almost non-stop. The subject has inspired many TV programs, such as The X-Files, and films (Mars Attacks, Independence Day, and the Men in Black films to name but a few). Scientists have come up with many new ideas and ways of trying to either prove or disprove the existence of life elsewhere.
Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, has said that “the origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to be satisfied to get it going” (Horgan 27).2 Noted evolutionary astronomer Frederick Hoyle has described the chances of life having evolved from nonlife to be about as likely as the chances that “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein” (Johnson 106). Why do respected scientists doubt what textbooks teach as fact? It would appear that these scientists know something that current theories describing the origin of life fail to explain. While current theories describe scenarios in which genetic material such as RNA becomes entrapped in a protective cell membrane as a likely recipe for the formation of life, they generally do not focus on the difficulties of forming and concentrating all of these components in the first place.3 To clarify, current theories suffer from what I call the “cookbook mentality.
Since the dawn of intelligent man, humanity has speculated about the origins of the universe.
The Big Bang Theory is the most logical and tested explanation for the universe. Scientists believe the universe began 13.7 billion years ago, when the universe exploded outward at ten billion Kelvin. Surprisingly, scientists believe the universe was smaller than an electron before it exploded. Also, the zone in which the big bang occurred doesn’t follow the common rules of physics. This is known as a singularity, which are believed to exist only in black holes. Sadly, scientists know very little about singularities because of their complexity and difficulty to study. Luckily, The Hadron Collider, a massive machine, has the capability to recreate a miniature big bang, which would allow scientists to study