Origins of Life
Joseph J Kusnell for Boomeryearbook.com
How did life begin?
In the Cosmos that engulfs us, there are upwards of a billion, trillion, trillion stars with almost as many planets. Do you know how many that is? Here’s how many that is:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars and planets.
You would be hard pressed to find many knowledgeable people that now believe that among all those trillions of planets, earth alone harbors intelligent life forms. It is far more likely that there are thousands and perhaps millions of such planets scattered across the great reaches of the limitless Cosmos, that harbor life.
But those places are so far away that they have very little reality to us. We are never going into outer space no matter what you hear and no one from outer space is coming here. The distances are simply too vast. (For more: see my article titled: Space Exploration – A Journey To Nowhere”.)
So our focus in this paper will be our Solar System.
Life as we know it exists today on Planet Earth. Earth is the only planet in our system that is suitable for it. The reason is fairly easy to comprehend: Mercury is far too close to the Sun and therefore too hot. Venus while not as close and not as hot, is still too close and too hot. Earth as Goldilocks would say is “not too close and not too far but just right” and therefore we have life. Mars is too far away from the Sun to feel its warmth and therefore too cold for life and so there is no life. It all depends on two things: (1) how far you are from the Sun and (2) how powerful are the Sun’s rays that reach you.
Get the picture? The inner planets are, in order: (1) way too hot (2) too hot (3) just right and (4) way too cold. And all, as I said, because of two things: (1) their distance from the Sun and (2) the strength of the Suns rays that reach them.
With that having been said, I begin my paper on life in the Solar system.
The Beginning:
What is the sun? What fuel does it burn? Is the Sun’s fuel renewable? If not, how long will it last and what happens when it is gone?
This is a hypothetical – a theory of how life began. I hope you find it interesting.
The Sun is a star. A very small, out of the way star, one of billions of trillions of trillions of such Stars.
The Sun is on fire. Its fuel is created by a process known as nuclear fusion, a process that stars can affect but we cannot.
The Sun’s fuel is finite, that means it is not renewable, which is to say one day it will run out. At that time, the fire will go out, the heat and light that Earth receives from the Sun will come to and end, and we will be gone. But not to worry, this is not scheduled to happen for a very long time and chances are we will be gone long before then.
Our Sun has a lifetime of fifteen billion years and was created ten billion years ago. We therefore are two thirds of the way through the Sun’s life cycle and because of that, two thirds of the Sun’s fuel is gone. The Sun is not what it used to be.
Stars are all born and all die in the same way – as a gigantic, cataclysmic explosion in the heavens. They are born in a Supernova and when they exhaust their fuel, they die as a Supernova. It is a cycle of life and death.
Understanding all this is essential to understanding the theory I am about to present concerning the beginning of life in our solar system, a theory it is likely you have not heard before.
Many of you reading this paper have a home with a fireplace. I wish to talk to you about that fireplace. First let me set the scene.
The home is a hunting lodge in the Great northwoods of Canada. You are there with guests. It’s a bitterly cold night in the middle of December and the wind is howling outside the cabin. The cabin is large with a big family room that has a big fireplace.
As the night comes on, one of your guests suggests you all go into the family room and sit around a cozy fire. You agree so you go about the business of starting a fire in the fireplace. You take the logs that are stacked beside the fireplace, put them in, and in minutes you have a roaring fire going. The room quickly heats up.
Unfortunately in your haste to get a fire going, you put on way too many logs and as a result, the fire quickly becomes much too hot for comfort. You have given it too much fuel.
Rule 1: A fire is hottest when it has the most fuel available to burn.
Rule 2: A fire’s heat diminishes as its fuel is consumed.
Rule 3. A fire goes out when its fuel is used up.
Back in your family room, your guests quickly become uncomfortable. The room is just too hot and the closer they are to the fireplace, the hotter it is. If the fire is not banked or they don’t move back, they will all die of heat stroke. Since the fire cannot be banked, you suggest they all move to the back of the room as far from the hot fire as they can get. And so they do. After relocating, they are more comfortable.
But as the night progresses, three things happen: (1) the logs in the fireplace begin to burn down (2) the warmth from the fire starts to recede and (3) the back of the room that was warm earlier now begins to get downright chilly. Something has to be done.
You and your guests have three choices. (1) Go into another room (2) Add more logs (fuel) to the fire. (3) Move closer to the fire where it is apt to be warmer.
Since there are no more logs inside and it is way too cold to go outside, and your guests prefer the family room, they select Option #3 and move closer to the fire. As a reward, they are immediately warmer.
But the evening is long and the night is bitterly cold and as the logs continue to burn down which they do, the warmth doesn’t radiate as far as it did earlier and so it isn’t long before the problem reappears: the cold is reaching them once again.
And once again the guests have their choice and once again they chose to move closer to the fire.
It’s a good idea but it is only a temporary solution because the real problem is the fire is running out of fuel and it’s only a matter of time before the fuel will be gone and the room will become uninhabitable no matter how close they move.
And why will the fire go out?
It will run out of fuel?
Correct. Fire needs fuel and without fuel, a fire will go out.
This is the dynamic upon which I have constructed my theory – The Theory Of The Progression of Life Throughout Our Solar System.
The Solar System:
You all are familiar with our Solar System. You know what it looks like. There are nine planets each zipping around the sun at various distances. The planets are broken into two groups known as (1) the inner planets and (2) the outer planets.
The outer planets are generally large concentrations of gas, and they don’t concern us. The inner planets however are rocky planets with a core like our own and it those that do concern us. They are: (1) Mercury (2) Venus (3) Earth and (4) Mars.
At the present time, the planet Mercury, nearest the Sun, is the hottest of all the inner planets, far too hot to shelter any living life form that is familiar to us.
Next in line from the Sun is the planet Venus and Venus, while not nearly as hot as Mercury, is still too hot to house familiar life forms.
The third planet from the Sun is Earth. Earth is far enough away from the Sun so that the Sun’s heat is not as strong thereby modulating our temperature to where life can exist, and so we have life.
Mars, the fourth rocky planet from the Sun is far beyond Earth. By the time the Sun’s rays reach Mars, there is little heat left in them and so Mars is bitterly cold. Too cold for life as we know it; therefore, life does not exist on Mars.
So we see that life is much about the heat and light that emanates from the Sun, the strength of which depends on two factors: (1) how far one is from the Sun and (2) how hot the Sun is at the time. It is important to remember that the power of the Sun’s rays is a product of the amount of fuel available to be burned. Therefore, the rays had the most power when the Sun was new and have much less power today.
As a result of this dynamic, we can say with certainty that things have changed in our Solar System. Mercury is still very hot but nevertheless cooler than it was in the beginning. And the same dynamic applies to each inner planet in turn. Each planet is cooler today than it was yesterday but warmer today than it will be tomorrow.
Here is a table demonstrating how the temperatures of the planets might have been affected by the amount of fuel remaining in the core of the Sun at any one time.
Planet When the Sun Today Tomorrow
_____________Was New ____________________________________________
Mercury 1,300 degrees 900 degrees 500 degrees
Venus 900 degrees 500 degrees 100 degrees
Earth 500 degrees 100 degrees (-) 300 degrees
Mars 100 degrees (-) 300 degrees (-) 700 degrees
Note. These are not real temperatures. I am using them to demonstrate a theory.
You can see what I am driving at. Look at Mars. Back when the Sun was new (Column #1) and its core very hot and its heat radiating very far, the temperature on Mars was 100 degrees, perfect for life to have developed. The other three planets, however, were all just too hot for life as we know it.
Today (Column #2), when the Sun’s strength has diminished because of a reduction of available fuel, temperatures have gotten cooler on all the planets. Mars, which previously had temperatures of 100 degrees, has fallen now to minus a 300 degrees and is therefore, no longer life-friendly and so, there is no longer life on Mars.
But look at Planet Earth. Earth that was far too hot for life at the beginning (500 degrees) has cooled down (100 degrees) and is now life-friendly and so, we have life on Earth. It seems to me that life establishes itself where and when it can.
Look again at the table and Column #3 – Tomorrow. Tomorrow the Sun’s rays will be even weaker as more and more of the Sun’s fuel is gone. As a result, each Planet will have cooled down. For example:
Mars, cold Today at minus 300, will be colder Tomorrow at minus 700.
Earth, moderate today at 100, will become life-unfriendly Tomorrow at minus 300. Venus, hot Today at 500, will become life-friendly Tomorrow at 100.
Mercury, hot Today at 900 degrees will remain hot Tomorrow at 500.
So this is my theory: I believe that life may jump from inner planet to inner planet as the surface temperature allows. That at one time (in the Beginning), life as we know it existed on Mars. And that one day in the future, when Earth becomes too cold to sustain our life form, life will disappear from Earth and reappear on Venus and later, even on Mercury is one can exist that close to a dying Sun.
But sadly, in time the Sun’s fuel will all be gone and all life will disappear forever from the Solar system. But it won’t matter, because shortly after that, the Solar System itself will disappear as the Sun explodes in a cataclysmic Supernova. And thus it will all end.
So that’s my theory. That life jumps from planet to planet, taking off a few hundred millions years in between to renew itself as the temperature on the next planet becomes hospitable. During the interval, all signs of life are removed from the previous planet.
But there is another possibility. That possibility is that despite the heat and light and warmth on a planet, other composites are required such as carbon, if we are to have life as we know it.
Lacking such essential elements, life could not develop no matter how warm and bright and comfortable a planet may be. In that case, since life exists on Earth, we know Earth has those other essential elements. And since it does not exist on other planets and no sign has been found that it ever existed on Mars, perhaps life in this solar system is and has always been limited to the third rock from the Sun.
One day soon, we will know that answer.
Think about it.
Joey
Articles in Joey’s Comments and Controversy are the express opinions of Joey and not boomeryearbook. However, while non-members can read articles on boomeryearbook.com only members can make comments. Joey’s section is called Joey’s Talk and Controversy for a good reason. In Joey’s words, “I hope I’ve given you food for thought and you will join boomeryearbook and respond”.
www.boomeryearbook.com is a social networking site connecting the Baby Boomer generation. Share your thoughts, rediscover old friends, or expand your mind with brain games provided by clinical psychologist Dr. Karen Turner. Join today to discover the many ways we are helping Boomers connect for fun and profit.
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE – DID LIFE BEGIN ON PLANET EARTH?
Monday, August 3rd, 2009Origins of Life
Joseph J Kusnell for Boomeryearbook.com
How did life begin?
In the Cosmos that engulfs us, there are upwards of a billion, trillion, trillion stars with almost as many planets. Do you know how many that is? Here’s how many that is:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars and planets.
You would be hard pressed to find many knowledgeable people that now believe that among all those trillions of planets, earth alone harbors intelligent life forms. It is far more likely that there are thousands and perhaps millions of such planets scattered across the great reaches of the limitless Cosmos, that harbor life.
But those places are so far away that they have very little reality to us. We are never going into outer space no matter what you hear and no one from outer space is coming here. The distances are simply too vast. (For more: see my article titled: Space Exploration – A Journey To Nowhere”.)
So our focus in this paper will be our Solar System.
Life as we know it exists today on Planet Earth. Earth is the only planet in our system that is suitable for it. The reason is fairly easy to comprehend: Mercury is far too close to the Sun and therefore too hot. Venus while not as close and not as hot, is still too close and too hot. Earth as Goldilocks would say is “not too close and not too far but just right” and therefore we have life. Mars is too far away from the Sun to feel its warmth and therefore too cold for life and so there is no life. It all depends on two things: (1) how far you are from the Sun and (2) how powerful are the Sun’s rays that reach you.
Get the picture? The inner planets are, in order: (1) way too hot (2) too hot (3) just right and (4) way too cold. And all, as I said, because of two things: (1) their distance from the Sun and (2) the strength of the Suns rays that reach them.
With that having been said, I begin my paper on life in the Solar system.
The Beginning:
What is the sun? What fuel does it burn? Is the Sun’s fuel renewable? If not, how long will it last and what happens when it is gone?
This is a hypothetical – a theory of how life began. I hope you find it interesting.
The Sun is a star. A very small, out of the way star, one of billions of trillions of trillions of such Stars.
The Sun is on fire. Its fuel is created by a process known as nuclear fusion, a process that stars can affect but we cannot.
The Sun’s fuel is finite, that means it is not renewable, which is to say one day it will run out. At that time, the fire will go out, the heat and light that Earth receives from the Sun will come to and end, and we will be gone. But not to worry, this is not scheduled to happen for a very long time and chances are we will be gone long before then.
Our Sun has a lifetime of fifteen billion years and was created ten billion years ago. We therefore are two thirds of the way through the Sun’s life cycle and because of that, two thirds of the Sun’s fuel is gone. The Sun is not what it used to be.
Stars are all born and all die in the same way – as a gigantic, cataclysmic explosion in the heavens. They are born in a Supernova and when they exhaust their fuel, they die as a Supernova. It is a cycle of life and death.
Understanding all this is essential to understanding the theory I am about to present concerning the beginning of life in our solar system, a theory it is likely you have not heard before.
Many of you reading this paper have a home with a fireplace. I wish to talk to you about that fireplace. First let me set the scene.
The home is a hunting lodge in the Great northwoods of Canada. You are there with guests. It’s a bitterly cold night in the middle of December and the wind is howling outside the cabin. The cabin is large with a big family room that has a big fireplace.
As the night comes on, one of your guests suggests you all go into the family room and sit around a cozy fire. You agree so you go about the business of starting a fire in the fireplace. You take the logs that are stacked beside the fireplace, put them in, and in minutes you have a roaring fire going. The room quickly heats up.
Unfortunately in your haste to get a fire going, you put on way too many logs and as a result, the fire quickly becomes much too hot for comfort. You have given it too much fuel.
Rule 1: A fire is hottest when it has the most fuel available to burn.
Rule 2: A fire’s heat diminishes as its fuel is consumed.
Rule 3. A fire goes out when its fuel is used up.
Back in your family room, your guests quickly become uncomfortable. The room is just too hot and the closer they are to the fireplace, the hotter it is. If the fire is not banked or they don’t move back, they will all die of heat stroke. Since the fire cannot be banked, you suggest they all move to the back of the room as far from the hot fire as they can get. And so they do. After relocating, they are more comfortable.
But as the night progresses, three things happen: (1) the logs in the fireplace begin to burn down (2) the warmth from the fire starts to recede and (3) the back of the room that was warm earlier now begins to get downright chilly. Something has to be done.
You and your guests have three choices. (1) Go into another room (2) Add more logs (fuel) to the fire. (3) Move closer to the fire where it is apt to be warmer.
Since there are no more logs inside and it is way too cold to go outside, and your guests prefer the family room, they select Option #3 and move closer to the fire. As a reward, they are immediately warmer.
But the evening is long and the night is bitterly cold and as the logs continue to burn down which they do, the warmth doesn’t radiate as far as it did earlier and so it isn’t long before the problem reappears: the cold is reaching them once again.
And once again the guests have their choice and once again they chose to move closer to the fire.
It’s a good idea but it is only a temporary solution because the real problem is the fire is running out of fuel and it’s only a matter of time before the fuel will be gone and the room will become uninhabitable no matter how close they move.
And why will the fire go out?
It will run out of fuel?
Correct. Fire needs fuel and without fuel, a fire will go out.
This is the dynamic upon which I have constructed my theory – The Theory Of The Progression of Life Throughout Our Solar System.
The Solar System:
You all are familiar with our Solar System. You know what it looks like. There are nine planets each zipping around the sun at various distances. The planets are broken into two groups known as (1) the inner planets and (2) the outer planets.
The outer planets are generally large concentrations of gas, and they don’t concern us. The inner planets however are rocky planets with a core like our own and it those that do concern us. They are: (1) Mercury (2) Venus (3) Earth and (4) Mars.
At the present time, the planet Mercury, nearest the Sun, is the hottest of all the inner planets, far too hot to shelter any living life form that is familiar to us.
Next in line from the Sun is the planet Venus and Venus, while not nearly as hot as Mercury, is still too hot to house familiar life forms.
The third planet from the Sun is Earth. Earth is far enough away from the Sun so that the Sun’s heat is not as strong thereby modulating our temperature to where life can exist, and so we have life.
Mars, the fourth rocky planet from the Sun is far beyond Earth. By the time the Sun’s rays reach Mars, there is little heat left in them and so Mars is bitterly cold. Too cold for life as we know it; therefore, life does not exist on Mars.
So we see that life is much about the heat and light that emanates from the Sun, the strength of which depends on two factors: (1) how far one is from the Sun and (2) how hot the Sun is at the time. It is important to remember that the power of the Sun’s rays is a product of the amount of fuel available to be burned. Therefore, the rays had the most power when the Sun was new and have much less power today.
As a result of this dynamic, we can say with certainty that things have changed in our Solar System. Mercury is still very hot but nevertheless cooler than it was in the beginning. And the same dynamic applies to each inner planet in turn. Each planet is cooler today than it was yesterday but warmer today than it will be tomorrow.
Here is a table demonstrating how the temperatures of the planets might have been affected by the amount of fuel remaining in the core of the Sun at any one time.
Planet When the Sun Today Tomorrow
_____________Was New ____________________________________________
Mercury 1,300 degrees 900 degrees 500 degrees
Venus 900 degrees 500 degrees 100 degrees
Earth 500 degrees 100 degrees (-) 300 degrees
Mars 100 degrees (-) 300 degrees (-) 700 degrees
Note. These are not real temperatures. I am using them to demonstrate a theory.
You can see what I am driving at. Look at Mars. Back when the Sun was new (Column #1) and its core very hot and its heat radiating very far, the temperature on Mars was 100 degrees, perfect for life to have developed. The other three planets, however, were all just too hot for life as we know it.
Today (Column #2), when the Sun’s strength has diminished because of a reduction of available fuel, temperatures have gotten cooler on all the planets. Mars, which previously had temperatures of 100 degrees, has fallen now to minus a 300 degrees and is therefore, no longer life-friendly and so, there is no longer life on Mars.
But look at Planet Earth. Earth that was far too hot for life at the beginning (500 degrees) has cooled down (100 degrees) and is now life-friendly and so, we have life on Earth. It seems to me that life establishes itself where and when it can.
Look again at the table and Column #3 – Tomorrow. Tomorrow the Sun’s rays will be even weaker as more and more of the Sun’s fuel is gone. As a result, each Planet will have cooled down. For example:
Mars, cold Today at minus 300, will be colder Tomorrow at minus 700.
Earth, moderate today at 100, will become life-unfriendly Tomorrow at minus 300. Venus, hot Today at 500, will become life-friendly Tomorrow at 100.
Mercury, hot Today at 900 degrees will remain hot Tomorrow at 500.
So this is my theory: I believe that life may jump from inner planet to inner planet as the surface temperature allows. That at one time (in the Beginning), life as we know it existed on Mars. And that one day in the future, when Earth becomes too cold to sustain our life form, life will disappear from Earth and reappear on Venus and later, even on Mercury is one can exist that close to a dying Sun.
But sadly, in time the Sun’s fuel will all be gone and all life will disappear forever from the Solar system. But it won’t matter, because shortly after that, the Solar System itself will disappear as the Sun explodes in a cataclysmic Supernova. And thus it will all end.
So that’s my theory. That life jumps from planet to planet, taking off a few hundred millions years in between to renew itself as the temperature on the next planet becomes hospitable. During the interval, all signs of life are removed from the previous planet.
But there is another possibility. That possibility is that despite the heat and light and warmth on a planet, other composites are required such as carbon, if we are to have life as we know it.
Lacking such essential elements, life could not develop no matter how warm and bright and comfortable a planet may be. In that case, since life exists on Earth, we know Earth has those other essential elements. And since it does not exist on other planets and no sign has been found that it ever existed on Mars, perhaps life in this solar system is and has always been limited to the third rock from the Sun.
One day soon, we will know that answer.
Think about it.
Joey
Articles in Joey’s Comments and Controversy are the express opinions of Joey and not boomeryearbook. However, while non-members can read articles on boomeryearbook.com only members can make comments. Joey’s section is called Joey’s Talk and Controversy for a good reason. In Joey’s words, “I hope I’ve given you food for thought and you will join boomeryearbook and respond”.
www.boomeryearbook.com is a social networking site connecting the Baby Boomer generation. Share your thoughts, rediscover old friends, or expand your mind with brain games provided by clinical psychologist Dr. Karen Turner. Join today to discover the many ways we are helping Boomers connect for fun and profit.
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