...was watching the History planet last night, and there was a pretty neat episode about the birth of our planet, if anyone happened to peek in. Anyhow, I thought it was absolutely amazing that it took the planet about 1 and 1/2 billion years to convert all the rust in the oceans to oxygen?! I mean, these are the processes that were necessary for a planet to support something so fragile as life? I was stupified.
Heck, my facts could wrong, about the timeline and what not, but I'm thinking I recalled correctly.
It was the National Geographic Channel. And I watched it all. The theory was that debris and such from space flew down and had 20% water and a good amount of clay made up of them and the water took millions of years to create our oceans. Then came the theory of the rusting.
It is truly amazing how old our planet is, about 4.7 billion years old! And the universe is estimated at about 15 billion years. it took almost 2 billions yrs for our planet to create an atmosphere, oxygen etc. And before there was any oxygen on Earth primitive life survived on carbon dioxide, which refers back to the rusting of all these lifeforms when oxygen was created.
What I find amazing is that, given our planet is about 4.5 billion years old, life started up "only" about 600 million years later (about 3.9 billion years ago). It's as if life "couldn't wait" to get started.
It used to be thought that life was "fragile." Now the CW is life is very, very tenacious and opportunistic. Given a fraction of a chance, it will not just survive but thrive.
What I also find perhaps more astounding is that scientists are suspecting a) life didn't begin in some "primordial organic soup," but may've begun underground; and b) that the vast bulk of the Terran biosphere may, in fact, be below ground; that what's visible and familiar may be but a "smear" on the surface.
Kinda like the dark matter thing: everything we've ever studied about the universe, from the first caveman on, gazing upon all that celestial luminosity, is but a tiny fraction of all the stuff that's out there.
All this time, we've been studying the foam on the surface, ignorant of the ocean beneath.
Who was it that said, not that long ago, something about "the end of physics" (Hawking)? Man, I want whatever he was smokin'
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Saying that these are all just theories is a why to dismiss them. The idea, in the bible, that the Earth is only 6,000 years old is just a theory. So, which theory has the most evidence backing it up?
I'm not dismissing them. The biblical creation of the world is also a theory and I admit that.
I think there is actually plenty of evidence against eveolution but people refuse to look for it and even when it is right in front of them they still don't care.
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I mean, these are the processes that were necessary for a planet to support something so fragile as life? I was stupified. 
Dec 20th, 2005 02:15 PM
oh yeah I forgot that part.
