Our Life Hating Universe
Science Fridays
On Fridays on the MPR/NPR news stations, most of the stories are scientific in nature, and they call it Science Fridays. I like that so since mimicry is the most sincere form of compliment, I thought I would do the same."Hey!" you might be thinking, "the date up above says Thursday and you're calling it Science Friday. Are you stupid, or just deceitful? And if you can't figure out what day it is, why should I pay attention to anything you say about science?"
Well, although it might say Thursday for the date, I post it so late that most people won't read it until Friday.
So there. Harumph.
One of the web sites I have bookmarked is NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day." I have visited this site every day since sometime in 1998, when my brother first showed it to me. What this NASA run web site has taught me over the years is that the universe is an extremely violent place that doesn't really nurture life, but rather destroys it at every opportunity.
People are always hoping, and professional astronomers are always looking to find other life out there in the universe. Good luck with that. Maybe in a perfect universe. Life in this universe is not exactly the norm, in fact it is a statistic fluke. Most of our own galaxy is nothing but regions of gas heated up to unimaginable temperatures, that they would vaporize not only everything on a planet, but the planet itself. All those pretty nebulae out there, they are regions of absolute death. If you were able to travel out that far in space (like if science started looking into Tesla's research instead of being stuck on Einstein and his gang, and finally figured our way out of the light speed barrier), by the time you could see one of these nebulas with the naked eye, you would already be vapor.
There are areas between the nebulae that are fairly safe, but they don't tend to stay safe. It is almost as though the only way for life to exist here, is due to being in some kind of supernatural protective bubble, that keeps out all this destruction. I didn't make up that term "bubble." That's actually what NASA calls it. In the picture below, you will see what is called "The Local Bubble."
All the colored regions around the sun here are regions of insanely hot temperatures. we're talking temperatures many times hotter than the surface of the sun. The picture below is a close up of our local bubble, and the picture below that shows the "heap o' trouble" that surrounds us.
Life in the galactic center is unthinkable. The central 50% of the galaxy is unfathomably hot, and fueled by a supermassive black hole. The seven or eight dwarf galaxies (I always forget the exact number) that orbit our own are more of the same.
Then there are the phenomenon of globular star clusters (below). These things are crazy. They are clusters of hundreds of stars jammed into an area the size of our solar system. Now that's a real wonderment.
What does the world of mathematics say about life? By randomly throwing various atoms at each other in order to accidentally create a self replicating protein, the chances are 1 to 10 to the umpteen billionth power (if you really want to know the exact figure I'll look it up again - otherwise just suffice to say it's huge). To make DNA you have to have lots of different accidentally occurring self replicating proteins (say that three times fast).
Now IF that could happen somewhere else out there in a minute space between the zones of vaporization, how far would it get before it was destroyed? They say that there were five major extinctions on earth (but really it was six - unless it was really just one with varied causes and effects. I'd like to see all the data on the various ash and iridium layers to see if all these layers are ever found in the same place). Anyway, for the sake of argument, the first iridium layer was at the end of the Ordovician era and was caused by a huge gamma ray burst, which in turn was caused by stellar explosion halfway across the galaxy a very long time earlier. It basically blew everything off 60% of the face of the earth. That then caused a chain reaction of death and destruction. Many species were lost forever, and there weren't that many then to begin with. The other extinctions were three huge volcanic events, one of which was so huge and long lasting that when it was over there were only a couple dozen genus of animals left. Then of course there was the big hit by the asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous. The asteroid smacked us so hard that our orbit around the sun was forever altered. Our orbit slowly pushed outward till it finally stabilized to where it is today. We've been fighting with frequent ice ages ever since. Yes, the big ice ages were the sixth "unofficial" extinction event.
Mars got hit with something early on that was so huge it cracked the planet open, leaving a rift that goes a third of the way across the planet's surface. This cooled down the core of the planet which caused it to lose its magnetosphere, and in turn bleed out its atmosphere into the void of space. That one's done.
Here's an example of a typical nebula. The Bubble Nebula. In the pictures below the spherical shape on the outside is a shock wave from an exploding star. The whole thing is just an explosion that is so large that it is still going on. The bubble itself is a little over ten light years across. The friendly looking orange things on the edge of the second picture are dust clouds that are burning away into vapor and plasma, and are another ten to fifteen light years away, and the temperatures are over three million degrees. Notice how many star systems are within that area. IF there had ever been life on any planet within that area that was in any stage of life it's gone now.
Below is a map of our local group of stars within a 13 light year radius from us. This is our "protected local bubble. If any one of these stars novaed this entire map would be wiped out, and then some.
The basic rule of thumb is that if it looks "pretty", then it's impossible for life to exist there. In the next picture of Eta Carina take note of how many star systems are affected. The surrounding blue is reflection nebulae, and is super hot. The tall pillar things that look like giant space demons are dust clouds so thick and heavy that they are producing all that heat and light. Some of the stars' light can barely make it out through the clouds, and most of them aren't even visible.
If that's not bad enough there are rogue black holes wandering without a leash through our galaxy. Blow is a star system being sucked up by one of the space vacuum cleaners.
What about a long time ago in a galaxy far far away? In the first picture below it shows two galaxies colliding. As Andromeda gets nearer to us (it's still millions of years away) we are assured that we could collide with it without much notice. True science is based upon observable fact. See all the bright colors? It's too hot for life. That's observable. The second picture shows many other galaxies. They all look too hot too.
This is a galaxy that being sucked into its own central black hole.
The universe is basically against life. The fact that we have life here is nothing short of a miracle.
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