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All life (as we know it) depends on carbon. But most models of Earth's formation can't explain how the crust has enough carbon to support life. So where did it all come from?
A colossal smashup with a Mercury-like protoplanet some 4.4 billion years ago, suggest researchers from Rice University and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Most scientists agree that about 4.5 billion years ago, Earth was covered with hot magma, and as it cooled, most of the heavier metals near the surface sank deep into the planet. Iron alloys bonded with carbon and sulfur, pulling both into the Earth's core, and any remaining carbon would have vaporized into space from the extreme heat, argue the scientists. The only way to keep carbon and sulfur near the surface is to bring some from a planet that formed differently, they say.
A different story reported last week that scientists have identified fossilized stromatolites that date to 3.7 billion years ago, or 700 million years after the worst day ever for the young Earth.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday September 09 2016, @08:00AM
Not only Do you need a planet in the Goldilocks zone, it has to have a moon, and have been in at least one planet busting collision in the past.
On a Tuesday, you say?
Just so.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @08:22AM
Planets are formed by collisions. They start out as dust.
The specific type of collision mentioned in the summary is rarer.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 09 2016, @08:35AM
On the plus side, that means the galaxy is mine. Mine! MINE! Muahha ... uh, I mean... ours. Perhaps in a few million years the galaxy will look something like it does in the Foundation series.
It would be a shame not to meet any aliens, but on the other hand it would be nice to have a more comforting answer to the Fermi Paradox than "You are doomed to destroy yourselves".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @02:01PM
Fermi said that? I thought it came from the writers of "Planet of the Apes".
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 09 2016, @03:13PM
Fermi said "where the hell is everyone?" There are numerous possible answers to that question [wikipedia.org], one of them being that intelligent, technological civilisations have a strong tendency to quickly destroy themselves / destroy one-another / go extinct by other means.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday September 10 2016, @04:23AM
I believe the latest theory is that we just happen to be ahead of everyone else.
http://www.iflscience.com/space/earth-may-have-formed-earlier-92-other-habitable-planets/ [iflscience.com]
http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2728-most-earth-like-worlds-have-yet-to-be-born [ras.org.uk]
The pendulum of prediction seems to be swinging the other way, based on some Hubble observations.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @02:30PM
Take a normal 52 card deck with 13 of each suit. If I give you a random card what is the frequency that it will be a spade? That is easy: 13/52=1/4. Now what if I pass you 13 cards, at what frequency will you get all the spades? That is (13/52)*(12/51)*...*(1/40) = 1/choose(52,13) ~1.6e-12.
In other words, only once in 635,013,559,600 (600 billion) hands should you expect to get all spades. If you got all spades, would you think it was strange and say "Just so"? Because that would be wrong, the odds of getting any hand would be calculated the exact same way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @04:05PM
Knowing that the card deck is 52 cards, 13 of each of 4 suits, gives me quite a leg up to decide whether or not to suspect intelligent design in my 13 card hand.
Let's use my card deck instead. I'm not telling you how many cards there are. I'm not telling you how many to each suit or even if the suits all have the same number of cards. I deal you 13 cards, and they're all the same suit, say bamboos. Calculate the odds. Guess whether or not I've stacked the deck/intelligently designed your hand. Are you having a little difficulty? I thought so.
Perhaps after dealing you 10 or 20 hands, then you may be able to reason about the nature of my deck.
If you immediately know the candle is flame, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday September 09 2016, @04:55PM
That analogy isn't quite apt. Rather, you deal an untold number of hands wit 13 cards each from different decks, and if any of those hands happens to have 13 equal cards, you hand it to him. And that is the situation in which he has to tell how likely it is that the hand was designed.
Also, the lottery must obviously be rigged, as it is so improbable to win it, but almost every week someone supposedly has won it.
That's the situation we are in. We know that in the "game of life creation" there is at least one winner (Earth), but we don't even know how often the game has been played.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @09:05PM
These are good points. That is why I referred to frequencies rather than probabilities in my post.