Rico Penguin

[ Index ]
Part 1 – The Introduction
Part 2 – From Universe to Solar System
Part 3 – From Solar System to Earth

  So when last we met (if memory serves) we were discussing the first life on Earth. Tiny tiny little organisms that one cannot see with their naked eye (unless you squint really really hard…ok you still can’t). Slowly the organisms become more complex, initially it was a matter of symbiosis for at least some. Small organisms began fusing to one another (see mitochondria) to create more complex and indeed more efficient systems. With the noticeably copious amounts of space in the sea and the development of an Atmosphere there was not much to worry about but taking in energy, via eating or sunlight, and reproducing like you had nothing left to do.

  Some organisms split like a particularly tasty banana in your ice cream, others mated. As time passed and the bigger is better mentality started to pick up we begin to see visible formations in the sea. Eventually plants will dominate the sea and spread out onto land. With the introduction of a nice firm atmosphere (firm my way of saying effective) to protect their cells from the ultraviolet sunlight there was little reason to stay bound to the sea. The first’ ‘animals’ would be completely secluded to the sea and would spread quite well. Considering the absolutely massive nature of the ocean and its ability to reduce gravity’s effect on organisms it makes surviving and growing much easier than on land (at least initially, these days you get eaten by many crazy animals in the sea).

  Once the surface land is absolutely covered in plants (maybe sooner) there is a revelation, as always, a copious amount of food leads to the introduction of something that’ll eat it. Indeed someday there will be a bacteria that absolutely engorges itself on our plastic waste, it is just a matter of waiting. As the first animals move to land they bring a second source of food to the land, that being them. Carnivores would soon fill that gap as well. I often wonder if the copious levels of land carnivores are what lead some animals to return to the sea. Indeed all sea mammals are incidents of animals that were initially land mammals and moved to the sea. The motion of a dolphin is hauntingly similar to the motion of a gazelle, and in some cases you can find the remains of what once were legs in whale corpses and other sea mammals as they move ever closer to lose all evidence of their previous adventures on land.

   Somewhere in here you have dinosaurs rise. They have a pretty long and successful run (I believe there was a mass extinction or two) until the drop of a meteor that I’ve read was large enough to fill the rose bowl (or some football stadium). It impacted somewhere in the gulf of Mexico and utterly dominated the planet. Basically all life on Earth died. Before this point there were tiny little mice like animals, which might not be accurate, so just imagine a cute little mammal of your choice. Essentially before Dinosaurs were extinguished this was the pinnacle of our particular class in the animal kingdom. After dinosaurs mammals popped out and started to show their talents. It would be some many millions of years but eventually a particularly successful class of apes came to be the most dominant of all animal species (relative to land mass covered…and I suppose not counting insects).

  People often wonder why Humans made that jump mentally. As I’ve stated before I think it was a case of substantial amounts of food. Evolutionarily there is no real advantage to being exceedingly smarter than your prey, it doesn’t take much to catch a Gazelle, strength and big teeth will do it more often than not. However with a single mutation of the brain taking it just far enough above the average level of ape intelligence it would become, much like the original organisms spreading across the planet, a snowball effect. With every evolutionary generation the human brain would grow larger, at one time even there was more than one type of human. However, for reasons I don’t know personally, one particular answer I’ve heard was the mistake by the now extinct humanoids to let their opponents spread into Europe and across to Asia, this essentially locked them into a small area and they died off. But again take that with a grain of salt.

  So slowly but surely, this ever increasing effect, like the pull of a black hole growing with each uncontrollable growth we move on to modern day. Which is where we will stop for now. Tomorrow may indeed be the final episode of this little collection. It’ll be about what is to come (in the most general of senses) and the ‘end’…as well as a bit of philosophy that I hope someday to get clarified.

[ Index ]
Part 1 – The Introduction
Part 2 – From Universe to Solar System

  So where were we? Well science is not my strong point, I’m more about the philosophy of things using science as backup. That being said if you catch any scientific inaccuracies in here don’t be all too surprised. The general idea should be close enough for Jazz however.

  Generally speaking the further away from a star you are the larger you are. I’m not entirely sure why but I’ve read a few times that it has to do with the lower temperatures. As planets are forming there was probably an issue with certain matter being burned away from inner planets (like say Ice) which didn’t burn off on the outer planets. This would give them much more mass to pull in even more matter until they hit whatever limit (that is before they’d start hitting those uncomfortably large star sizes).

  While there are other planets in our Solar System and I’m sure with a good drink and a weekend you could get to know any of them and find them to be quite friendly folks. However there is one that is substantially more important at the moment. That would be Earth, which in the beginning like all other matter was in a fairly hot state. This molten sphere was spinning quite merrily, getting belted by frozen comets and meteor rocks and probably a unicorn or two (okay likely not the latter).

  According to a report I read (and subsequently watched on FORA.tv, again you all should check it out), the Moon was formed from a rather large impact during the early days of the Earth. A massive object smashed into the Earth launching a fairly large, dare I say moon sized, chunk of rock into the atmosphere. Interestingly as the video notes the composition of the moon fits quite nicely with this theory and frankly I see little reason not to believe it, I imagine otherwise it would be quite hard for something the size of the moon to be flying by and get stuck in our orbit.

  About 4 billion years ago, which frankly isn’t all that long when thinking about non-living things, the first life sprouted up. The presence of water on Earth is not exactly all that surprising. I’d be willing to bet that any planet in the relative range that we are from our star (that is further if their star is larger or closer if their star is smaller) would find quite a lot of water on them. Comets which were, amongst other things, pretty icy were pummeling anything they could get attracted to. Those planets too close to stars would have it subsequently evaporate and those further would have it freeze (special exceptions aside). However for your average planet in this area like that of ours found themselves covered in water. This is helpful because, generally speaking, you are going to be hard pressed to find water and not find life in it. Even extremely toxic, extremely hot, or extremely cold (see ice) water can have life either living merrily or at least being in stasis within them.

  I personally wonder if Virus’s were not the first ‘life’ on the Earth. An in-between stage moving from the many non-living (see incapable or acting on own) things to the living. They have very simple processes and a very simple goal. Simply to sustain their existence through whatever means possible. There is and likely never will be any evidence of this and it is merely a thought. However what I can say is that once the acidity of the Oceans (volcanic activity is hell on a PH balance) were friendly enough the bacteria that sprung forth was quite happy to do so.

  It seems almost silly to imagine hundreds of millions of years, in which every fraction of a second there is a reaction of chemicals and elements across an almost unfathomably large space would not return some sort of unusual side effect. It’s a very good side effect because without it we wouldn’t have chicken…oh or us. I keep forgetting you need to exist before you eat chicken.

  The fact that life is so happy in water makes much sense. Ultraviolet light and other radiations that do well to destroy the genetic makeup that comprises life have relative difficulty permeating water as easily as other substances (exceptions like Lead aside). Unlike Lead and rock, Water is also easy to move through which is a very helpful addition. Though even without water I’m sure that some sort of extreme bacteria would live quite happily in a mercury rich cave dining on the walls.

  At some point it became apparent that there was a massive orb blasting endless levels of ultraviolet light onto the planet. Organisms began converting this matter for energy creating a seemingly endless supply of food. They began to convert the CO2 flowing through the air (and wherever else it could squeeze its deadly butt into) into Oxygen. This process would help bolster the atmosphere and probably for a bit was actually quite extreme. Anything that wasn’t prepared to process Oxygen would have found the result quite fatal.

   But whenever a massive supply of new food arises something arises to consume it. At some point in here there was surely something that noticed everything around it could produce energy if consumed. Carnivores likely arose at this point. Indeed on thinking back carnivores probably popped up before even the photosynthesis, I just get ahead of myself.

  We now had carnivores, herbivores, water, and copious levels of oxygen. However all things included in this conversation are still so small that unless there is an absolutely grotesquely large collection of them we couldn’t see them with the naked eye. Stuff that would make plankton squint…well maybe not but it would sure as hell be hard for us to see.

  Tomorrow we’ll move onto the first plants and hope that I don’t butcher too much while trying to make my various points. Who knows in a few decades I might have a nice solid little lecture out of this thing (I redo it yearly).

  There seems to be a belief amongst a sizeable group of people that the Earth has never had the poo beaten out of it by meteor rocks. We look at the moon and see this abused sphere dancing around us and it gives the illusion of being our shield. While it is true that many of the things that have pummeled it would have hit us it has hardly been perfect.

  The Earth has an amazing ability of erasing everything that happens given enough time. Plates are constantly moving and sliding under one another, melting away and later sprouting up to fill cracks somewhere else in a seemingly endless cycle. It is not unlike a conveyer belt, essentially it is convection with molten and not-so-molten rock instead of hot water or air.

  Very recently (Monday) Italy was hit with a large Earthquake, 6.3 Magnitude, while obviously human life is always the priority and I am not trying to trivialize that loss (which has reached nearly 300 last time I checked it is important to know the historical impact of these sort of events.

  The Earth in a moment can flatten Millennia of history. Structures that have survived world wars and century upon century of erosion leveled with the greatest of ease. It’s humbling to say the least. Something that humans must remember. No matter what we do, while we may end all biological life on Earth we will likely never leave a lasting scar on the planet. At least I’m fairly skeptical that we will.

 
(Image from NYT)

  That is assuming we don’t survive long enough to have the core of the Earth finally cool completely (thus making continental drift nonexistent). But I ‘think’ that before that the sun will scorch the surface.

  I’ve often wondered what purpose any aliens would have to invade the Earth. There is no element that you can find on Earth that is not more abundant somewhere else, enslavement seems pretty poor since any race wise enough to transit across solar systems should have the technology to acquire far more efficient workers…namely the robotic kind that don’t produce waste.

  Likewise Humans in particular don’t seem like they’d be all that fun to torture or kill, it would make more sense to find a race that isn’t busy murdering its own. You want one that is unified so that the sense of terror is more palpable (I do a lot of character development for tyrants…) Attacking a violent race is boring, you are left with a species that frankly would have likely killed itself off without your help. That’s like trying to assist a computer in calculating something, it was doing quite well on its own.

  Also if you are a species that has developed the ability to travel across the universe you’ll likely have terraforming down to a science. Why enter a planet that already has tons of organisms with their own bacteria’s that could easily kill you in hours or days when you could instead start your own relatively clean planet with all your own bacteria that you are used to.

  Likewise it would seem smarter to invest on a planet with a younger star than our sun. To optimize the amount of time that a planet can be used. No reason to spend all sorts of time fixing up a planet just to have its star explode in your face a few million years down the road (because I’m hard pressed to think that all sentient species are as obnoxiously present oriented like humans).

  As it stands I’m hardpressed to see any reason that any alien would ever, future or past, come to the Earth. Our anus is hardly interesting enough to justify the levels of probing that have been attributed to extraterrestrials and rednecks are only funny the first 2-3 times you meet with them. So I’d say perhaps it is more Jack Daniels than ET leaving people with sore rumps and paranoia.

  While some people might argue and say that they can indeed visualize the following I imagine most people would agree that you are only visualizing the most ambiguous features as the grandiose nature of the entire thing is just wild. The following update is inspired in massive part by Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s book Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries. In fact you will find a section in the book (near the middle) that discusses the following in very entertaining detail, he has a spunky writing style that I’m envious of at times. However as is common here…I am digressing so back on topic.

  For those that don’t know Satellites that are launched into space have two basic functions (permit this gross simplification), you have satellites that orbit the Earth and generally you have satellites (or as one reader reminded me: “Deep Space Probes” for the latter) that are launched as far as we can possibly get them to take pictures of all of the most amazing things in the universe. Before I go further to give you an idea of the distances we are talking here is an image from Voyager 1, it’s called “pale blue spot” or something like that. This is a picture of the Earth, yes that massive orb beneath your feet. It’s one of the most inspirational images I have ever seen:

Credit (for image edits): http://blogs.mie.utoronto.ca/roller/moradian/resource/PaleBlueDot.jpg

  I apologize for the large nature of the image but I feel seeing it like this helps keep with the flow and give you a second to just take it in. That right there is a dot amongst a sea of grain and color that represents everything you have ever physically come into contact with and indeed everything you can reasonably plan to physically touch in one lifetime. Quite humbling for me and part of the reason I’m so interested in space travel. I want to see every little dot.

  Anyways the point of this is to illustrate the massive distance that these objects travel and indeed that do not even have the fuel necessary to make the distance. Anyone who has spun in a tea cup or a merry-go-round has noticed that the faster the object spins the more their body tries to launch itself at the speed of a tomahawk missile into the nearest hardest object (seriously why do I always hit something like a steel fence). Essentially this sort of thing happens on an absolutely massive scale in space, as an object passes by a massive object, if it doesn’t crash into the object it’ll slingshot via gravitational centrifugal force at very high speeds (the more massive the object the faster the slingshot).

  NASA scientists do a bit of magic by sling shooting satellites passed every planet in the solar system to get them soaring out of our Galaxy. This sort of math and accuracy is so utterly amazing that NASA scientists seriously deserve a special day where they all get cake or something. I can barely keep my calendar straight.

  At any rate this is only the beginning when looking at the magnificent power of gravity and centrifugal force. In the center of Galaxies like our own there are gargantuan (see Massive) black holes that kick so much ass and take so many names that they can launch entire suns at nearly the speed of light.

  So think about that for a moment, imagine something the size of our sun speeding passed our Solar System at nearly the speed of light? Or try to imagine something that absolutely gargantuan soaring passed our solar system at really any speed, it would be an event that would likely be impossible to forget (possibly for very tragic reasons).

  This sort of thing seems literally unfathomable, to visualize something essentially a million (That’s 1,000,000) times the size of Earth traveling at speeds that are essentially invisible to the naked eye (for the exception of the blanket of light that would probably cause many confused people to defecate themselves).

  It’s food for thought, it reminds us how utterly miniscule we are, and I will go on the record as saying that is in no way a bad thing. We may mock ants but there are quite a few that could quite easily kill a full grown human, humanity has the amazing potential to take its small size and do things on the grandest of scales. We just need to set aside our petty and inconsequential bickering and try to look at the bigger picture.

  Otherwise all that will remain is a pale blue dot on the vast galactic canvas.