{"id":73027,"date":"2019-04-17T18:05:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T00:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=73027"},"modified":"2019-04-18T00:19:50","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T06:19:50","slug":"not-long-after-the-big-bang-chemistry-as-we-know-it-took-its-first-baby-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/04\/not-long-after-the-big-bang-chemistry-as-we-know-it-took-its-first-baby-steps.html","title":{"rendered":"“Not long after the Big Bang, chemistry as we know it took its first baby steps”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Paranal,<\/a>
Venus, the Moon, and some astronomers at sunset, at the European Southern Observatory\u2019s facility at Paranal, in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, two items about water or water-like liquid in space:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMeteoroid Strikes Eject Precious Water From Moon\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSaturn\u2019s moon Titan sports phantom hydrocarbon lakes: Three features that were filled with liquid appear to have dried up\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, thinking (perhaps not seriously enough) about a possible career in something related to astronomy \u2014 see \u201cFor me, the horizon was a bit too close\u201d<\/a> \u2014 detailed information like that above about Titan simply didn\u2019t exist. \u00a0And I, for one, didn\u2019t expect to see it any time soon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA 2014 meteor may have come from another solar system: Such alien visitors could graze Earth\u2019s atmosphere once a decade, scientists suggest\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two comments on the article above:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The names of the two Harvard researchers, Professor Avi Loeb and the undergraduate student Amir Siraj, illustrate a very attractive quality of the scientific enterprise: its international, multi-ethnic, and multicultural character. \u00a0Avi Loeb<\/em> is an obviously Jewish name, while Amir Siraj<\/em> is an obviously Arabic or Arabic-derived one.<\/li>\n
  2. I\u2019m intrigued by the suggestion \u2014 scarcely a new one \u2014 that life could have been brought to Earth by such a meteor as that mentioned. \u00a0Of course, positing an extraterrestrial origin for biology only pushes the difficult problem of biogenesis back a step. \u00a0It\u2019s merely (coining an absolutely novel phrase) to kick the can down the road.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe first type of molecule to form in the universe has been seen in space: Not long after the Big Bang, chemistry as we know it took its first baby steps\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    As I pointed out yesterday (see \u201cSome preliminary notes on fine-tuning and the \u2018four fundamental forces'\u201d<\/a>), our common implicit assumption that the Big Bang was an explosion rather than a remarkably controlled \u201cexpansion event\u201d can mislead us. \u00a0It\u2019s simply astonishing that that \u201cexplosion\u201d led almost immediately to such remarkable order, to \u201cchemistry as we know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    Some suggest that we should simply move along, that there\u2019s nothing to see here. \u00a0Perhaps not. \u00a0Perhaps, in the end, it\u2019s all just random chance. \u00a0But it certainly seems appropriate to at least think<\/em> about it just a bit.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    One of the remarkable facts about the emergence of complex and intelligent life on Earth is that it didn\u2019t come about in a steady, smooth, linear way. \u00a0According to the article below, which describes one of them, there were five major terrestrial mass-extinction events along the path leading to the birth of Professor Richard Dawkins:<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u201cUC study helps explain global mass extinction: Geologists say they have evidence of what caused the biggest natural catastrophe on Earth: volcanoes\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u00a0 \u00a0 First, two items about water or water-like liquid in space: \u00a0 \u201cMeteoroid Strikes Eject Precious Water From Moon\u201d \u00a0 \u201cSaturn\u2019s moon Titan sports phantom hydrocarbon lakes: Three features that were filled with liquid appear to have dried up\u201d \u00a0 When I was a kid, thinking (perhaps not seriously enough) about a possible career […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[548,3790,4588,4594,71,545,4591,930],"class_list":["post-73027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anthropic-principle","tag-big-bang","tag-biogenesis","tag-chemistry","tag-cosmology","tag-fine-tuning","tag-meteor","tag-origin-of-life"],"yoast_head":"\n"Not long after the Big Bang, chemistry as we know it took its first baby steps"<\/title>\n<meta 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