\u201cHeavy Elements Key for Planet Formation, Study Suggests\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And planets, it would seem fairly obvious, are essential to the emergence of life.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But immediately after the Big Bang, before the first stars ever formed, the universe consisted of hydrogen and helium and essentially nothing else. \u00a0 Stars were needed in order to create the heavier elements on which planets and our lives depend.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Let me stress again the vastness of a figure such as 1040<\/sup>, and, thus, the incredible smallness of \u201cone part in 1040<\/sup>.\u201d \u00a0For comparative purposes, we might ask how many stars there are in the visible universe \u2014 by which I don\u2019t mean in the night sky, but in the entire universe as it\u2019s observable via our most powerful astronomical instruments. \u00a0One estimate that I\u2019ve found puts that number at 1021<\/sup>, which is far, far smaller than 1040<\/sup>. \u00a0Okay. \u00a0How about the number of grains of sand on our planet? \u00a0I\u2019ve located an estimate that, if you could count all of the grains of sand in all the deserts and on all the beaches of the earth, you would come up with something in the vicinity of\u00a07.5\u00d71018<\/sup>. \u00a0Again, that\u2019s very much smaller than\u00a01040<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I posted an item the other day entitled \u201cSome preliminary notes on fine-tuning and the \u2018four fundamental forces\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 In it, among other things, I noted that \u00a0 If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, atomic bonds could not form \u2014 which would mean that molecules could not form. If the value […]<\/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":[3790,4588,542,71,4627,545,4625,4684,123,4063,4687],"class_list":["post-73075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-big-bang","tag-biogenesis","tag-cosmic-constants","tag-cosmology","tag-electromagnetic-force","tag-fine-tuning","tag-gravitational-constant","tag-gravity","tag-intelligent-design","tag-life","tag-planets"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>