The Creation of the Solar System & Earth Atmosphere

The Creation of the Solar System
The fusion reaction explosion sent its matter hurtling at great speed outward in every direction in all sizes and speeds, both gases and molten solids, from the size of small particles to the size of the giant planets. Some of it was hurled out at such a great velocity that it was lost forever to other regions of the galaxy.
• THE BIRTH OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM - About four and one half billion years ago our protosun was slowly collapsing under the force of its gravity. As it did this, due to the immense compression caused by gravity it became extremely hot. Millions of degrees centigrade. The more compact it got, the hotter it got. It was not alone in the sky, it was part of a community of stars and protostars that lay in the outer regions of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The proto-sun was being swept around the galaxy, along with its neighbors, at the tremendous speed of over 500,000 miles per hour - relative to the center of the galaxy.
So far it had no satellites, (planets, moons, etc.) it’s gravity had sucked in most of the star dust from its vicinity for hundreds of millions of miles in every direction. It was getting close to the temperature and pressure required for a nuclear fusion reaction to occur. The protosun was like a giant nuclear hydrogen bomb waiting to be detonated.

• THE BIG BLAST - When this tremendous event finally did occur, the nuclear fusion reactions started up in the hottest most dense area of the Sun. Tremendous amounts of radiant nuclear energy were suddenly created in the innards of the Sun. All of this newly released energy caused a sudden sustained violent increase in the pressure and temperature of the Sun creating tremendous chain reactions throughout its core region.
These reactions did not just cause the star to began shining. It caused the Sun to violently expand to many times its former size and explode. The explosion sent its matter hurtling at great speed outward in every direction in all sizes and speeds, both gases and molten solids, from the size of small particles to the size of the giant planets. Some of it was hurled out at such a great velocity that it was lost forever to other regions of the galaxy.
• THE BIRTH OF THE PLANETS AND OTHER SOLAR DEBRIS - Much of the debris eventually fell back, into the speeding Sun, if its trajectory was just right. Other debris, after it had expended its outward energy and had not broken free of the Sun's gravity, began to fall back toward the Sun.

It fell back toward the Sun, but due to the Sun's great galactic speed and changing position always missed the Sun. This is the matter that became the planets, moons, comets, asteroids of our solar system. They are the survivors.
It is like a skeet shooter who always aims directly at the clay pigeon, not allowing for a lead. His shot will never strike the pigeon simply because it will always have moved by the time the shot gets there. This is the basis on how our solar system works. It was a time of tremendous chaos in the solar vicinity, with all the matter rushing back toward the Sun from every direction crashing into each other and falling back into the Sun.
• THE PULSATING SUN - After the initial explosion, the rapidly expanding sun began to cool. As it cooled the area that a fusion reaction could take place became smaller and smaller. Some of the fusion reaction began to shut down. The expansion eventually came to a halt as the fusion energy was no longer powerful enough to sustain the expanding outward momentum. Finally the expansion stopped altogether and then the Sun began to contract.
This at first stabilized the fusion reaction and then as the gravitational contraction of the Sun continued, the area of the reaction again began to increase. When the Sun had contracted to the point where the area of reaction was again very large, the Sun again expanded and exploded outward with tremendous force sending more matter hurling out into space.

• THE STABLE STAR?? - This time however the expansion and explosion was not as powerful as the first event. This sequence of events happened again and again, each time the explosion was weaker and the expansion and contraction not as great as the previous event. This pulsation of the Sun gradually diminished, after millions of Earth years, until it finally stabilized and became a mature star. This expansion and contraction rhythm may continue today at a very attenuated pace, perhaps causing our regularly reoccurring ice ages.
Scientists have determined that the glaciers of our last ice age began receding at both poles simultaneously indicating; a period of diminished solar radiation could have caused these ice ages. This periodic expansion and contraction is simply the balancing act of the Sun's gravitational and nuclear fusion forces.

• THE SOLAR SYSTEM EMERGES OUT OF THE CHAOS - Eventually out of all this chaos and turmoil our orderly solar system began to emerge. The Sun had slowly settled down from its tremendous expansions and contractions of earlier times. Most of its matter had fallen back into the Sun, some had been lost and a small percentage had begun oscillating back and forth across the Sun’s path.

The sun began to emit a constant amount of radiant energy that did not fluctuate too much. (This made the existence of life on Earth possible). Its solar flares became less energetic. At that time they still occasionally spit out globs of molten matter and gases into space, some of which also became comets and other solar bodies. These prominences still occur today but now they do not have enough velocity to overcome the gravity of the mature Sun.
The matter, hurling out in these present prominences does not have enough energy to escape from the vicinity of the Sun, into space and so, it falls back into the Sun. The solar flares that we observe today are very tame in comparison with the tremendously powerful solar prominences that occurred in the past ages when significant amounts of matter were hurled free of the Sun's vicinity, into possible orbit.

• THE REASON FOR BODE'S LAW - The debris of the early convulsions of the Sun (our solar bodies, the planets, moons, comets, asteroids etc.) are all constantly falling directly toward the Sun. Due to its tremendous galactic velocity, the Sun's position is constantly changing, so they seldom strike it. Millions of collisions have however, occurred between all the debris over the ages.

The potmarks on the Moon, Mars and our Earth, etc. are evidence of the enormous number of these collisions. The bodies that collided with other bodies either fell back into the Sun or they were absorbed by the larger bodies of the solar system. The asteroid belt is probably made up of debris from a collision of two fairly large solar bodies whose paths crossed.
Over a period of millions of years, the solar bodies settled into their present orbits. The planets, moons etc. that are a present part of our solar system are the survivors of the millions of collisions that took place when the solar system was younger. They are now well spaced from each other and since they maintain their respective distances from the Sun are in little danger of colliding with each other. They are the survivors. This is the reason for Bode's Law. Comets are the exception to this rule.
• THE SURVIORS BEGAN TO LINE UP IN THE SUN/JUPITER PLANE. - The smaller planets and moons that survived all the collisions began to line up in the same plane as the larger planets. The planets, except for Pluto lined up in the approximate plane of Jupiter and the Sun. Pluto will probably line up eventually. The orbits' of the comets are tilted and are very elongated. They are in danger of someday colliding with another body in the solar system. They are probably much younger then the other solar bodies. They may have been born from later solar prominences or may be stray bodies that came from outside our system.

• COMETS ARE THE MAVERICKS - Halley's Comet travels in an orbit that is apparently opposite to the orbital direction of the other planets and has a long elliptical path that crosses the other planet's planes. It is in danger of possibly eventually colliding with one of the planets. Its plane intersects with the other planets' plane, between Mars and Earth's orbit.
Even though the comet appears to be orbiting in a direction opposite to that of the planets, it actually approaches the Sun from the rear of its galactic path as do all the other permanent bodies in the solar system. They are all (planets, moons, asteroids, and comets) traveling in the same galactic direction and at nearly the same average speed as the Sun. Halley's comet is actually traveling in the same direction as the rest of the planets. Its perihelion is on the opposite side of the Sun however, giving the illusion that its apparent orbital direction is retrograding relative to the planets.

• THE EARTH'S ROTATION IS SLOWING! - Our Earth was spinning very fast when it was spit out of the Sun as a molten glob four and one half billion years ago in the initial explosion. (Venus was spinning in an opposite direction when it was spit out and is still doing the same). The Earth settled down in a very fortunate orbit for the existence of life. At 93 million miles distance from the Sun it receives just about the right amount of radiant energy.
Its spinning has gradually slowed down over these billion of years and is now settled into a comfortable 24 hour rotation at the present time. It will be millions of years in the future before it slows to a complete halt as our less massive moon has already. - The Earth's Slowing Rotation.

• THE EARTH'S CHANGING SHAPE! - In the days of the dinosaurs when the Earth was spinning faster, the days/night cycles were shorter. Going back a couple of billion years further, at one time the Earth was spinning so fast that it may have had a ring around it, similar to Saturn. The Earth was much more oblate at that time, the oceans were more concentrated around the equatorial zones, with much more shallow ocean depths at the poles. The oceans are still deeper at the equator then they are at the poles and the Earth is still slightly oblate.

EVOLUTION OF ATMOSPHERE:
hydrogen and helium would have been abundant in earth´s primordial atmosphere. These elements were derived in part from the original gaseous material of the cosmic cloud, but volcanic outgassing during lithification of the crust probably continued as well. Neon and argon and some of the lighter gases such as xenon probably also existed in the early atmosphere.

The first atmosphere of the earth, then, contained hydrogen, helium, neon, argon and various other lighter and inert gases, none of which is abundant in the present atmosphere. Most of these on liberation to the air now either escape earth´s gravitational pull because of their low densities or are bound up in minerals by chemically reacting with them. It is likely that the primitive atmosphere did not linger long but was dissipated through these processes.

A little reflection tells us that earth´s present atmosphere necessarily evolved from one that was different. We know no primary source for the free molecular oxygen that comprises one –fifth of our present atmosphere. Compared with solar abundances, our atmosphere has only traces of hydrogen and helium but a disproportionate amount of nitrogen.

An important clue to the origin of our ancestral atmosphere is found in the abundances of so-called noble gases – elements that, unlike oxygen, do not (or rarely) combine with others because they have the stable configuration of 8 (or 2 in the case of helium) in their outermost shell of electrons. As they do not ordinarily lose, gain, or share electrons with other elements, variations in their abundance imply different sources. Had earth inherited its atmosphere directly from the solar nebula, the gaseous elements neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon should be present in approximately solar abundances, allowing for the addition of radiogenic isotopes. That is not the case. It has been repeatedly noted over the past half-century that all the noble gases are grossly depleted in the earth´s atmosphere compared with solar and cosmic abundances. They are depleted, in fact, by several to many orders of magnitude. This means either that earth accumulated without an atmosphere of nebular proportions or that any initial atmosphere escaped its gravity field in some subsequent episode of heating that accelerated even the heavy noble gases to escape velocities.
The most significant development following sufficient cooling and consolidation of the surface rocks was liberation of abundant water along with CO2 , N2, and H2 S by volcanic outgassing. Water vapor is dissociated in the upper atmosphere by ultraviolet light to yield oxygen and hydrogen. This process constituted the sole source of free oxygen of the early atmosphere, and the build up to significant oxygen concentrations occupied the long interval between at least 3400 and about 2000 m.y. ago. Further, oxygen of the early high atmosphere was photochemically converted to ozone as at present, and with time, ozone concentration led to the development of a screen to ultraviolet light. Lastly, accumulation of water molecules in the atmosphere caused extensive precipitation and hence the initiation of the oceans at some time prior to 3760 m.y. ago, when the oldest known sedimentary rocks were deposited. Other concept regarding evolution of early oxygen in atmosphere:
If earth´s primitive atmosphere resulted from volcanic outgassing, we have a problem, because volcanoes do not emit free oxygen. Where did the very significant percentage of oxygen in our present atmosphere (20 percent) come from?
The major source of oxygen is green plants. Plants did not just adapt to their environment, they actually influenced it, dramatically altering the composition of the entire planet´s atmosphere by using carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. This is a good example of how earth operates as a giant system in which living things interact with their environment.
How did plants come to alter the atmosphere? The key is the way in which plants create their own food. They employ photosynthesis, in which they use light energy to synthesize food sugars from carbon dioxide and water. The process releases a waste gas, oxygen. Those of us in the animal kingdom rely on oxygen to metabolize our food, and we in turn exhale carbon dioxide as a waste gas. The plant use this carbon dioxide for more photosynthesis, and so on, in a continuing system.

The first life-forms on earth, probably bacteria, did not need oxygen. Their life processes were geared to the earlier, oxygen less atmosphere. Even today, many anaerobic thrive in environments that lack free oxygen. Later, primitive plants evolved that used photosynthesis and released oxygen. Slowly, the oxygen content of earth´s atmosphere increased. The Precambrian rock record suggests that much of the first free oxygen did not remain free because it combined with (oxidized) other substances dissolved in water, especially iron. Iron has tremendous affinity for oxygen, and the two elements combine to form iron oxides (rust) at any opportunity. To this day, the majority of oxygen produced over time is locked up in the ancient "banded rock" and "red bed" formations.

Then, once the available iron satisfied its need for oxygen, substantial quantities of oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere. By the beginning of the Paleozoic era, about 4 billion years into earth´s existence, the fossil record reveals abundant ocean- dwelling organisms that require oxygen to live.

Once oxygen had been produced, ultraviolet light split the molecules, producing the ozone UV shield as a by-product. Only at this point did life move out of the oceans and respiration evolved.

Hence, the composition of earth´s atmosphere has evolved together with its life-forms, from an oxygen less envelop to today´s oxygen-rich environment.