Lesson 1: The Origin of Earth and the Universe

Objectives:

In this lesson you will learn the following:

1. Describing the formation of the universe and the Solar System

2. Comparing the theories that explain the origin of the Earth and the Universe

Formation of the Universe and the Solar System

Before we start learning about the Earth, it is important that we start learning about the
Universe, particularly the Solar System.

The origin of the Universe is a topic that has been continuously debated on by the
brilliant minds in the world of Science. Numerous theories and hypotheses have been raised
regarding how the cosmos formed. Some were mere debunked guesses, but there are a few
which caught the attention of the public due to solid evidences.

Origin of the Earth

The Earth and the Solar System need to be defined in order to understand the basis of
the topic..

Mankind had made numerous endeavors to explain the origin of the Earth. In the
ancient times, people tried to explain how Earth began, through myths which included gods,
goddesses, and other fantastical creatures.

Creation myths such as those in Greek mythology tells of hoar the universe began pith
Chaos, a yawning nothingness from which emerged Gaia (Earth) and other beings such as Eros
(Love), Tartarus (Abyss), and the Erebus (Darkness). Soon Gaia gave birth to Uranus (Sky) and
the rest of the beings are formed.

Another well known story is about the sea serpent Leviathan. In the Bible, Leviathan was
a immense and powerful creature wandering the sea, which the Hebrew god Yahweh killed
during a battle with the waters of chaos. Yahweh then created the universe, day and night, and
the four seasons.

The creation myths have been our sole answer as to how the world and everything
began. But as developments in science are continuously made, humans started seeking the
actual origin of the Earth. Many brilliant minds have come up with different assumptions as to
how the Earth and the Universe began.
The Big Bang

There is no other theory regarding the origin of the universe that is more famous than
the Big Bang Theory. It is the most widely accepted cosmological explanation of how the
universe formed.

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In the year 1920, American astronomer Edward Hubble discovered that distant stars and
galaxies are receding from Earth in every direction, which implies that the universe is expanding.
This led to the deduction on the origin of the universe that is now called Big Bang. According to
this theory, the universe began about 13.7 billion years ago. The universe started out as a single,
chaotic hot mass. An enormous explosion — a big bang — caused the universe to start expanding
rapidly. Everything, all the matter and energy in the universe, and even space itself, came out of
this explosion.

While many accepts the idea of the universe originating from a small point and
expanded outward, none of us have any idea what came before the Big Bang.

Evidence of this theory includes:

• The galaxies are moving away from us

• The further away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away.

Both of these features are found in explosion — the fastest moving objects end up furthest away
from the explosion.

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 The Big Bang theory was further supported by another discovery, when scientists
detected a cosmic microwave background radiation or CMBR. This is received from all parts of
the universe, and is believed to be heat left over from the original explosion.

Encounter Hypothesis

The Encounter Hypothesis is one of the earliest theories for the formation of the
planets. In this theory, a rogue star was said to pass close to the Sun about 5 billion years ago.
During this "encounter", materials which came in the form of hot gas, were tidally stripped from
both the Sun and the rogue star. The material fragmented into small lumps, which formed into
pla nets.

Tidal Hypothesis

The Tidal Hypothesis, a theory formulated by James Jeans and Harold Jeffreys,
resembles the Encounter Hypothesis on certain aspects. It assumes origin of the earth through
two nebulae. According to this theory a large nebula wandering in the space came very close to
another less massive nebula, which is the sun. The gravitational pull of the larger nebula caused
a huge tidal upsurge of matter on the surface of the small nebula.

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The schematic above shows how the massive star pulled away the tide of matter, which
became the planets today.

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 As the larger nebula moved away, matter rises from the smaller nebula and was pulled
towards it. The matter was then drawn to a distance where it can no longer return to the parent
body, thus it was detached from the smaller nebula. The matter gradually cooled down and
formed the planets, including the Earth, which began to revolve around the sun.

Nebular Hypothesis

The Nebular Hypothesis (or Nebular Theory} is the most accepted theory on the origin
of the Solar System. Also known as Kant -Laplace theory, it originated when the German
philosopher Immanuel Kant came up with the work entitled "Nebular Hypothesis", which the
French mathematician Pierre Simon-Laplace gave a mathematical equation.

According to Kant, the solar system began as a cloud of dispersed particles. He assumed
that the mutual gravitational attractions of the particles caused them to start moving and
colliding, at which point chemical forces kept them bonded together. Some of them became
larger than others, ultimately forming the planets.

40 years later, Laplace, who was brilliant in the field of celestial mechanics, supported
this theory by creating a model that begins with the Sun already formed and rotating and its
atmosphere extending beyond the distance at which the farthest planet would be created.

Laplace assumed that the Sun would start to cool. As it does, the pressure exerted by its
gases declined, caused it to contract. According to the Law of Conservation of Angular
Momentum, the decrease in size will cause an increase in the Sun's rotational velocity.
Centrifugal acceleration would push the material in the atmosphere outward, while
gravitational attraction would pull it toward the central mass; when these forces balanced, a
ring of material would be left behind in the plane of the Sun's equator. This process goes on
until materials gradually coalesced to form
the planets.

Laplace's model led to the planets

revolving around the Sun in the same plane
and in the same direction as the Sun
rotates today. Laplace's model and the
Nebular Theory became widely accepted
for about a century, until the discovery of
asteroids with highly eccentric orbits and
moons with retrograde orbits contradicted
the idea of regularity of motions in the
solar system. Another reason is that
despite the Sun containing 99.9% of the
mass of the solar system, the planets,
particularly the four giant outer planets,

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carry more than 99% of the system's angular momentum. In order for the theory to be tenable,
the sun must rotate more rapidly, or the planets should be revolving around it slowly.

Protoplanet Hypothesis

One of the current working models that are being used to learn the formation of the
Solar System is the Protoplanet Hypothesis. This theory incorporates many of the elements of
Nebular Theory, but it also adds new aspects from modern knowledge of fluids and states of
matter.

The theory states that solar systems came from rotating disks of dust coated in ice from
frozen gases, which gradually form into planets. The planets that form farther from the forming
star tend to be bigger because the heat of the sun evaporates the gases closer to it, reducing the
mass of the forming bodies.

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References:

Fishman, D. (n.d.). The origin of the universe. Retrieved from:

http://www.scholastic.comiteachersiarticle/origin-universe

Dana Desonie, Ph.D. Big Bang. 2015.

BBC. The Big Bang Theory. Retrieved from:

http://www.bbc.co.ukischoolsigcsebitesizeiscience/ocr gateway/energy resources/big bangrevl.sht
ml

Futurism. Immanuel Kant: Discoverer of Nebulae and the Multi-Galaxy Universe. Retrieved from:
http://futurism.com/kant/

Kant-Laplace theory. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.comitopic/solar-system#ref515558

Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, 2 nd Edition. 1999. Retrieved
from: http://www.nap.eduicatalog/6024/scien ce-and-creationism -a-view-from-the-nation al-aca denny-
of

HubPages. Theories on the Origin of the Earth. Retrieved from: http://hubpages.connjeducation/Origin-

of-the-Earth