Materials That Form Planets - Scientific Discussion Of Astrological Events Part One

Tte early years of the earth's history are shrouded in mystery. Erosion by wind and running water, and the upheavals that accompany the building of great continents and mountain chains all have combined to erase the record of the earth's past. We know less of the history of our planet than we do of the life story of the stars, for the skies contain stars of many different ages some in the process of formation, some in their middle years, and some in the final stages of decay and dissolution. All these starsóyoung and oldóare available for examination in our telescopes. Through them we have learned the story of the red giants and the white dwarfs. But planets of different ages are not available for inspection. The exploration of the moon and Mars will soon be accomplished, and their inspection will yield new information regarding the history of the planets; but the moon and Mars are probably the same age as the earth, and we will never learn the complete story from them; we will never learn as much as we could if we were to witness the birth of an earthlike planet, or to observe one in the early years of its life.

Perhaps we will discover a planet younger than the earth one day, if ever we are able to leave this solar system and voyage to other stars, but such voyages are not in prospect in the foreseeable future. For the present we are doomed to ignorance of the conditions which existed on the earth during its early years. We do not know the temperature at the surface of the young earth; the gases which floated in its atmosphere; and the chemicals which were dissolved in the primitive oceans. These facts are unknown, and perhaps unknowable, and yet they are of great interest, because they are bound up with the question of life's origin. The earliest traces of living organisms discovered thus faróresidues of bacteria and simple plants are found in rocks about 3 billion years old. When these organisms were alive the earth had already existed for more than one billion years. During that period of a billion years life developed here. What were the conditions under which it arose?

At its center existed a dense, hot nucleus which later formed the sun. The outer regionsócooler and less denseógave birth to the planets.
Out of what materials were the planets formed? The bulk of the parent cloud must have been composed of the light gases, hydrogen and helium, because they are the most abundant elements in the universe. Other elements relatively abundant in the universe, although less so than hydrogen and helium, are carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, metals such as iron, magnesium and aluminum, and silicon. These substances must also have been present in relatively great abundance in the parent cloud of the planets. No doubt the remaining eighty-odd elements were also represented, but in smaller amounts. All the familiar chemical compounds of these substances would have formed in the cloud in a relatively short period of time.

About The Author:
By Allan Benson who is analyzing astrology based on scientific facts.