Stage Set Earlier for Life on Earth

[Celebration]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002266518_earth07.html


"According to the traditional view, Earth formed between
4.5 billion and 4.6 billion years ago from a disc of dust,
rocks and gas circling the sun. It then took 700 million years
for the young planet to settle down and cool off enough for
the first microscopic organisms to appear around 3.8 billion
years ago, paleontologists believed. 

Researchers, however, now report evidence that conditions were
much more benign when the Earth was 150 million to 200 million
years old — 3 percent to 4 percent of its present age."

[bullimiami]

1. life, the universe and everything sprang into existance 5000 years ago

didnt these so called "scientists" get the memo?

[acmejack]

2. Obviously these people are divorced from reality

Their facts do not conform with the truth as found in the number one best selling book of all time. Who you going to believe GOD or some atheist researcher drawn from the liberal intellectual elite propounding this ridiculous story to persecute the Christians (Fristians and Delayites in particular)! There ought to be a law...

[htuttle]

3. So where does the formation of Earth 2.0 fit into this?

I thought the most likely theory for the formation of the Moon was that the first Earth was 'destroyed' (nearly) by an asteroid/planetoid strike, and the current Earth and Moon formed from it's debris cloud.

This should have added a few hundred million years of 'too hot for life' somewhere, but I can't see how it fits with this theory yet.

[qazplm]

4. maybe

the collision happened very early on? When the Earth literally was still forming and coalescing, still pretty much molten, that would maybe not add as million million of years.

Where's a time machine when you need one!

[NNadir]

5. I am inclined to a panspermic view of life.

From what I've gleaned over the years from astrophysics, astrochemistry, as well as from biochemistry and organic chemistry, I suspect strongly that life is much more broadly distributed in the universe than is generally supposed. I am not making a claim about intelligent life, but I do expect that highly organized quasi-biochemical self organizing systems are fairly common. If self-replicating systems exist, they are living.

It will be interesting to see more data from planetary bodies in this solar system, especially from Europa and Mars, assuming that humanity survives long enough to conduct future investigations. In the latter case, I should not be surprised to see evidence of life - perhaps now extinct - in the geological past.