Designed to the Core 2022 280 pg by Dr. Hugh Ross A famous apologist and astrophysicist from Reasons to Believe. He documents the huge fine tuning required for life on a planet, like Earth, from the outer galaxies, to our solar system, to the core of the earth. It’s a technical book summarizing much research on astrophysics and is highly referenced. Chap. 1 He quotes Neil Tyson, a famous agnostic astrophysicist who said- “the universe is a deadly place, that is trying to kill us.” Galaxies often collide and are drawn into giant black holes, and give out deadly gamma ray bursts, there are supernovas, ultraviolet and x-ray sources asteroids, comets, and solar super-flares all of which can be deadly to life. Most Galaxies do have a central Black hole, including our Milky Way Galaxy. As our sun ages it will likely have large super-flare ending life on earth. He documents multifaceted fine tuning of our galaxy, and it’s location, and our solar system and planet for life. Many galaxies have been mapped and planets and there is none like ours. This implies a purposeful fine tuner. Chap. 2 Exterior Design Features. I quote his Initial summary: “The entire physical universe is humanity’s “house”. It must be precisely as massive, spatially extensive, and old as it is to allow for our existence.” The universe had a beginning, and the start of space and time and boundaries. ( my note: this implies a creator by logic). There is much evidence that the cosmic mass, size, age, inflation, elements and ratio of elemental abundances are are are structured just right or there would be no life as we know it. The periodic table of our elements is affected by this. The projected number of stars in the universe is 1023
The mass of the universe also plays a role in weather stars and planets can form and how gravity can slow the expansion of the universe. Less massive, and the universe would expand rapidly without stars and planets. More massive, and and gravity would compress the universe into neutron stars and black holes. The universe took about 13.8 billion yrs to expand from its tiny dot to the present and at about that time with stars about 400 light yrs apart, on the average, so life could exist. Near its origin, the universe possessed one element-hydrogen; but nuclear fusion occurred and changed some into helium and lithium. With successive star formations, aging and supernova explosions, heavier elements were formed. Thorium Th and Uranium U arise from only 2 sources: supernova explosions and neutron star mergers. The formation of these 2 elements peaked about 9 billion yrs. from the start of creation, and that is about when our sun was formed, and is now about 4.6 billion yrs. old. Thus these- Th, U are present in the earth. ( My note- Wikipedia says “The formation of the Solar System began about 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other small Solar System bodies formed.” My note- So this would have the earth and planets forming slightly later than the Sun. This hypothesis agrees with a naturalistic Old Earth formation view that Ross and many scientists have. A few scientists hold to a Young Earth creation view. For discussion of this see my website paper on-Creationism Revisited) My objective is to very briefly, but correctly, summarize the author’s view, especially his ‘design’ stand. Ross says, pg 26, Despite the vast space separating the universe’s galaxies and stars , much of the space manifests the same temperature. This was determined by detailed cosmic background radiation CMBR surveys. Without this temperature smoothness and homogeneity, universe would be more clumpy and dangerous. The inflation of the universe was complex and fine tuned. Researchers proposed that in a sliver of initial time, 10-36 to 10-32
seconds, the universe expanded from the size of a proton to the size for a grapefruit, a factor of 1026
times, at greater than the speed of light and then the universe expansion slowed to less than the speed of light. This could explain the universe CMBR temp. uniformity. Chap. 3. Large Scale Cosmic Structures. The largest structures in the universe are super-superclusters, followed by the smaller supercluster. Our Laniakea Supercluster resides in the area of the least densely populated superclusters and is unique in structure. It contains the Local Group of galaxies that contains our Milky Way Galaxy, MWG. Astronomer Brent Tully released the Cosmicflows-3 galaxy catalog in 2016. It uses peculiar velocity flow fields to separate the galaxies, and found 17,669 galaxies. figure 3.4 on pg 39 showed the map of the Laniakea Supercluster LS of 100,000 galaxies with Local Group LG galaxy being on the outer fringe of it. Figures 3.8,9 show our neighbor galaxies,p.44-5. Advanced life requires a large spiral galaxy like our MWG, where the spiral structure remains undisturbed. A good feature of the LS is that it contains only one supermassive black hole(-its mass is 66 million solar masses) but its far away from the LG. The supermassive black holes rotate rapidly and convert 42% of the nearby matter into energy and dangerous radiation. Some black holes are smaller and non-rotating and less dangerous. A black hole forms when a massive star(often 10-30 solar masses) collapses following the exhaustion of its fuel. Chap. 4 The LG Supercluster. Figure 4.1 on pg 56 is a map of the LG which is spread out with long arms resembling a praying mantis. Most superclusters in the universe are either spheroidal or ellipsoid and the member galaxies are tightly jammed together and unfit for life. Chap. 6 The Local Group Interior. The LG has no giant galaxies, only 2 large galaxies(the MWG an the Andromeda galaxy) and 5 large dwarf galaxies. The MWG and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds LMC are unique(these 2 clouds help maintain the spiral structure of the MWG by shedding matter). Figure 6.1, pg 73 is a map of the LG and shows these. The back hole at the center of the MWG has only 4 million solar masses. The LMC does have a black hole, M32, but doesn’t emit much radiation, p83. Chap. 7 The Milky Way Galaxy Interior. The Milky Way stars are distributed along 5 locations: the central core, the bar, the thick and thin discs and the halo. Figure 7.2 on pg 88 shows this. The rectangular shaped bar is about 11,000 light yrs. long. The stars in the thin disc are rich in heavy elements and its thickness is 1000 light yrs. The Sun and solar system is located at the boundary between the between the inner and outer portion of the thin disc and about 27,000 light yrs from the central core. Searches have been made for other spiral galaxies, but none appears as well suited for life as ours. Most galaxies have stars of 1 of 2 colors: blue for hot new ones, and red for old ones losing energy. The MWG has many green stars for mid life ones, plus fewer few red and blue ones. The black hole in the central core is Sgr. A. MY note from Wikipedia Wkp– the MWG formed about 13 billion yrs ago about 800 million yrs. after the big bang.”Cosmological simulations indicate that, 11 billion years ago, it merged with a particularly large galaxy that has been labeled the Kraken. Properties of the Milky Way such as stellar mass, angular momentum, and metallicity in its outermost regions suggest it has undergone no mergers with large galaxies in the last 10 billion years.: Some additional descriptions of the MWG are given by Wkp and that the spiral arms have differing names and possible structures; here the Ross Local Arm is called the Orion–Cygnus Arm Also radio waves and gamma rays are emitted from near Sgr. A. Also see When Did the Milky Way Form? Origins and Timeline – ScienceInsights Chap. 8 The Local Arm of the MWG. The MWG spiral arms have names and our sun is the Local Arm, and in a Local bubble safe zone. His summary: Only tiny regions of the MWG were safe zones, free of cosmic dangers. The solar system resides in this safe region encased in a Local bubble of dense gas surrounded by a local fluff that is a magnetic shield. Figure 8.1 on pg. 106 shows Local Arm that split off from the Perseus Arm previously. He MWG disc had a low number of black holes and they are low in mass. Many galaxies have Pulsars from neutron stars that emit a narrow beam of intense radiation. They are like light houses in that they rotate and their beam with them. There are only11 of them within 1000 light yrs of the Sun. Figure 8.2 on pg 111 shows the co-rotational radius of the MWG. Its safe to be near this radius and our sun is at 98% of this. Fig. 8.3 p112 shows the Local Bubble surrounding the Sun; this and the Local fluff form a a protective barrier about the sun diffusing cosmic rays. It appears that the Sun was formed in an area high in metallics and migrated to its present safe location. Supernovas are dangerous star explosions and there are not many near the sun. Chap. 9 the Sun. The sun maintains it luminosity with 5 times greater stability than any other know stars. Most stars like the sun have magnetic fields and magnetic activity manifested by dark spots, flares and coronal mass ejections. Studies have compares similar stars to the sun a G-dwarf star, (temp. 5770 K, rotation period 24.5 days) and found the sun was unique in its quiescence and stability. It is in the middle of its life age.p.125. Chap10. Our Planetary System. Just as the sun has no “twin”, neither does its group of planets. 3500 other planetary systems were studied with no match. Also each of our planets has a role in protecting earth. Chap 11 Planetary Migration and Orbital Configuration. Our Planets formed and migrated in unique ways and aided life earth by also shielding it form asteroids and other problems. Fig. 11.2 pg 154 shows how some planets migrated in their orbits. For some initial time carbonaceous chondrite meteorites provided the earth with some water, p156 Chap. 12 Small Solar System Bodies Each of the sun’s 5 asteroid-comet belts has the right mass, population and composition water and to aid the earth’s suitability for life. Asteroids are rocky or metallic objects (75% carbonaceous, 10 % heavy metals), while comets are a mix of rocks, dust and frozen volatiles(85%) including water, carbon dioxide and ammonia. The Oort cloud is the most distant and massive (1.9 earth masses) of the belts and most are comets. About 25 million of these small bodies enter the earth daily yearly mass of 15-70 million Kg/yr. The earth looses 500,000 Kg/yr of water to outer space, but comets replace some of this and also replace some nitrogen loss. A meteorite is a small meteor than survives the atmosphere and lands on earth. Early humans found the ones high in iron and nickel and hammered them into weapons. Early big asteroids hit the earth and are used a metal deposits for mining today. Chap 13 The Moon The earth’s moon is unlike any other in that it has a big mass relative to its planet (ratio of about 50 times bigger than most moons relative to their planet). The Moon has and iron core and is attracted to earth by gravity and helps stabilize the earth’s orbit. It differs from other most satellite moons, in that it was formed by a large body,Theta’s, collision with earth at an angle and the moon was ejected off. The Moon also has a more distant orbit from its planet, relatively. Often other large planets have a protoplanetary disc of debris and small moons that have coalesced beyond the frost line. Our Moon acts as a brake to the earth’s rotation as it pulls on the near earth side more than on the far earth side; likely slowing the earths rotation rate. The moon also acts as an axial tilt stabilizer for earth. Other planets have major tilt variations; Mars for example tilts erratically as much as 60%. The moon creates tides on earth. If the Moon were 2% more or less massive, it would negatively affect tides and earth’s axis, making life more difficult on earth. The Moon is also unique in its low density of 3.44 g/cc. This allows the large size but low total mass. It provides reflective light just right for nocturnal animals on earth. Its size and distance is just right for some awesome eclipses, and doing some science experiments and discoveries. Chap. 14. Earth’s Core the core has 2 parts, inner solid Iron core and outer liquid core. Unlike other planets it maintain a magnetic dynamo that aids in protecting life. Chap. 15 Earth’s Mantle. The mantle is composed of magnesium silicate rock. Chap. 16 The Earth’s Crust The Crust is 25 miles think on the continent’s and 4.5 miles thick under the ocean. There is tectonic activity that has helped the deep water cycle, carbon cycle and oxygen cycle. My note: there is certainty a lot of fine tuning and preparation of the universe , sun and planets for housing life on earth. Therefore, it would seam the universe was made and fine tuned first, before earth was made. Ross asserts that in the bible, the perspective is that the atmosphere of earth cleared and the sun and stars appeared, but were already there. It’s logical God is a god of order, and energy and matter would be created first, before the earth, as in E=MC2 by Einstein.