Our body is made up of twenty-seven chemical elements; of these, only one hydrogen was formed during the birth of the universe. The remaining twenty-six were born in the bowels of massive stars that evolved and died over the next billions of years. How did the ashes of extinct stars incarnate in us and in the world around us?
Game against everyone
Imagine buying a lottery ticket every week and winning the top prize over and over again.
Isn't it true that this seems absolutely impossible? But in fact, the fact that you are reading these lines is no less strange and surprising. The fact is that everything that seems to us so familiar and self-evident is the result of an absolutely incredible, if not almost unnatural, coincidence of circumstances. Something like a Hollywood action movie where, in complete contradiction with logic and common sense, the hero single-handedly defeats whole armies of villains one after another.
No matter how fantastic this dialogue may seem, the existence of the world, including our Galaxy, is far from self-evident. As knowledge develops, it becomes clear that in order for the Universe to become the way we know it, an unusually fine, precise adjustment of a whole set of physical laws, parameters and initial conditions is needed. In the words of the Australian physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davis: "As if someone with the utmost precision picked up the numbers of Nature to create the Universe."
Could this have happened "by itself" by accident?
We inherited the belief in chance from the 19th century. At that time, scientists believed that the universe is eternal and infinite. Therefore, there is a place in it for any curiosity and the most incredible accident; and in some of its corners intelligent life could spontaneously appear.
According to modern cosmology, our Universe was born, contrary to all known laws of physics, from a tiny clot the size of a watermelon. The beginning of everything was the Big Bang, which left no stone unturned from the eternal and unchanging universe. All that remained of her was the belief in chance, which has safely survived to this day. Is this belief based on facts?
The "father" of the term "Big Bang" astrophysicist A. F. Hoyle answered this unequivocally - he does not lean: “Spread the parts of a large airliner on the ground and wait for a hurricane. The likelihood of a spontaneous emergence of a living cell is the same as the likelihood of a hurricane leaving behind a plane ready to take off."
The fact is that our Universe is like an airliner - the result of the most precise "assembly" of perfectly matched elements. The "precisely calculated" balance of forces determines how the substance is distributed in it, and even small deviations can be fatal.
For example, the cosmological constant (constant), which determines the ratio of the forces of attraction and repulsion, must be very precisely balanced in order to ensure the constant expansion of the universe. If this balance were slightly shifted to one side, there would be no separate stars in the Universe, and galaxies to the other. The chances that such a delicate balance could have been struck by accident are ridiculously small: at least 1 in 10 to the fifty-third power.
In order for the Universe to become "hospitable" for life, something absolutely incredible is required: the "only correct" values of all constants and forces must be fulfilled simultaneously. It is like the door of a safe, locked with many digital locks: you can open it only by entering the correct combination of numbers into each of the locks at the same time.
The list of "incredible coincidences" in the Earth epic is far from over. The very location of the Solar System turned out to be unusually successful, since there are no heavy elements farther from the center of the Galaxy to form "Earth-like" planets, and closer - the conditions are extremely unfriendly. The dimensions and distances of the Sun-Earth-Moon system are perfectly matched. The Earth rotates in an almost circular orbit at a distance of 150 million km from the Sun; therefore, there is a moderate temperature regime in which most of the water is in liquid form.
Our unusually large satellite, the Moon, makes an irreplaceable contribution to the development of life. The lunar gravity stabilizes the axis of rotation of our planet and thus maintains a favorable climate for life with the change of seasons and rains that penetrate into arid regions. In addition, lunar attraction causes tides, which provide the momentum for ocean currents. They regulate the climate by circulating huge amounts of heat and, in addition, mixing nutrients from land in the oceans.
Is it a random gift?
In addition to these extraordinary properties, there is something on our planet that is not found anywhere in the vast expanses of the Cosmos: highly developed life and civilization. What made the Earth so unique?
The fact is that the laws of physics and chemistry ruling in Space seem to bypass our planet. According to these laws, the temperature at the earth's surface should be about 300 degrees, the pressure - 60 atm.; the main gas of our atmosphere, nitrogen, must be oxidized and dissolved in ocean waters, and oxygen could not appear in the required amount.
However, this is hampered by the biosphere. It has existed for hundreds of millions of years and constantly "pushes" our planet to develop contrary to the laws of inanimate nature. Therefore, despite changes in many "external" factors (such as a significant increase in solar activity), the temperature of the earth's surface and oceans, the content of salts in their waters, as well as the composition of the atmosphere, remain within narrow limits suitable for the further development of life. Actually, the same happens in everyday life - our body temperature (37º) and its composition remain unchanged, whether the blizzard is raging around or the sun is beating down, and whether we eat only rice or horse meat.
To maintain such an “illegal” state, a system of global cycles of matter and energy has emerged on our planet, which in its complexity resembles the processes in a highly developed organism. The gyres cover the atmosphere, water cover and many kilometers of the Earth. The living matter of the biosphere plays an extremely important role here: it "adjusts" or balances the rates of the cycles of circulation of water, oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Without the action of cycles, the development of life would be unthinkable. Thanks to the carbon cycle in the earth's atmosphere, the share of carbon dioxide has decreased from the original 98% to the current 0.03%, and remains at this "anomalous" level (against the "normal" 95% on Mars and 96.5% on Venus). The oceans play the role of a kind of buffer in this: they contain almost 60 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere; they are capable of absorbing (or releasing) huge amounts of carbon and quickly removing the excess into sediment, which is then "stored" in the solid shell of our planet. As carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere, it was replaced by nitrogen, an irreplaceable component of protein, and oxygen necessary for highly developed life.
To "start" the carbon cycle, a mechanism is needed that can send a significant part of the carbon to underground "storage" and extract it from there as needed. But here, too, luck literally follows us.
The size, internal structure and composition of our planet are unusually well suited to fulfill its role in the development of life. At the core of the Earth is a core, the inner solid part of which has a tremendous density; the outer part is in a molten liquid state. The currents arising there create a magnetic field that protects life on the planet. The core is surrounded by a mantle, whose hot, viscous mass is slowly stirring. The size of the Earth allows the mantle to "flow", and the "precisely measured", not too large, but not too small amount of radioactive elements supplies the energy necessary to keep the mantle "on low fire." On this slowly moving mass, the earth's crust "floats", consisting of "patches" of various shapes and sizes, which undergo shifts, rise or sinking. At the same time, the excess carbon deposited in the sediment is reliably "stored" in the solid shell of our planet. For example, the Alps were built from rocks containing carbon dioxide "bound" in the ocean.
But the creation of favorable conditions does not yet guarantee the development of life. Our Earth is a tiny grain of sand in the vast Cosmos, where extremely unfriendly forces incompatible with life rule. But here, too, luck did not leave our planet, having provided it with a "cap" of multilayer protection.
The solar wind and the Sun's magnetic field deflect destructive cosmic rays from the Earth, capable of destroying all life. The Earth's magnetic field creates additional protection from cosmic and solar particles and rays (including ultraviolet rays). If the Earth did not have its own magnetic field, the solar wind would deprive it of its water cover, as it happened, most likely, on Mars.
Earth's luck doesn't end there. Other planets of the Solar System are participating in its protection. For example, the gravity of Jupiter removed the most dangerous, large bodies from the asteroid belt. And again luck: if Jupiter had arisen earlier, the Earth would have received less carbon, and if later or had a much lower mass, then there would be more asteroids that could interfere with the development of life on Earth.
Saturn and Jupiter shield the inner solar system from over-bombardment by galactic comets. At the same time, this defense did not become too "dull"; cometary bombardments provide the flow of cosmic matter and energy to the Earth's surface at the "right" time and in the "right" place, maintaining the circulation on the planet. In addition, from the matter of comets, deposits of a number of minerals were formed, without which the development of civilization is unthinkable.
An incredible pattern
According to the rules of statistics, the probabilities of unrelated events are multiplied. Therefore, the chance of getting heads on the first coin toss is ½, in the second - ½ × ½, and in the third - ½ × ½ × ½. The usual probability of winning a decent amount in the lottery is 1 / 1,000,000. Now let's imagine that we win over and over again. Hardly anyone will “buy” our version of random luck. Suspicion will fall on the presence of some hidden factor, something or someone, behind such "super - luck".
The combination of selections of chances that ensured the development of life on our planet leaves no room for choice. Either this is a miracle, or the whole Cosmos, including the Earth and everything living on it, is a single interconnected system developing in one direction.
However, in order for a civilization to develop on Earth, absolutely incredible "coincidences" are needed.
