Evolution of the Universe Essay

The evolution of earth will always remain a mystery. However, there is many scenarios and evidence to help understand the evolution of earth, its sun, planets, and the moon. The paper will derscribe how the earth and its atmosphere evolved with the help of other bodies. Which includes a discription of the formation of the bodies that plays a role in the evolution of earth. Also, a discription of the earth, sun, moon, planets, and other bodies motions according to Copernicus, Kepler, and Gallileo discoveries. Evolution: Earth and Its Atmosphere Plate tectonics are the ultimate process that controls the changes on Earth. Dynamic activity like volcanism, meteorite impacts, mountain building, and erosion, is how our Earth has come to its current state, while the continuing motion of the Earth is what’s driving the resurfacing of the Earth resulting in faulting, basin formation, and volcanism. The combination of gravity and the Earth’s internal heat is the driving force for this continuous motion. Earth’s internal heat comes from consistent decay of radioactive elements, crystallization of the inner core, and the heat left-over from planet formation. Recent discoveries suggest that features of current Earth come from the planetary melting and planetary accumulation which involves the differentiation of objects. Mars and the Moon underwent global differentiation which allowed the separation of the core from the mantle and formed large parts of the Earth’s still-existing crust. The atmosphere and oceans first appeared about 4. 5 billion years ago, soon after the Earth and Moon completed their formational phases (Mirali & Skinner, 2009). Oxygen was nearly absent in the atmosphere of the early Earth. The Great Oxygenation Event (GOE), or Great Oxidation, was the biologically induced appearance of free oxygen (O2) in Earth’s atmosphere. Cyanobacteria; a large photosynthetic bacterium, appears approximately 200 million years before the GOE and began to produce oxygen by photosynthesis (Carlson & Boyet, 2008). Cyanbacteria is known to be responsible for the initial rise of atmospheric oxygen during this time. Before the GOE, any free oxygen was chemically captured by dissolved iron or organic matter. After the GOE, any excess free oxygen began to accumulate in the atmosphere. Free oxygen is toxic to anaerobic organisms and the rising concentrations may have been the reason that most of the Earth’s anaerobic inhabitants were wiped out. Oxygen is dominantly locked in minerals in the crust and Earth’s interior and would remain as such if it weren’t for photo synthesizers. Methane and nitrous oxide have been increasing in recent years and a consequence of agricultural activities, and human-induced global warming (Kasing & Siefert, 2002). Thus, microorganisms have led to the basic composition of Earth’s atmosphere since the origin of life. Formation of the Bodies: Motions Role About five billion years ago the galaxy had a supernova explosion causing large elements of debris pushing it through gasses called hydrogen into interstellar particles and dust. By this process of mixture under its own gravity at the center, it compressed together and formed a star of gasses that we see today. This star now became born which is now the sun, which around it a swirl of material compressed as forces for the heat. This process gave rise to our sister planets and throughout the universe. The sun started to grow larger and its energy source also started to ignite its source outward into nuclear fire balls. Within millions of years disks and components started to freeze over into small grains of dust. From this process what was found was silicon, iron, aluminum, magnesium with oxygen that was displayed as clumps and large chunks of rock and boulder. They were so large that they broke apart from their own gravity and disbursed throughout the universe. Planetesimals planets started to grow, from this they were colliding with other bodies, now starting to grow into larger lanets with their form of mass and energy behind them giving them the power to move. In this time in history the sun was only about 2/3’s of the source of power that we have today, meaning the sun is more power today than ever, because of time and energy and mass letting it grow. The process of the large forms of mass rocks grew in time from there silicon, iron, aluminum, magnesium and oxygen with the help of the sun that now grew the planets that we know of today. As all the planets grew in time and formed to what we know them as, they all rotate in a clock ward motion. As the planets move together in the same motion they are creating energy within their centrifugal force, which keeps them in motion and growing with the support of the sun’s energy. Scientist’s Discoveries: Earth, Sun, Moon, Planets, Bodies The motions of the bodies in the universe were explained by several scientists between the 1490’s and the 1700’s. Initially, there was a widely held belief that the Earth was stationary and all of the other bodies revolved around it; this is called a geocentric model (Merali & Skinner, 2009). In the 1490’s however, a scientist named Copernicus began to address the fact that a geocentric model did not explain the movement of the planets. His discoveries began to show that a heliocentric system (sun is stationary, central and the planets revolve around it) was more likely based on noticing that planets temporarily reversed direction (Merali & Skinner, 2009). He surmised that the temporary reversal was because of the differences in time that it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun, versus the time it took for other bodies to orbit the sun (Merali & Skinner, 2009). Copernicus also determined that a body with a larger temporary reversal of direction was closer to earth and a smaller reversal was further away which could be tested by astronomical measurements (Merali & Skinner, 2009). Finally, Copernicus resurrected an old theory that the Earth spins on an axis which explains the rising and setting of the sun (Merali & Skinner, 2009). Copernicus’ discoveries led other scientists to also prove the heliocentric model. In the late 1500’s, Kepler discovered three laws that would bolster Copernicus’ heliocentric model, but would also prove his ideas about the shape of orbits wrong (Merali & Skinner, 2009). First, the Law of Ellipses says that each planets orbit is an ellipse and the sun is one focus (Merali & Skinner, 2009). Next, the Law of Equal Areas determines that the planet’s orbital speeds are not the same and therefore the closer they are to the sun the faster they orbit and alternately, the further from the sun, the slower the orbit (Merali & Skinner, 2009). Lastly, the Law of Orbital Harmony is a mathematical equation that determined that â€Å"the square of the orbital period in years is proportional to the cube of the planet’s average distance from the sun. † (Merali & Skinner, para. 11, 2009). Therefore, the Earth takes 356. 24219 days, or 1 year, to orbit the sun (Merali & Skinner, 2009). Even with these three valuable laws, it was Galileo and Newton who pulled the heliocentric model together. In the late 1600’s Galileo used a telescope to find four moons orbiting Jupiter which proved that Earth could not be at the center of orbital motion (Merali & Skinner, 2009). Galileo also determined that Venus had phases which could only be explained if Venus and Earth orbited the sun (Merali & Skinner, 2009). Finally, Galileo postulated that forces move bodies. Additionally, those bodies will only change direction or stop if influenced by another force and that force works equally on all bodies despite differences in mass (Merali & Skinner, 2009). It was this last concept that inspired Isaac Newton in the same period. Newton determined that if an apple was pulled to the Earth by gravity, then the moon would also be affected by gravity thus discovery that gravity influences all bodies on Earth and in the universe (Merali & Skinner, 2009). Conclusion Modern science will continue to have plenty of unanswered questions. The evolution of earth begins with the plate tectonics process that includes corollaries of mantle convention, contienental drift, seafloor spereading and explains the pattern of volcanoes, earthquakes, and mountain building. The atmosphere and oceans evolved 4. 5 years ago after the earth and moon completed their formational phases. With the help of Great Oxygenation Event (GOE), photosynthesis, and Cyanobacteria the earth produced oxygen. The formation of bodies occurred five billion years ago when the supernova explosion caused the birth of the sun and other planets. Issac Newton, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler were very important scientist from the 1490s and the 1700s who made many discoveries about the earth, sun, planets, and other bodies motions.