The Goldilocks Zone

“This porridge is too hot,” Goldilocks exclaimed.
So she tasted the porridge from the second bowl.
“This porridge is too cold.”
So she tasted the last bowl of porridge.
“Ahhh, this porridge is just right!” she said happily.
And she ate it all up.

Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, children’s story

I have been reading Michio Kaku’s non-fiction book titled Parallel Universe since August last year and not yet finished. It is not a fiction book, in fact, it is a science book about cosmology, so it takes me times to understand every written words in the book, though it has been delivered in such a simple way so the book could be understood by someone who can’t tell the difference between black hole and doughnut hole. I myself, have been interested in reading about cosmology since high school, and not so dumb about that, compared to normal people, of course.

Anyway, I have reached the part which is quite much the same thing that have ever told by my junior high school religion guru (or senior high, i forget). It is started in page 241, talking about how lucky is Earth placed by God so it can provide lives. Some scientists saw it as a God will, of course my guru did too, while, the others saw it as an accident that Earth is placed in very right position, or they say, the Goldilocks zone. The things I write in this article is mostly a blunt copy of the original article in the book.

So, what brings scientist into an argument saying that Earth is in a very right place to be lived?

Bunch of reasons. But I’ll only explain some of them (actually the book, not me). Hefty nerdy astronomy ahead.

First, the distance from Sun. It is just in a so right distance from Sun that water, the universal solvent, can exist as liquid to create the chemicals of life. If it were a bit further from Sun, Earth might become like Mars, dry as a desert as well as frozen as the poles. Water and carbondioxide are often found in Mars as frozen solid. Even beneath the soil of Mars, one finds permafrost, a layer of frozen water (as also found in most near arctic land like North Canada or Russia). If it were closer to Sun, then Earth might be more like Venus, the hottest planet in the solar system on average (no wonder that people say women come from Venus). It’s atmosphere is composed mostly by carbondioxide so it traps the heat it captures from the sun, make the temperature soaring up to 900 Fahrenheit degrees. With sulfuric acid rain, pressure hundred times greater than Earth surface, and scorching temperatures, Venus may be the hellist planet, where God place His hell.

Second, the size of Moon is also in the right size to stabilize Earth’s orbit. If the Moon were much smaller in size, even tiny perturbation in Earth’s spin would slowly accumulate over hundred of millions of years, causing Earth to wobble disastrously and creating drastic change in climate so as to make life impossible. Without a large moon (a third size of Earth), Earth’s axis might have shifted by as much as 90 degrees over a period of many millions years. Since scientist believe that it needs hundreds of millions of years of climatic stability to create DNA, an Earth that periodically tips on its axis would create catastrophic change in weather which makes the creation of DNA impossible.

Third, the presence of planet Jupiter is also fortuitous for life on Earth, because its immense gravity helps to fling asteroids into outer space. It tooks almost a billion years during the “age of meteors”, which extended 3.5 billion to 4.5 billion years ago to clean out our solar system of the debris of asteroids and comets left over from its creation. If Jupiter were much smaller and its gravity much weaker, then our solar system would still full of asteroids, making the life on Earth impossible, as asteroids plunged into our ocean and destroyed life. Hence, the Jupiter is also in right size.

Fourth, we also live in Goldilocks zone planetary mass. If Earth were a bit smaller, its gravity would not be strong enough to keep its oxygen. If it were too large, it will retain many of its primordial, poisonous gases, making life impossible. Earth has just the right weight to keep the air composition beneficial to life.

Likewise, the fifth, Earth also exist in a very right position in Milky Way Galaxy, which is about two thirds the way from the center to the edge of galaxy disk. If the solar system were closer to the center, where black hole lurks, radiation would be so intense that life is impossible to exist. If it were too far away, there would not be enough higher elements to create the necessary elements of life.

Scientists can provide many examples to show that Earth lies within myriad Goldilocks zones. Not only about the position of Earth in the universe, but also the right amount of ocean, plate tectonics, atmosphere composition, tilt of its axis and so on to create an intellegent life.  Of course, those other examples are not discussed here.

So, was Earth placed in the right position in the middle of Goldilocks Zones because God love it? Perhaps, if we need a deity reason, because, in my subjective oppinion, to create such a great accuracy to place Earth in a livable position is impossible to be as simply as coincidence. Well, of course there is a small probability that it is made of an accident, but it will be a one rare examples among millions of dead planets in the universe. Maybe, our Earth is just, special.

What do you think? Is it all Goldilocky things a coincidence, or that God has bestowed special blessing on  us? Leave a comment!