Creation myth part 2

Part 1 ended with Planets being formed around second generation Stars.

Planets are clumps of matter not massive enough to be stars, Jupiter the most massive planet in our system is almost there. If it was twice as massive it would burst into light and we would live in a binary system. There are lots of binary systems out there.

There are gas giant planets, there are 4 in our system, and small rocky planets with no gas atmosphere we have lots of those, the asteroid belt is full of them. There are also medium sized rocky planets with thin gas atmospheres, we have 3 of them.

All 3 of them are in a narrow band with no others in between, seems to be their place. Venus, Earth and Mars. Earth is in the middle and looks blue because of all the Oxygen in the atmosphere. Venus is too hot for our liking and Mars is too cold. Earth is in the very narrow Goldilocks zone.

It´s likely that all Stars have a Goldilocks zone, even Jupiter has such a zone, with Europa the Moon within it. Some will have a Planet within it, we have no idea of the percentage as yet.

Life is likely on a Planet within a Goldilocks zone, the time has come for Life to develop. It is probably sprouting everywhere. We are amongst the first instances, and others at our stage of development are probably too far away in Space for their radio waves to have reached us yet.

If we survive as a Species and continue to develop technologically, we will become one of the Elder Species in our Galaxy, our local collection of Stars. It would be good for us to behave responsibly. Any encounter between Spacefaring Species will be fraught with danger. Difference in technological development could be vast. I suggest that rather than judge a Species by our own standards, it would be fitting to judge them by their own, how do they treat the less developed they meet?

This question is only now becoming important. We have been to the Moon and have sent robots to Mars, so far we have not found any signs of Life. We have explored our system with unmanned probes, that´s how we discovered that Europa has an ocean of liquid water beneath its ice shell. There may be Life under that ice. There are certainly volcanic vents, the heat from the core of the moon is how the water is kept liquid. There are life forms on Earth that have developed in just those conditions, around deep sea volcanic vents. With a bit of luck the life (if any) there will be at the stage of single cell organisms. Because we are bound to trash the place.

There is no fault in that, we don´t know any better. We are still pushing other Species and even isolated groups of our own Species, into extinction on our own Planet...

Suppose though that intelligent Life is there in Europa. The beings will have no conception of the rest of the Universe, they see no Stars, may not have eyes, they live under a roof of ice. They will almost certainly be aquatic and have no reason to be gas breathing, there may not be any dry land. So we shall come as a total surprise. We will not recognize their intelligence, we cannot understand our closest relatives, Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Orangutans. Let alone Dolphins, Elephants or Lions although they all have societies and obviously communicate between themselves. What chance do we have to understand such different beings?

Maybe we should leave Europa be for a bit. Content ourselves with using the materials we find on rocky planets and moons. Wait until we can understand other Species on Earth and have adjusted ourselves to allow them to live.

CREATION MYTH


First there was TIME

For without Time nothing can happen.

Second there was LIGHT

Raw, a singularity in density and temperature, no space in it or around it, absolutely nothing else.

Third there was SPACE

As it cools, Strings condensed, they were constantly changing one to another but there was some individuality for an instant.
Then Strings could stay alive for long enough for the ends to meet and hoop shape strings started appearing, they were more stable. I shall call them Gravitons.
Snippet Strings, still unstable, popped in and out of existence within a writhing sea of Gravitons.

Fourth there was MATTER/ANTIMATTER

There were currents, eddies in the sea of Gravitons, and between these currents areas of relative calm.
These calm areas are called Branes and it was in these Branes that the snippet Strings could find stability. The Gravitons that broke apart could live here too. It could be that all the snippet Strings were once Gravitons. Gravitons are spinning, I forgot to tell you that, they are spinning very fast, but at this time there was nothing moving any slower so they didn´t know.
When a spinning Graviton breaks it keeps spinning but like a spring. It can have either of two directions, a left-hand spin or a right-hand spin.
So these snippet Strings spin one way or the other. One way makes it Matter the other way makes it Antimatter.

Fifth there was only MATTER

The chances are even which way a String will spin, but when they meet they get all tangled with each other and both die. Whichever spin happens to have most Strings becomes the dominant type of Matter. Antimatter/Matter collisions destroy them both and the energy gets recycled until there is only one type or the other.

Sixth there was SPACE

More and more Gravitons formed. These Gravitons define Space in all its ten dimensions, for there is more to Reality than we can perceive. So as more and more Gravitons condensed in the Light, Space grew and grew, explosively. A chain reaction like in an Atom bomb, but there are no Atoms yet. This explosion of Space is called Inflation.

Seventh there was our UNIVERSE

Lets go back to those calm places, Branes. Our Universe is one of those. The snippet Strings have to have their feet in the Brane but the bit in between can arch out into the sea of Gravitons, they are safe as long as their feet are in the Brane.
Here is another way of saying it.
Our Universe is a 4 dimensional space/time continuum within a 10 dimensional sea of Gravitons, sometimes called a 4-brane but that´s just Scientists being silly.
No doubt it has a complicated shape and vast expanse. We can only see a little of it. Only 13.7 billion light years in any direction. I suppose every year we can see a light year further, as we travel away from the Big Bang, the birth of our Universe. That´s cos the further away things are the further in the past we see them. That´s how Space and Time are linked.


Eighth there was MASS

Einstein, heard of him? Clever guy. He realised that everything was moving at a constant rate, called it "c". Very simple just a little c the most important realisation in science. The trick is that we are all moving through Time, even if you are sitting as still as you can in your seat you are still moving through Time and fast. If you are moving fast then your speed through Time slows down. When you add your speed through Space and your speed through Time the answer is always the same. Magic.
Those Gravitons spinning fast,that´s how fast they are spinning. So they can just bumble about in Space like you and me. Those snippet Strings are spinning too, not quite as fast. Some are hardly spinning at all. The ones that spin fast are called Electrons and Quarks, they have different shapes. Electrons are just like Slinky springs except spinning very fast and with no stairs to walk down. Quarks are similar except they taper, one end is smaller than the other. There are two types the ones that spin toward the big end are called Up Quarks and the ones that spin to the small end are called Down Quarks.
The point is that they can bump into Gravitons, they can bump into each other too but that´s a different matter. While Electrons and Quarks are stuck in our Universe, Gravitons are not, they are free to move in all dimensions. So when they get bumped they just disappear! They haven´t been destroyed or anything they have just moved in a dimension we can´t see. But the Space that they defined goes with them. Electrons and Quarks shrink Space. So they seems to move towards each other, it´s just the Space getting out the way.
Anything that bumps Gravitons has Mass and the more it bumps them the more Mass it has. That movement that massive things have toward each other gets faster the closer they get. It seems to be a force, the force of Gravity. Now you know why I called them Gravitons, because they create Gravity, in a roundabout way.

Ninth there were ATOMS

Those Electrons and Quarks, they have an Electromagnetic charge on them, so they are a bit like magnets but with only one pole, so each String is like one end of a magnet. Electrons are -ve, Up Quarks are +ve but only 2/3, and Down Quarks are -ve again but only 1/3. It´s silly I know but we discovered Electrons first and Quarks don´t hang out on their own much. Quarks hang out in groups of 3 in fact, either 2 Downs and an Up called a Neutron or 2 Ups and a Down called a Proton. So a Proton is +ve to balance an Electron and a Neutron has no net charge.
Now we have Protons, Neutrons and Electrons floating around in this sea of Gravitons, when things calm down a bit more these, particles I shall call them now, start forming groups. Protons and Neutrons hang tight and Electrons are a bit standoffish. These groups are called Atoms and the number of Protons in a group decides which Element it is an Atom of. At this stage there are only the simplest atoms, overwhelmingly Hydrogen, some heavy Hydrogen and very little Helium.

Tenth there were STARS

Things got a bit quiet for a while until slowly the Gravitational effect made the clumpy places much more clumpy and the sparse spaces even more sparse. Eventually the clouds of Hydrogen gas became dense enough to force a fusion reaction. 4 Hydrogen atoms get forced together and form one Helium atom and 2 neutrinos, the neutrinos travel at close to the speed of light so they go travelling. This reaction gives out a lot of heat and sets off a chain reaction, just like in an Atomic bomb but much more powerful, a Star is born. These first generation Stars are not like Sol, our Sun, they have no Planets.

Eleventh there were lots of different ATOMS

These Stars live out their lifetimes fusing Atoms together, creating more complicated Elements.
You know about Elements, right? Human beings and all life forms are made of Carbon Oxygen and Hydrogen as the main characters with other Elements playing very important but supporting roles. Water is made of just Hydrogen and Oxygen. The air that we breathe is made up of Nitrogen, Oxygen and Carbon dioxide mainly.
They get as far as Iron and then explode in a Nova or Supernova, depending on how much Mass they have. All the Elements more complicated and heavier than Iron are created in this explosion. That´s why they are not so common.

Twelfth there are PLANETS

The dust clouds from first generation Stars slowly comes together again through the action of Gravity and start that process again, but this time the are lots of Elements in the cloud and planets can be formed. Our Sun, Sol, is one of those Stars and our planet, Earth, one of those Planets.

Enough for today.

The Story continues.