i had thought all this resvolved…the Earth didnt freeze away back then because the mantle wasnt thick enough. More of the interior fusion “seeped” up. Kinda like the way Venus is now, with its thin crust.

*shakes head*

it’s a shame Discover doesnt read more of its own articles from the past. In fact, I’ve got the issue right here in my hand Discover. But – I’m not going to do the work for you. Here’s a hint though…there are 2 issues and both appeared within the last 8 years.

But that’s all the hint I’m going to give you.

Start reading.

;-)

Raises some interesting questions, at the very least…

It’s been suggested that the moon was created by a Mars sized object slamming into the young Earth. If so, how long would it take for the thermal footprint of that event to settle down?

It just seems to me that something that enormous would leave Earth with a hot crust for a very long time. Also, the early moon was a lot closer than it is now. Wouldn’t tidal forces be a factor in warming the young Earth? Earth likely would have been bombarded for a long time from gravitationally collected debris from that huge event, another possible source of heat.

Another possibility is that the young Solar System might have been traveling through a dense dust or gas cloud, perhaps the very same nebula that it was born in. There may have been exposure to thermal transfer between the Sun and the Earth due to high volumes of dust and gasses from the nebula, and also the Sun’s own planetary disk. A few hot super giant stars nearby may have been a contributing factor as well. After 4.5 billion years, traces of that nebula are probably long dissipated, it’s super giants exploded long ago, all stirred back into the soup of our Milky Way.

I don’t know if any of the above could actually fits within the time line that includes the young Earth’s early oceans, but I thought it might be worth tossing it out there.

Now about how our money is spent… Actually, the study of science, like that in the above article, is an exploration that may help us understand better what is happening to us now. To understand how (and why) something that is played out long ago, may be applied to a better understanding of what we discover today. That may help us better navigate our human existence and survival on this Earth. But it does usually require scientific minds to fully grasp how the connections between past events and today’s discoveries relate, and how this new knowledge may be applied to help us cope with, and possibly solve, today’s many complex problems. Examples include better medicine, better and cleaner energy sources, better food and agriculture production, better control of a stable climate… the list goes on and on!

As far as politics… good healthy debate between opposing scientific views, met with dedicated actions to seek the truth under full cooperation and exchange on all sides, will serve us best to solve many of humanities problems. Politicians must step aside long enough to allow for best conclusions to be made, and not take sides ahead of the actual knowledge, a knowledge that assumes the best probability models based on actual observation and physical facts. For example, global warming is still in early scientific debate and should be better funded for continued study from all angles, and with full unconditional cooperation from within the science community. Our partisan politicians must refrain from taking sides and making a field day out of unfinished science. In good time, we may know the pros and cons of global warming, and find ways to adapt and resolve issues relating to it. Yes I said “pros”, because some will find good side effects in it. We should be looking at those pros as a means to help adjust, not just the cons as some all-doom scenario. This way, we may avoid being so drastic in our resolves. And that will surely keep the costs down!

Even if they didn’t though, the same curiosity and passionate desire to understand what happened in the past is the same curiosity that resulted in things like computers, air flight, medicine, and other modern conveniences.

Incidentally, if we try and solve all problems here on earth first we’d have never gotten to the moon, and many of those spin-off technologies wouldn’t have been developed till much later, if at all (Velcro!) :)

Finally, take a look at how much the US spends on science and research and compare that to other expenditures. You’ll see it is a very small fraction of the budget. It may seem like a lot of money is being spent on out of this world things, but compare it to other expenditures. If anything, we should be demanding more money go into science, not less.

It’s great to spend billions to smash protons and learn about new funky particles that exist for a trillionth of a second that emerge from distant dimension, and great to spend another few billions on a probe that can scoop up some sand on Mars and test for organic molecules but lets focus on that after we – clean up the pacific garbage patch, create (perfect and put into use) new forms of clean energy, make state of the art sewer treatment plants, etc, etc….

I’m just saying….I am worried about the planet now, not the state of it 4 billion years ago. Maybe early life grew on/under the ice like a modern day Europa? How do we really know it was not like that that long ago? Even the greatest minds, with the best theories, calculations and tests can still, only speculate.