{"id":2146,"date":"2022-11-17T07:40:08","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T12:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2146"},"modified":"2022-11-17T07:40:08","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T12:40:08","slug":"the-goldilocks-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/17\/the-goldilocks-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Goldilocks Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
\u00a0
What makes the world go round?
\u00a0
Vocal artists and astronomers provide different answers.
\u00a0
The Stylistics sang that people make the world go round.\u00a0 Soul crooner Deon Jackson and the rock group KISS proclaimed that love is what keeps things spinning.\u00a0 For the cynical, the musical Cabaret<\/em> hits just the right notes: \u201cMoney makes the world go round.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
With regard to planetary physics, astronomers have determined that Earth\u2019s rotation is part of the original angular motion of all the primordial components of our solar system.\u00a0 In other words, our sun has always been surrounded by objects that are not only revolving around it, but spinning like tops at various speeds.\u00a0
\u00a0
At an early stage of the solar system\u2019s development, things were very exciting.\u00a0 Comets and other debris regularly crashed into the larger bodies, adding to their mass.\u00a0 The earliest spheres were a bit like billiard balls careening around the sun.\u00a0
\u00a0
Astronomers have found compelling evidence that a Mars-sized planet collided with the Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.\u00a0 This would have been something to see.\u00a0 All things considered, it\u2019s a good thing none of us was anywhere in the neighborhood.\u00a0 The smaller planet shattered into myriad pieces that went into orbit around the Earth, which means for a while we actually had a Saturn-like ring.\u00a0
\u00a0
The collision transformed Earth in radical ways.\u00a0 Our rotation was accelerated so dramatically that an average day (that is, one complete spin) lasted only five hours. \u00a0Our axis was also knocked slightly off-kilter, which is why we are blessed with seasons.\u00a0 By contrast, the huge planet Uranus spins completely on its side, rotating \u201cnorth to south\u201d instead of \u201ceast to west.\u201d\u00a0 We can only imagine what kind of planetary collision produced such an extraordinary effect.
\u00a0
The debris around the Earth gradually coalesced into the moon, our one and only natural satellite.\u00a0
\u00a0
The moon is a miracle. \u00a0It tugs at the world\u2019s oceans, creating the tides, preventing them from becoming gigantic stagnant ponds. \u00a0And it acts like a brake, progressively slowing Earth\u2019s rotation.\u00a0 Think of one of those \u201cwhirligigs\u201d on a playground where kids spin around in circles.\u00a0 The moon is like a kid dragging his foot in the dirt, gradually reducing our planet\u2019s angular momentum.\u00a0 Interestingly, our days are now two seconds longer<\/em> than they were in Bible times.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
Still, we\u2019re moving pretty quickly.\u00a0 The Earth is spinning at just over 1,000 miles per hour.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t we feel anything?\u00a0 Why don\u2019t we blow right off the surface into space?\u00a0 The answer is that Earth\u2019s atmosphere is spinning right along with the planet, which creates the impression that we\u2019re not moving at all.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
If all this seems like a hodgepodge of details connected to a story of random cosmic violence, astronomers, over the past few decades, have come to another realization.
\u00a0
Earth is the Goldilocks planet.\u00a0
\u00a0
It\u2019s not too hot and not too cold.\u00a0 Not too close to the sun and not too far away.\u00a0 Magnetic fields shield us from cosmic rays.\u00a0 Tectonic plates circulate salts and minerals, preventing the oceans from \u201csalting up\u201d and becoming inhospitable to life. \u00a0Our solar system is located in one of the outer bands of the Milky Way galaxy, keeping us safe from the turbulence of the galactic core. \u00a0Scientists can now identify more than 100 \u201cjust-right\u201d qualities that make the Earth a perfect place for human life.\u00a0 If even one of them varied only slightly, our existence would come to an end.\u00a0
\u00a0
Cosmologists admit this is remarkable.
\u00a0
The British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking writes in A Brief History of Time<\/em> (the best-selling, and almost certainly the least read, science book of all time): \u201cIt would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.\u201d \u00a0
\u00a0
American physicist Freeman Dyson writes, \u201cThe more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s worth noting that Dyson was a Christian, while Hawking never surrendered his skepticism.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
And what about Israel\u2019s ancient poets?
\u00a0
The author of Psalm 24, traditionally identified as King David, writes, \u201cThe earth is the Lord\u2019s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it\u201d (24:1).\u00a0
\u00a0
The reason we live on the just-right planet is that God designed it that way.\u00a0
\u00a0
It may seem that Earth\u2019s origins were marked by sheer chaos.\u00a0 But God knew we were coming.\u00a0 And he superintended things in such a way that we who bear his image have an amazing place to live \u2013 as far as we know, the only planet with such characteristics in the entire cosmos.\u00a0 And, as far as we know, the only planet where God himself has become one of the inhabitants.\u00a0
\u00a0
What makes the world go round?
\u00a0
God makes the world go round \u2013 yesterday, today, and until Jesus comes once again to this uniquely special place.\u00a0

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0What makes the world go round?\u00a0Vocal artists and astronomers provide different answers.\u00a0The Stylistics sang that people make the world go round.\u00a0 Soul crooner Deon Jackson and the rock group KISS proclaimed that love is what keeps things spinning.\u00a0 For the cynical, the musical Cabaret hits just the right notes: \u201cMoney makes the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[308,534],"class_list":["post-2146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-astronomy","tag-just-right-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2148,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146\/revisions\/2148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}