A peculiar property of the Earth’s magnetic field could help us to work out how our planet was created 4.5 billion years ago, according to a new scientific assessment.
There are several theories about how the Earth and the Moon were formed, most involving a giant impact. They vary from a model where the impacting object strikes the newly formed Earth a glancing blow and then escapes, through to one where the collision is so energetic that both the impactor and the Earth are vaporized.
Now scientists at the University of Leeds and the University of Chicago have analysed the dynamics of fluids and electrically conducting fluids and concluded that the Earth must have been magnetized either before the impact or as a result of it.
They claim this could help to narrow down the theories of the Earth-Moon formation and inform future research into what really happened.
Professor David Hughes, an applied mathematician in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds, said: “Our new idea is to point out that our theoretical understanding of the Earth’s magnetic field today can actually tell us something about the very formation of the Earth-Moon system.
This new assessment is based on the resilience of Earth’s magnetic field, which is maintained by a rotating and electrically conducting fluid in the outer core, known as a geodynamo.
Professor Fausto Cattaneo, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, said: “A peculiar property of the Earth’s dynamo is that it can maintain a strong magnetic field but not amplify a weak one.
The scientists therefore concluded that if the Earth’s field were to get switched off, or even reduced to a very small level, it would not have the capability to kick in again.
“It is this remarkable feature that allows us to make deductions about the history of the early Earth; including, possibly, how the Moon was formed,” added Professor Cattaneo.
Professor Hughes added: “And if that is true, then you have to think, where did the Earth’s magnetic field come from in the first place?
“Our hypothesis is that it got to this peculiar state way back at the beginning, either pre-impact or as an immediate result of the impact.
“Either way, any realistic model of the formation of the Earth-Moon system must include magnetic field evolution. “
Science Daily
Scientists have previously shown (Reasons.org) that shortly after the formation of the moon, the combined Earth-Moon magnetic field provided a sufficiently strong shield against the intense solar wind that would have sputtered away Earth’s atmosphere and been damaging to early microbial life.
A few notes:
Of related note to the ‘protective’ magnetic field that allows life to be possible on earth, the earth’s atmosphere, in conjunction with the magnetic field, also ‘fine tunes’ the solar radiation that is allowed to reach the earth’s surface in order to make life possible.
Dr. Walter Bradley, in a video entitled ‘Creation of the Cosmos’, goes over the fine tuning of the fundamental universal constants, light, and biological life for each other.
And here is an article from Dr. Bradley entitled, “Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God? How the Recent Discoveries Support a Designed Universe”, in which Dr. Bradley also goes over the details of fine tuning of the fundamental universal constants, light, and biological life for each other.
In the paper Dr. Bradley also lists four graphs. At the bottom of the four graphs he states: “The visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (~1 micron) is the most intense radiation from the sun (Figure 3.1); has the greatest biological utility (Figure 3.2); and passes through atmosphere of Earth (Figure 3.3) and water (Figure 3.4) with almost no absorption. It is uniquely this same wavelength of radiation that is idea to foster the chemistry of life. This is either a truly amazing series of coincidences or else the result of careful design.”,,,
It is remarkable that both the Earth’s atmosphere and water have “optical windows” that allow visible light (just the radiation necessary for life) to pass through with very little absorption, whereas shorter wavelength (destructive ultraviolet radiation) and longer wavelength (infrared) radiation are both highly absorbed, as seen in Figure 3.{23}
Moreover, “These specific frequencies of light (that enable plants to manufacture food and astronomers to observe the cosmos) represent less than 1 trillionth of a trillionth (10^-24) of the universe’s entire range of electromagnetic emissions.”
And in the following article entitled ‘The “just right” relationship of the light spectrum and photosynthesis’, the author points out that for photosynthesis to occur, ‘light must be of the right color. Light of the wrong color won’t do the trick’. ,,, and the article further goes on to state “There was only one chance in 10^25 of the Sun’s providing just the right kind of light necessary for us,,,”
Moreover, as if the fine-tuning of light to the, (very elaborate), process of photosynthesis was not already bad enough for atheistic naturalists, it is also found that, ‘Certain biological systems living in low light environments have unique protein structures for photosynthesis that use quantum dynamics to convert 100% of absorbed light into electrical charge,,,’
That level of efficiency trounces any machine, and/or device, that man has ever ‘intelligently designed’ in terms of energy efficiency.
Moreover, in the following article entitled ‘Uncovering Quantum Secret in Photosynthesis’ we find that such stunning 95-100% efficiency for the, (very elaborate), process of photosynthesis is accomplished via a quantum process. Specifically, the researcher stated, “These results show that coherence, a genuine quantum effect of superposition of states, is responsible for maintaining high levels of transport efficiency in biological systems, even while they adapt their energy transport pathways due to environmental influences”
The thing that is so antagonistic, indeed the thing that so devastating, for Darwinian materialists with quantum entanglement, and/or quantum coherence, is that it takes a ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, cause in order to explain quantum coherence.
As the following paper entitled “Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory” stated, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”
Darwinian atheists, with their reductive materialistic framework, simply have no ‘beyond space and time’ cause that they can appeal to in order to be able to explain quantum non-locality. Whereas Christian Theists readily do have an explanation that they can appeal to in order to explain the quantum non-locality of quantum coherence, (and/or quantum information). (and have been postulating just such a ‘beyond space and time’ cause for a few thousand years now).
Thus in conclusion, the earth’s magnetic field and the earth’s atmosphere are found to be finely-tuned to allow the ‘just right’ solar radiation to filter thru to the earth’s surface. Moreover, “These specific frequencies of light (that enable plants to manufacture food and astronomers to observe the cosmos) represent less than 1 trillionth of a trillionth (10^-24) of the universe’s entire range of electromagnetic emissions.” And on top of all that fine-tuning to allow for life, photosynthesis itself is found to be dependent upon a ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, cause in order to explain its effect, as well as explaining how it achieves such amazing 95-100% energy efficiency.
The evidence for Intelligent Design could hardly be any more clear. Too bad that many Darwinian atheists could care less what the scientific evidence itself is actually saying, and that they will hold, (for whatever severely misguided reason), onto their ‘anti-theistic’ worldview no matter what the scientific evidence is actually saying to the contrary.
Considering the potentially very bad ‘spiritual’ implications of ‘anti-theists’ being separated from God for all of eternity, their stubborn refusal to accept the truth of Intelligent Design is truly a sad state of affairs.
It still doesn’t answer the problem of planet formation. Where did the material come from? How did it stay in a localized state? Why would it heat up as early illustrations show? Then water, supposedly, rained down to assist the cooling process.