Why are we here....

So I just finished two of the four exams that I have this week. One was an International Finance exam and the other (on the opposite end of the spectrum altogether) was an Astronomy exam. On a tangent, only in college can you have a 400 level finance exam and an astronomy exam within two hours of each other. Try studying that kind of material together and see what it does to your brain!

Anyway, that was not the point of this post. In my astronomy class we recently discussed different theories on how our solar system came to be. One such was the Nebular Theory. This is the most widely accepted theory and its basic premise is that our solar system formed out of a gigantic cloud of smoke and dust (similar to the image on the right). Now, the part that interested me (and the part that I will fast forward to in case none of you are as interested in space as I am), is that after our solar system became the disk shape it is today, and after materials started condensing (hence forming the Terrestrial and Jovian planets), our solar system basically had a young sun and a bunch of planetesmials. For the uninitiated, planetesmials are the building blocks of planets. They joined together to form the planets we are surrounded by today. Now, Earth was obviously formed the same way. So why is it that there is life on Earth but not anywhere else in this solar system (at least not that we know of)?

Basically, Earth won the lottery. The right asteroids and comets(those containing water and ices) hit Earth....and then there was water! After that, the rest of course is history. Astronomers say that although the way the solar system started to form in the beginning could happen anywhere else, life (or at least carbon based life) only occured on Earth due to the random asteroids that hit it. In other words, just the right asteroids hit Earth at the right time. You know when you have two "right"'s in the same sentence, that it's a win-win situation.

The entire idea is so mind-boggling. Maybe if that one asteroid that bought massive amounts of water did not hit Earth at the precise moment that it did, we would not be here today. We are literally drinking water that originated BEHIND Mars. I'm sorry, but does that fascinate anyone else other than me?? It makes one wonder....what if? Maybe somewhere else, at this very moment, asteroids are hitting another newly formed planet in a way similar to Earth. Again, nothing short of mind boggling.

I think what attracts me to Astronomy is that unlike subjects such as Finance or Accounting (both of which plague me ceaselessly), Astronomy deals with concepts and ideas that are not Man-made. We are only trying to find answers, to maybe understand why we are here today. Astronomy is almost our way of showing gratitude to that mysterious force that decided Earth was going to have it all. Think about it. =)

                                  Circumpolar Stars (above)