Earth, while unique to us, is just one among an estimated 3.2 trillion planets in our galaxy alone. Our Sun, the source of life on Earth, is merely one of 200 billion stars within the Milky Way.
Expanding further, the Milky Way itself is only one of about 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. These numbers emphasize how immense and possibly teeming with life the cosmos might be — reminding us of both our smallness and the endless possibilities beyond our world.
Or how lonely we are in the cosmos.
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at all the things that had to happen for life on Earth to be, well, it's mind-boggling.
A mild sun.
A system where the Jovians were close in to the sun and cleaned out the inner orbits, then transitioned to the outer orbitsb and cleaned up the outer orbits, and still clean up trash coming from way out.
A rocky world with just the right amount of iron and radioactives to keep the core molten and thus create magnetism.
A moon big enough to affect the tides, but not too big, and big enough to slow the Earth's rotation. Sloshing mixes all the chemicals.
Just the right amount of gravity. Very important.
And so on, and so forth.
It's kind of crazy that life exists here on Earth.