Guillermo Gonzalez lectures at UC Davis on the requirements for life

The 5 video clips that make up the full lecture.

The playlist for all 5 clips is here.

About the speaker

Guillermo Gonzalez is an Associate Professor of Physics at Grove City College. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy in 1993 from the University of Washington. He has done post-doctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin and at the University of Washington and has received fellowships, grants and awards from such institutions as NASA, the University of Washington, the Templeton Foundation, Sigma Xi (scientific research society) and the National Science Foundation.

Learn more about the speaker here.

The lecture

Here’s part 1 of 5:

And the rest are here:

• Part 2 of 5
• Part 3 of 5
• Part 4 of 5
• Part 5 of 5

Topics:

• What is the Copernican Principle?
• Is the Earth’s suitability for hosting life rare in the universe?
• Does the Earth have to be the center of the universe to be special?
• How similar to the Earth does a planet have to be to support life?
• What is the definition of life?
• What are the three minimal requirements for life of any kind?
• Requirement 1: A molecule that can store information (carbon)
• Requirement 2: A medium in which chemicals can interact (liquid water)
• Requirement 3: A diverse set of chemical elements
• What is the best environment for life to exist?
• Our place in the solar system: the circumstellar habitable zone
• Our place in the galaxy: the galactic habitable zones
• Our time in the universe’s history: the cosmic habitable age
• Other habitability requirements (e.g. – metal-rich star, massive moon, etc.)
• The orchestration needed to create a habitable planet
• How different factors depend on one another through time
• How tweaking one factor can adversely affect other factors
• How many possible places are there in the universe where life could emerge?
• Given these probabilistic resources, should we expect that there is life elsewhere?
• How to calculate probabilities using the “Product Rule”
• Can we infer that there is a Designer just because life is rare? Or do we need more?

The corelation between habitability and measurability.

• Are the habitable places in the universe also the best places to do science?
• Do the factors that make Earth habitable also make it good for doing science?
• Some places and times in the history of the universe are more habitable than others
• Those exact places and times also allow us to make scientific discoveries
• Observing solar eclipses and structure of our star, the Sun
• Observing stars and galaxies
• Observing the cosmic microwave background radiation
• Observing the acceleration of the universe caused by dark matter and energy
• Observing the abundances of light elements like helium of hydrogen
• These observations support the big bang and fine-tuning arguments for God’s existence
• It is exactly like placing observatories on the tops of mountains
• There are observers existing in the best places to observe things
• This is EXACTLY how the universe has been designed for making scientific discoveries

This lecture was delivered by Guillermo Gonzalez in 2007 at the University of California at Davis.

Filed under: Videos, Center, CHZ, Circumstellar Habitable Zone, Copernican Principle, Earth, Finite Mathematics, Galatic Habitable Zone, GHZ, Guillermo Gonzalez, Habitability, Life, Minimal Requirements, Minimum Requirements, Privileged Planet, Probabilities, Probability, Product Rule, Rare, Special, Universe

New paper finds that mass of asteroid belts affect habitability of planets

Science Daily reports. (H/T Evolution News via ECM)

Excerpt:

They suggest that the size and location of an asteroid belt, shaped by the evolution of the Sun’s protoplanetary disk and by the gravitational influence of a nearby giant Jupiter-like planet, may determine whether complex life will evolve on an Earth-like planet.

This might sound surprising because asteroids are considered a nuisance due to their potential to impact Earth and trigger mass extinctions. But an emerging view proposes that asteroid collisions with planets may provide a boost to the birth and evolution of complex life.

Asteroids may have delivered water and organic compounds to the early Earth. According to the theory of punctuated equilibrium, occasional asteroid impacts might accelerate the rate of biological evolution by disrupting a planet’s environment to the point where species must try new adaptation strategies.

The astronomers based their conclusion on an analysis of theoretical models and archival observations of extrasolar Jupiter-sized planets and debris disks around young stars. “Our study shows that only a tiny fraction of planetary systems observed to date seem to have giant planets in the right location to produce an asteroid belt of the appropriate size, offering the potential for life on a nearby rocky planet,” said Martin, the study’s lead author. “Our study suggests that our solar system may be rather special.”

There’s a long list of factors that have to be present for a planet to support life – and more keep appearing every day. Here’s another recent one from the journal Nature.

Related posts

• Three ways that the progress of science conflicts with naturalistic speculations
• What conditions support the minimum requirements for complex life?
• Guillermo Gonzalez lectures at UC Davis on the requirements for life
• Does the progress of science lead to theism or atheism?
• Walter Bradley explains three scientific arguments for God’s existence
• Brian Auten interviews Jay Richards about Christian apologetics
• Harvard astrophysicist backs the Rare Earth hypothesis

Filed under: News, Aliens, Are We Alone, Astrobiology, Carbon, Carbon-based Life, CHZ, Circumstellar Habitable Zone, Class M Planet, Copernican Principle, Cosmology, Exoplanet, Galactic Habitable Zone, GHZ, Habitability, Intelligent Design, Main Sequence Star, Moon, Orbit, Oxygen Atmosphere, Planetary Rotation, Rare Earth, Star Formation, Star Trek, Terrestrial Planet, The Privileged Planet, Tilt, Universal Solvent

What conditions support the minimum requirements for complex life?

You need to have a certain amount of elemental diversity to support the minimal requirements of living systems. For example, you need carbon, hence “carbon-based life”.

The Circumstellar Habitable Zone (CHZ)

Human bodies are made of carbon, and many other heavy elements. You need many different heavy elements in order to make up your physical body. Our star, the Sun, is also made of heavy elements. You also need heavy elements in order to crate a metal-rich star like our Sun. A heavy metal-rich star is required in order to support complex carbon-based life in any solar system. The metal-rich star is required because you need to make sure that it can burn stably for a LONG period of time. A metal-rich star also allows you to have a habitable planet far enough from that metal-rich star so that the planet can support liquid water on the planet’s surface. The zone where a planet can have liquid water at the surface is called the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ). A solar system is therefore a lot like a campfire – you can’t get too close or you get set on fire, and you can’t get too far or you freeze to death. With planets, you need to keep away so your water doesn’t evaporate from the surface, but not so far away that your water freezes. Liquid water on the surface is needed in order to act as a universal solvent in the chemistry of life.

Circumstellar Habitable Zone

Here, watch a clip from The Privileged Planet: (Clip 4 of 12, full playlist here)

A metal-rich star like the Sun is very massive, which allows planets to stay in orbit much further away. Notice that the smaller the star, the closer you have to go to the star. If you go too close to the star then your planet is “tidally locked” – your planet no longer spins on it’s axis – and that’s very bad for life)

The Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ)

So, where do you get the heavy elements you need for your heavy metal-rich star?

You have to get the heavy elements for your star from supernova explosions – explosions that occur when certain stars die. That’s where heavy elements come from. But you can’t be TOO CLOSE to the dying stars, because you will get hit by nasty radiation and explosions. So to get the heavy elements, your solar system needs to be in the galactic habitable zone (GHZ) – the zone where you can pickup the heavy elements you need but not get hit by radiation and explosions. The GHZ lies between the spiral arms of a spiral galaxy. You can be too close to the center of the galaxy, it’s too dense there and you will get hit with massive radiation that will break down your life chemistry. And you can’t be to far from the center, because you won’t get enough heavy elements from the lower number of dying stars in the spiral arms.

Galactic Habitable Zone

Here, watch a clip from The Privileged Planet: (Clip 10 of 12, full playlist here)

The GHZ is based on a discovery made by astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, which made the front cover of Scientific American in 2001. That’s right, the cover of Scientific American. That’s when this was discovered.

By the way, you can watch a lecture with Guillermo Gonzalez explaining his ideas further. The lecture was delivered at UC Davis in 2007. That link has a link to the playlist of the lecture, a bio of the speaker, and a summary of all the topics he discussed in the lecture. An excellent place to learn the requirements for a suitable habitat for life. The GHZ and CHZ are ONLY TWO of the requirements for a habitat for life – there are a lot more requirements! Once you list them all out, the odds of getting even one place that is suitable are quite low. If you like this sort of evidence, I recommend the DVD of “The Privileged Planet”, which you can get on Amazon. Or just watch it for free on YouTube.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argument

Filed under: Polemics, Aliens, Apologetics, Are We Alone, Astrobiology, Carbon, Carbon-based Life, CHZ, Circumstellar Habitable Zone, Class M Planet, Copernican Principle, Cosmology, Exoplanet, Galactic Habitable Zone, GHZ, Guillermo Gonzalez, Habitability, Intelligent Design, Jay Richards, Main Sequence Star, Moon, Orbit, Oxygen Atmosphere, Planetary Rotation, Rare Earth, Star Formation, Star Trek, Terrestrial Planet, The Privileged Planet, Tilt, Universal Solvent

Guillermo Gonzalez lectures at UC Davis on the requirements for life

The 5 video clips that make up the full lecture.

The playlist for all 5 clips is here.

About the speaker

Guillermo Gonzalez is an Associate Professor of Physics at Grove City College. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy in 1993 from the University of Washington. He has done post-doctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin and at the University of Washington and has received fellowships, grants and awards from such institutions as NASA, the University of Washington, the Templeton Foundation, Sigma Xi (scientific research society) and the National Science Foundation.

Learn more about the speaker here.

The lecture

Here’s part 1 of 5:

Habitability topics:

• What is the Copernican Principle?
• Is the Earth’s suitability for hosting life rare in the universe?
• Does the Earth have to be the center of the universe to be special?
• How similar to the Earth does a planet have to be to support life?
• What is the definition of life?
• What are the three minimal requirements for life of any kind?
• Requirement 1: A molecule that can store information (carbon)
• Requirement 2: A medium in which chemicals can interact (liquid water)
• Requirement 3: A diverse set of chemical elements
• What is the best environment for life to exist?
• Our place in the solar system: the circumstellar habitable zone
• Our place in the galaxy: the galactic habitable zones
• Our time in the universe’s history: the cosmic habitable age
• Other habitability requirements (e.g. – metal-rich star, massive moon, etc.)
• The orchestration needed to create a habitable planet
• How different factors depend on one another through time
• How tweaking one factor can adversely affect other factors
• How many possible places are there in the universe where life could emerge?
• Given these probabilistic resources, should we expect that there is life elsewhere?
• How to calculate probabilities using the “Product Rule”
• Can we infer that there is a Designer just because life is rare? Or do we need more?

The corelation between habitability and measurability.

• Are the habitable places in the universe also the best places to do science?
• Do the factors that make Earth habitable also make it good for doing science?
• Some places and times in the history of the universe are more habitable than others
• Those exact places and times also allow us to make scientific discoveries
• Observing solar eclipses and structure of our star, the Sun
• Observing stars and galaxies
• Observing the cosmic microwave background radiation
• Observing the acceleration of the universe caused by dark matter and energy
• Observing the abundances of light elements like helium of hydrogen
• These observations support the big bang and fine-tuning arguments for God’s existence
• It is exactly like placing observatories on the tops of mountains
• There are observers existing in the best places to observe things
• This is EXACTLY how the universe has been designed for making scientific discoveries

This lecture was delivered by Guillermo Gonzalez in 2007 at the University of California at Davis.

What is intelligent design?

Dr. Stephen C. Meyer explains the concept of intelligent design in a lecture, with lots of visual aids.

He is also the author of “Signature in the Cell“, the best book on intelligent design. (A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year selection)

Related DVDs

Illustra also made two other great DVDs on intelligent design. The first two DVDs “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” and “The Privileged Planet” are must-buys, but you can watch them on youtube if you want, for free.

Here are the 2 playlists:

• Unlocking the Mystery of Life (12 videos in a playlist)
• The Privileged Planet (12 videos in a playlist)

I also recommend “Darwin’s Dilemma”. All three of these are on sale from Amazon.com.

Filed under: Videos, Center, CHZ, Circumstellar Habitable Zone, Copernican Principle, Earth, Finite Mathematics, Galatic Habitable Zone, GHZ, Guillermo Gonzalez, Habitability, Life, Minimal Requirements, Minimum Requirements, Privileged Planet, Probabilities, Probability, Product Rule, Rare, Special, Universe

New study on tidal heating strengthens stellar habitability argument

Circumstellar Habitable Zone

Note: If you need a refresher on the habitability argument, click here.

Here’s an article entitled “Tidal heating shrinks the ‘goldilocks zone’: Overlooked factor suggests fewer habitable planets than thought”. It appeared in Nature, the most prestigious peer-reviewed science journal.

The gist of it is that tidal forces can alter orbits so that planets don’t spend all of their orbit in the habitable zone. If planets go outside the habitable zone, it damages their supply of liquid water, and any life chemistry going on in there is disrupted.

Excerpt:

A previously little-considered heating effect could shrink estimates of the habitable zone of the Milky Way’s most numerous class of stars — ‘M’ or red dwarfs — by up to one half, says Rory Barnes, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. That factor — gravitational heating via tides — suggests a menagerie of previously undreamt-of planets, on which tidal heating is a major source of internal heat. Barnes presented the work yesterday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division on Dynamical Astronomy in Timberline Lodge, Oregon.

The habitable zone is the orbital region close enough to a star for a planet to have liquid water, but not so close that all of the water evaporates. For our Sun, the zone extends roughly from the inner edge of the orbit of Mars to the outer edge of that of Venus. For smaller, cooler stars, such as M-class dwarfs, the zone can be considerably closer to the star than Mercury is to the Sun. And because close-in planets are easier to spot than more distant ones, such stars have been a major target for planet hunters seeking Earth-like worlds.

There’s just one problem with finding habitable planets around such stars, says Barnes. Because tidal forces vary dramatically with the distance between a planet and its star, closer orbits also result in massively larger tidal forces.

Since planets do not have perfectly circular orbits, these tidal forces cause the planet to flex and unflex each time it moves closer to or further from its star; kneading its interior to produce massive quantities of frictional heat. Substantial heat can be produced, he added, with even slight deviations from a perfectly circular orbit. And, Barnes notes, other factors — such as the rate of the planet’s rotation and its axial tilt — can also influence heat production.

A similar tidal process makes Jupiter’s moon Io the most volcanic body in the Solar System. “I’m just scaling that Io–Jupiter system up by a factor of 1,000 in mass,” Barnes said at the meeting. “It’s the same process, on steroids.”

So, stars that are smaller and cooler will have a habitable zone that is closer to the star, exposing them to more tidal forces. More tidal forces makes their orbits less likely to stay circular – within the habitable zone around the star. These variations cause an increase in heat production on the planet. Too much heat means that the planet is unable to support liquid water on the surface, making it inhospitable for life. Therefore, solar systems with less massive stars can be ruled out as possible sites for life, because of these tidal forces.

Filed under: News, Agnosticism, Aliens, Astrobiology, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Atheism, Atheist, Belief, Carbon-based Life, CHZ, Circumstellar Habitable Zone, Complex Life, Earth, Exoplanet, Faith, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Freethought, Galactic Habitable Zone, Galaxy, GHZ, God, Guillermo Gonzalez, Hugh Ross, Life, Non-Theism, Planet, Privileged Planet, Reasons to Believe, Research, Science, Solar System, The Privileged Planet