The Mysteries of this Universe ! - Part I

I usually get very excited whenever I talk of Astronomy and I never had a definitive answer to the reason behind it.

Probably, and this is my best guess, is that this subject allows me to escape the rigmarole of our daily lives. Human are, by far, the most stupid of all races that I have ever come across. Birds, Animals, insects don't have an IQ that's even remotely close to us and THANK GOD for that ! If they had the same IQ and thought processes such as ours then sinners wouldn't have to go to hell !

EARTH WOULD BE THE HELL !!!
(if its not already...and I keep telling myself that it is)

A few examples of the profound stupidity of our race and our complex reasoning process (that is far from ideal) amply supports my reasoning for the statement I just made:

• Global warming is a proven fact now. Average Global Temperatures are more than a degree or two higher that a century back and its a trend that is on the rise. YET ! Why the hell are developed countries dragging their foot on taking concrete actions for reducing carbon emissions ? Economic considerations, I know, are playing a big role in their current stand. But why do humans only take action AFTER we have witnessed the worst repercussions of an event that is of certain significant probability ? (sea level would definitely rise over the coming decades if the trend continues - which I am sure it will)

• Plastics - Its another known fact that plastics are harmful for the environment ! Most of them cannot be recycled more than 7-10 times. Yet, we don't have strong government legislations on restricting its usage. It will be too much to ask from government to even think on developing alternatives.
  

• Driving - Forget Global warming & plastic usage. Consider the simple example of analysing the way people drive their cars, scooters and bikes to work. When I see a jam for the next 100 metres, would honking (way to glory) my way to the front be even remotely possible ? Do people even give way to ambulances for that matter ? YET, you would see drivers (even with senior executives at the wheels; Blackberry handsets , premium cars et al) with reasoning and this IQ comparable to monkeys and insects !

Astronomy - Its truly the LAST FRONTIER for the human race. The immense possibilities of the universe allows me the easiest way to escape the harrowing realties on earth.

Thank god that the terms we use daily in astronomy are so very alien in our daily lives !

Distances are measured in Light years and not kilometres ! (A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers) - That's close to 10 Trillion Kilometres !!!!!

Thank god for that! (I am used to travelling 80 kilometres daily to-and-fro office. It is such a pain to hear this measure of distance these days)

Ages of stars, planets, galaxies are measured more comfortably in "Billions" of years and hardly anything of considerable significance happens within a human lifetime (collision of galaxies, lifetime of stars, mergers of black holes etc.)

It helps me tremendously to know what puny and insignificant we are in this universe ! and PUNY AND INSIGNIFICANT WE DEFINTELY ARE !

An example here will definitely put our human limitations in context here -
Our Sun is a middle-aged star. Its age is approximately thought to be about 4.57 billion years. And in another 2-2.5 Billion years, its energy output would start increasing significantly. In a short while from then it would enter the RED GIANT phase. The outer layers of the SUN would extend outwards such that it would even ENGULF the EARTH. When this event would even start to happen , all oceans on our Earth would literally be "boiled" and evaporate ! The Earth would literally be roasted out of all life as we know it!

Scientists (and thank god for them!) have already started thinking about ways to get Earth out of this zone of death. One possibility is to have an Asteroid of medium scale to rotate obliquely around the earth such that, over thousand of years, we would slowly get further away from the Sun to escape this Zone of death.

Isn't most of us humans so very hypocritical in their approach towards living and making decisions of significance to our own civilization ?

While on one hand we are thinking of ways in helping Earth get away from this event of calamity that's 2.5 BILLION years from now ! (These scientists are, after all, on salaries payed out of the pockets of U.S citizens who actually, to put it mildly, don't even give a shit to what is beyond their life time)

ON THE OTHER HAND

THE SAME government doesn't have the balls to have legislations curbing Carbon-dioxide output from U.S factories that is probably responsible for the melting polar ice caps irreversibly (U.S is one of the biggest offenders in its contribution {measured in tonnes of CO2 it produces every year} towards the Global carbon emissions released into the atmosphere each year!)

GOD DAMM POLITICIANS, COMPANY CEO's AND THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY !!!

I am not blaming all of them though !!! but a significant percentage of them. Lack of awareness may kill us (by our own hands) one day !

Life !!!- One of the biggest mysteries of all times....

The Earth began some 4.5 billion years ago. During this early era, approximately one billion years long, the newly-borning Earth was pummeled mercilessly by meteorites. This was the so-called "Hadean Period" (and well named at that!), a "hell-ish" time indeed when the Earth's surface was periodically broiled, flash-fried so to speak. Incoming asteroids of sufficient size would actually vaporize, themselves and the part of the surface they impacted and this would turn into a seering plasma that would tsusami around the globe - not a pretty picture. Not to mention volcanic eruptions.

Abiotic Production of Organic Molecules
The classic experiment demonstrating the mechanisms by which inorganic elements could combine to form the precursors of organic chemicals was the 1950 experiment by Stanley Miller. He undertook experiments designed to find out how lightning--reproduced by repeated electric discharges--might have affected the primitive earth atmosphere. He discharged an electric spark into a mixture thought to resemble the primordial composition of the atmosphere. In a water receptacle, designed to model an ancient ocean, amino acids appeared. Amino acids are widely regarded as the building blocks of life.

Although the primitive atmosphere is no longer believed to be as rich in hydrogen as once thought, the discovery that the Murchison meteorite contains the same amino acids obtained by Miller, and even in the same relative proportions, suggests strongly that his results are relevant.

Others have made similar experiments. A group at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, exposed sulfur-bearing molecules like those thought to have been present before the Earth formed to low levels of light. The presence of the light was enough to generate organic compounds - molecules containing carbon, which form the chemical basis of life as we know it.

The new compounds had a distinct isotopic (atomic makeup) signature, not normally found on Earth. In fact, the peculiar part is that these isotopes have only been found one other time, in compounds removed from the Murchison meteorite.

So that's what the scientists could say about life and the probable origin of life.....

But now I am left with more questions than when I started out with.

If I can sum up the above content till now - A couple of different chemical molecules, presence of light/ electricity and you are left with Amino Acids that is supposed to be the building blocks of life here on earth.

By my question remains -

How do we begin to define "Life" and at what precise moment would the first scientist exclaim

"Hey !!! That's Life !!!!. ?I have created Life from Organic chemicals !" ???

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines life as:

"a: the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body

b : a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings

c : an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction"

Needless to say that I am not satisfied with the above definition.

• "Quality that distinguishes"
• "A vital and functional being"
• "A principle or force"
• "distinctive quality of animate beings"
• "organismic state"

I am sure I would need to have a look at the definitions for the above terms again and that would still leave me with more question that answers.

I have always thought that the distinction between life and non-life is a very blurred line. This significant blurred line is where we are not sure if we can define the object of study as life or non-life.

Some facts first:

• The Universe has been around for approximately 13.7 billion years. That's a long time !
• Till date, close to 300 (if not more) extra-solar planets discovered in our viscinity (in astronomical terminology).
• A couple of these newly discovered planets are considered habitable for life to exist.
• There are 200 billion stars in the Milky-Way Galaxy ! and the probability of finding a planet
  

Thus the chances of life on earth originating outside our planet is a significant probability. Life may have come piggybacking on an Asteriod that struck earth close to 2 billion years back. How it has arrived though is not the important question.

THE QUESTION IS AND IT REMAINS - When do we know that we have found life ?

I am not talking about human, other animals, plants or even Viruses and Bacteria. We know for sure that these beings are alive. They can reproduce, grow, react to stimuli and have the metabolism function within them.

But imagine looking at the earliest of molecules when all this started !
I can't begin to imagine how in heaven's name can a couple of organic molecules can "start" reacting to their environment ? Why would the first molecule would want to reproduce ? Why would "it" want more of "its" same ? What significance would "its" outcome be within the environment in which it is residing ? Do we call its moment of first "realization" (that it would need to reproduce) - "the first life" in this universe ?

If not, which is the moment ?

If its not reproduction, then what is it ?

Was it the realization that it needs "food" to "grow" . That is, its ability to grow ? have more of what it is already and have more food than it used to earlier ?

It's the first realization that I was and am always so very curious to know more about............

I am assuming that once we exclaim "hurrah !!! this is life" the evolution over the next billions of years can be explained with considerable ease....

There is something that happens right here on Earth that is equally baffling to me....

"The Birth of the new born"

I am not referring to the baby coming into (the delivery process) this world, but near to the moment it was conceived in the uterus of a mother....

The sperm of the male "fertilizes" the egg ovary residing in the uterus of a mother.

Sounds simple, isn't it ? But we fail to realize that both the sperm and the egg don't have all the attributes of the baby that it eventually leads to...

So when is it that the growing fertilized egg has all the attributes of life per se as we know it....

It is, as if, suddenly the force comes within to jump start the process.....

Do I continue to believe in God till all my questions are answered ? I am guessing it would be a couple of my after-lives when someone does come up with definite answers to these ! I look forward to that day...

The first moment of "realization" is truly a fantastic moment for all "life" as we know it....

This is Life !

I was hardly able to get any sleep in the night. Guessing it would be close to 45 minutes or so.

Why ? Partly I have to blame the god-forsaken Siesta on Sunday afternoon after my Mom prepared Chingri (Shrimp) curry and Pulao (Sweet Rice with Cashewnuts and raisins) ahhhhhhh !!!! Post such a delightful lunch, I had the misfortune of reading a pretty dense article from Harvard Business Review on measuring corporate Performance. Little did I know that Shrimp's and Performance Management just don't mix together !!!

Nevertheless, I was quite drowsy when I woke up. The Gujjars are creating a ruckus in Delhi and Gurgaon. I somehow reached Gurgaon (mah office) in an hour flat ! that's close to 40 Kilometres one way ! ......

Can't help imagining the sorry state of India these days....Those were the days when people look down the SC/ST's and the OBC etc etc. These days they are way way ahead of all of us. Having this tag guarantees you government benefits in education, work life and life in general. Its a much sought-after-tag these days. I am not even getting into painting this topic with my personal views.

Indian Education is in a mess as it always have been. And its going to get worse as I foresee it in the future. IQ doesn't guarantee you success in life and neither does this OBC, SC/ST tag. When will people start seeing the bigger picture I wonder.

At the end of it, it has to be a fight. A fight for education, a fight to get your first job break, a fight to get a movie ticket so that my family can be entertained in all this maddening rush.....Why does logic leave us when its needed the most ? Isn't Logic a natural outcome within any education system anywhere in the world ?

I am so bloody confused with all this stupidity I see around me that I wish I wasn't born on this planet in the first place . God sure has a delightful sense of humour. The most intelligent race on this planet is also the most stupidest of them all. He is sure having the last laugh. He gave us intelligence and the power of self-introspection but he also made each one of us a unique in our own way. We still have a lot to learn.... A LOT TO LEARN......