ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH

Emmanuel C. Revilla
SHS Math and Science Instructor
STI College San Pablo

Earth Science - the study of the Earth and its neighbors in space. (geology.com)
- the collection of different sciences that study everything there is to know about
the earth. It encompasses the history, composition, structure and the dynamic
processes taking place on Earth.
Main Branches of Earth Science
1. Geology the study of the rock portion of the Earth, its interior, and surface processes.
2. Meteorology the study of the atmosphere and how it changes.
3. Oceanography the study of the oceans that cover most of the Earths surface.
4. Astronomy - the study of Earths motions and motions of objects beyond Earth, such as
planets and stars.
ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE
Cosmology sub-branch of astronomy, studies how the universe started, what it is made of,
and how it changes.
Religious Cosmology - is a way of explaining the origin, the history and the evolution of the
cosmos or universe based on the religious mythology of a specific tradition.
Modern Theories on the Origin of the Universe
1. BIG BANG THEORY (Current Accepted Model on the Formation of the Universe)
Proponent: Belgian Roman Catholic Priest and Physicist Georges Lemaitre (1927)
He called it Hypothesis of the Primeval Atom or Cosmic Egg.
Claims:
The universe is expanding, originating from an infinitely tiny, infinitely dense point called
singularity around 14 billion years ago. (Based on Albert Einsteins Theory of Relativity)
The universe has a beginning, but matter is not present yet, just pure energy.
After the initial expansion, the theory maintains that universe cooled sufficiently to allow
the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these
primordial elements later coalesced through gravity to form stars and galaxies.
The universe is evolving.
The universe has an end.
Supported by Edwin Hubbles discovery of a continuously expanding universe through
galactic redshift (1929) and the discovery of the CMBR by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson
in 1965.
Note: Despite the fact that it is called big bang, it is not an explosion, but rather an expansion of
space.
 Objections:
According to some scientists, nothingness cannot
pack together. It would have no way to push itself
into a pile. Also, a vacuum has no density. It is said
that the nothingness got very dense, and that is why
it exploded. But a total vacuum is the opposite of
total density. In addition, there would be no ignition
to explode nothingness. No fire and no match. It
could not be a chemical explosion, for no chemicals
existed. It could not be a nuclear explosion, for there
were no atoms!
It left several questions unanswered: Where did the
super dense core come from? How and why did the
universe expand? What caused the galaxies to form?
What existed before the Big Bang?
2. STEADY STATE THEORY (Also known as Infinite Universe Theory or Continuous Creation)
Proponents: Astronomers Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold and Hermann Bondi (Late 1940s)
It was first proposed by the English Physicist Sir James Jeans in the 1920s, but was
later reformulated by the three astronomers in 1940s.
Claims:
The universe is expanding, has no beginning and end.
The universe has always been and will always be the same. This was based on the
cosmological principle that the universe is uniform in space and has unchanging time.
New matter is created as the universe expands (keeping the density the same) and that
the age of the stars will stay the same.
Objections:
It violates the Law of Conservation of Matter
and Energy.
The discovery of quasars, the highly
luminous cores of very distant galaxies,
proved that the older galaxies were indeed
located exceedingly farther than the young
galaxies. This discovery was in favor of the
big bang theory.
The discovery of the cosmic microwave
background radiation, the afterglow of the
big bang, had absolutely no reason to exist
if steady state were true.
* In a British radio broadcast, Hoyle coined the term "big bang" somewhat derisively to explain the
opposing theory.

3. Oscillating Universe Theory (Also known as Cyclic Universe Theory)

Proponent: Richard Tolman (American Physicist and Chemist) or Albert Einstein (German born-
American Physicist )
(1920s)
Claims:
The universe currently exists between the big bang and the big crunch, one of the
predicted ends of the universe.
 The theory also believes that the current universe is just one of the many series of
universes created by a cycle of big bang s
and big crunch.
Objections:
Recent data show that the universe is not
closed and consequently will expand forever.
It ignores the second law of thermodynamics
which requires usable energy to continually
decrease and for the universe to become more random and disorganized.
A third reason is that it really doesnt provide for an explanation of the initial creation;
rather, it only pushes it back further in time.
4. Inflationary Theory (Also known as Eternal Inflation Theory)
Proponent: Alan Guth (American Physicist)
Claim: Supposes that instead of ending in a big crunch as the oscillating universe deemed, the
inflation will never stop.

EVIDENCES OF BIG BANG

1. Cosmological Redshift (first observed by Edwin

Hubble)
Redshift occurs when the light source is moving
away from the observer or when the space between the
observer and the source is stretched. What does it mean
that stars and galaxies are redshifted? When
astronomers see redshift in the light from a galaxy, they
know that the galaxy is moving away from Earth. On the other hand, a blueshifted galaxy is a
galaxy moving towards the earth.
If galaxies were moving randomly, some would be redshifted and others be blueshifted? Of
course, since almost every galaxy in the universe has a redshift, almost every galaxy is moving
away from Earth.
Redshift can occur with other types of waves too. This phenomenon is called the Doppler
Effect (an increase or decrease in the frequency of sound, light, or other waves as the source and
observer move toward (or away from) each other). An analogy to redshift is the noise a siren
makes as it passes you. The sound waves shift towards a lower pitch when the ambulance
speeds away from you. Though redshift involves light instead
of sound, a similar principle operates in both situations.
2. Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
The Ukrainian-American physicist George Gamow was
the first to realize that, because the universe is all there is,
the huge heat from a hot Big Bang could not dissipate in the
same way as the heat from a regular explosion and therefore
it must still be around today.
Gamow's research students, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman, moreover, argued in 1948
that, because the Big Bang effectively happened everywhere simultaneously, that energy should
be equally spread as cosmic microwave background radiation (or CMB for short) throughout the
universe.
 In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, two young employees of Bell Telephone
Laboratories in New Jersey, discovered, although totally by accident, exactly that. The mysterious
microwave static they picked up on their microwave antenna seemed to be coming equally from
every direction in the sky, and eventually they realized that this microwave radiation (which has
a temperature of about -270C, marginally above absolute zero, and the coldest thing found in
nature) must indeed be the afterglow of the Big Bang. Penzias and Wilson received the 1978
Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery (although, strangely, Gamows contribution was never
recognized).

ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The age of the Solar System and that of the earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old. (This
is based on the age of meteorites which are believed to have been formed the same time as the
rest of the Solar System.)
Due to the invention of modern technologies and the discovery of scientific concepts, man was
provided with new information and new ways of understanding the Solar System.
Theories on the Origin of the Solar System
1. Nebular Hypothesis
Proponent: Immanuel Kant (1755) and Pierre Laplace (1796)
Claims:
As the name implies, the solar system according to this theory has been formed out of a
nebula. A nebula is a large cloud of gas, and possibly dust particles, held together by the
mutual gravitational attraction of the particles composing it. (nursery of stars)
Laplace theorized that as the large, slowly rotating
solar nebula of hot gaseous matter contracted, it
rotated faster and faster, flattening into an equatorial
ring. The physical principles involved here are the
action of gravity and the conservation of angular
momentum, which requires a spinning body to rotate
faster as it shrinks.
Laplace supposed that when the centrifugal force
acting on the outer rotating edge of the solar nebula
exceeded the inward gravitational force of the
nebular mass, a ring of gaseous matter was split off,
eventually coalescing into a planet, through
gravitational forces.
Conservation of angular momentum requires that a
rotating disk to form with a large concentration at the
center (the proto-Sun).
Objections:
While this theory incorporates more basic physics, there are several unsolved problems.
For example, a majority of the angular momentum in the Solar System is held by the outer
planets. For comparison, 99% of the Solar System's mass is in the Sun, but 99% of its
angular momentum is in the planets.
Another flaw is the mechanism from which the disk turns into individual planets. Second, a
hot gaseous ring of the type postulated would disperse into space and not pull itself
together gravitationally to form a planet.
2. Encounter Hypothesis
Proponent: It was first conceived in 1745 by the French
naturalist Georges Buffon (1707-1788) when he proposed
that material ripped off from the Sun by collision with a comet
had condensed into the planets. It was taken by the American
geologist Thomas Chamberlin (1843-1928) and the
American astronomer Forest Moulton (1872-1852). They
suggested that giant eruptions were pulled off the Sun by the
gravitational attraction of a passing star. Somewhat later
another geologist-astronomer pair in England, Harold
Jeffreys (b. 1891) and James Jeans (1877-1946), theorized
that a cigar-shaped gaseous filament was pulled from the Sun
by the sideswiping action of a passing star. The middle
section condensed into the Jovian planets, and the ends
condensed into the smaller planets.
Claims:
As the name implies, the sun encountered a rouge star 5
Gya (5 billion years ago).
Materials in the form of hot gas was removed from both stars due to gravitational
interaction.
The hot gas then accumulated and formed planets.
The materials from the less dense rogue star formed the outer planets, while that from the
sun formed the inner planets.
The hot gases continued to spin in the same direction as the sun.
* It explained why all planets revolve in the same direction and why the inner planets are denser than
the outer ones.

Objections:
How did the lumps of hot gas contract to form planets? (Hot gas expand and do not
contract.)
Encounters between stars are extremely rare, so rare as to be improbable in the lifetime of
the Universe (15 billion years).
3. Protoplanet Hypothesis
Proponent: Developed independently by two astronomers Carl von Weizsacker (1912) and
Gerard Kuiper (1945).
Claims:
A new factor was introduced in the form of the existence in the cool gaseous nebula of a
small amount of dust, providing nuclei for the condensation of gas particles into larger
aggregates that could accrete and solidify into the embryo planets.
The hypothesis begins with a fragment separating from an interstellar cloud composed
mainly of hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of the other elements. With other
fragments of the interstellar cloud presumably following a similar evolution, its central
region, being somewhat more dense, collapsed more rapidly than its outlying parts. This
formed the central portion of the solar nebula, whose outer portion contained a thin disk
of solids within a thicker disk of gases. The original interstellar cloud must have been
rotating, and as it fragmented, rotation was imparted to each fragment. Thus as the
solar nebula contracted, it rotated more rapidly, conserving angular momentum.
The solar nebula grew by accretion as material continued to fall inward from its
surroundings. Large-scale turbulence from gravitational instabilities ruptured the thin
 disk into eddies, each containing many small particles. These particles gradually built up
into larger bodies by some combination of adhesive forces. Repeated encounters among
them resulted in the accretion of literally billions of still larger asteroid-sized aggregates
called planetesimals, which orbited the center of the solar nebula. Mutual gravitational
attraction led to further encounters and gradual coalescence into many roughly Moon-
size bodies, which in turn coalesced to form the planets.
Planetesimals must have differed in chemical composition, depending primarily on their
initial distance from the Sun as it formed.
Objections:
The angular momentum distribution problem was not answered. Remember that the
distribution of angular momentum in the Solar System expanded to the entire system,
not just the Sun.

WHAT MAKES A PLANET, A PLANET?

In the Resolution B5 released by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, a planet is defined
as celestial body that:
Is in orbit around a star
Has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a
nearly round shape;
Has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit

HABITABLE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARTH

Two Major Requirements for a Planet to become habitable

1. The star should survive long enough for its planets to develop life.
Massive stars would have least possibility to be habitable since they can only live for a
relatively short period. Compared to medium-mass stars, such as the sun (yellow dwarf star),
which can survive long enough for life to develop.

2. The planet should exist in a region where water could remain liquid.
The second requires that the planet must be located in the Goldilocks Zone, the region
around a star that has just the right conditions to find liquid water on a planet's surface. Different
stars have different Goldilocks Zone, or habitable zone. Blue stars tend to have farther habitable
zones since they are relatively hotter and red stars have closer habitable zones since they are
relatively cooler.

Other Requirements:
3. Size of the planet
When it comes to finding the right kind of planet to target in the search for life elsewhere
in the universe, the size of the planet matters. (This will dictate the atmosphere and the
magnetic field that a planet would possess.)

4. Atmosphere
A planet devoid of an atmosphere would have an average surface temperature below
freezing and would experience unpredictable and extreme weather and climates. It would also
have an extreme amount of ultraviolet radiation because there is no atmosphere that absorbs
radiation.
 The existence of an atmosphere on the planet is mainly due to its gravity which pulls the
atmosphere from being carried away by solar radiation, and volcanism on Earth which
replenishes the amount of gases lost to outer space.

5. Magnetic Field
Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that
extends from the Earth's interior to where it meets the solar wind, a stream of charged particles
emanating from the Sun.
6. Movement of Plate Tectonics
If the Earth didnt have plate tectonics, the upper layers of the mantle would not be able
to cool anywhere near as efficiently. With a warmer upper mantle, the temperature difference
between that region and the Earths deep interior would be smaller, and convection would
eventually cease. And without that convection, the Earths dynamo would die, and its magnetic
field would weaken and disappear.
7. Presence of Moon
Life on Earth may also owe a debt to our nearest celestial neighbor, the moon. Earth's
moon stabilizes our planet's rotation, preventing drastic movements of the poles that could
cause massive changes in climate that some scientists think could have doomed any chance for
budding life to form or evolve. The moon also helpfully pulls the ocean's tides, which scientists
suggest might have been the perfect place for early life to begin evolving to survive on land.

EARTHS SPHERES OR SUBSYSTEMS

Earth is divided into different spheres: hydrosphere, the water portion; atmosphere, the gaseous
envelope; geosphere, the solid component; and the biosphere, the living component of Earth.
Hydrosphere
The hydrosphere makes up 71% of Earths surface, most of which is saltwater found in the
oceans. It also includes freshwater found in glaciers, rivers, streams, lakes and underground
aquifers and streams. It is the freshwater part of the hydrosphere that is important to living
things. Groundwater is the largest reservoir of reshwater available to humans.
Earths water is made up of 97% saltwater and 3% freshwater. Only 22% of the freshwater
is accessible for human use in the form of groundwater.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere is the thin, life-giving gaseous envelope of the Earth. Its composition is
divided into the major components and the variable components. The major components include
the gaseous compounds nitrogen and oxygen along with trace gases. These major components
provide the air that people breathe and trap the outgoing infrared radiation to keep Earth warm.
The atmosphere is divided into four different layers: troposphere, stratosphere,
mesosphere, and thermosphere. The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere where
temperature decreases with altitude. It is about 11 km thick. All weather phenomena occur in
this lay er. The boundary between the troposphere and the next layer is called tropopause.
 The next layer, the
stratosphere, is about 11
km to 48 km from the
Earths surface. In this
layer, temperature
increases with altitude due
to the presence of the
ozone layer. Stratopause,
is the boundary between
the stratosphere and the
next layer, the
mesosphere. At
mesosphere,
temperature once again
decreases with altitude,
reaching up to about 90
C (coldest temperature in
the atmosphere). When
asteroids enter the
atmosphere, they burn up,
creating the streak of light. Asteroids that enter the Earths atmosphere are called meteors.
The mesopause separates the mesosphere and the layer above it, the thermosphere.
The thermosphere starts at about 55 km and has no definite upper limit. It has the least amount
of atmospheric molecules, but these receive most of the high energy radiation, which causes the
increase in temperature as altitude increases.
* The layer where auroras occurs in the ionosphere, which is considered an extension of the
thermosphere.
Geosphere
Refers to the solid region of the Earth. It is
composed of naturally-occurring solid aggregate of
minerals, organic material or natural gas called rocks,
and loose particles or rocks that blanket the surface of
the earth called regolith. It doesnt only comprise the
visible solid layer, it also extends to the center of the
Earth. It has depth of 6400 km, making it the largest
sphere of Earth. It is divided into different layers:
crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core.
Layers of the Earth.
Crust, the outermost layer of the crust. It is relatively thin, and occupies just about 1 % of
Earths volume. (Like the skin of an apple, very thin compared to the other layers.) There are two
types of crust: the continental crust and the oceanic crust. Layers that are less dense, such
as the crust, float on layers that are denser, such as the mantle. Both oceanic crust and
continental crust are less dense than the mantle, but oceanic crust is denser than continental
crust. This is partly why the continents are at a higher elevation than the ocean floor.
Mantle, denser, found below the crust separated by the Mohorovicic discontinuity. It
comprises 82% of the Earths volume. It is divided into upper and lower mantle. The upper
mantle, about 100 km, is made of solid rocks and makes up the lithosphere along with the crust.
Below the solid portion of the upper mantle, is the weaker semisolid or plastic asthenosphere,
which is about 700 km thick. Below the asthenosphere is the lower mantle about 2100 km
thick, which is made of hot semisolid rocks.
Core, the center of the earth. Marking the boundary between the solid mantle and the
liquid outer core is the Gutenberg discontinuity. The core is made up of iron-nickel alloy, making
it very dense. It is divided into the outer in inner core, separated by the Bullen discontinuity or
Lehmann discontinuity. The outer core which has a liquid iron-nickel composition, about 2260
km thick, has a very low viscosity, allows the process of convection to occur. The movement of
the liquid outer core is responsible for Earths magnetic field that protects Earth from harmful
solar winds. The inner core, on the other hand, has a radius of 1216 km contains mostly iron. It
remains solid despite high temperature because of extreme pressure at the center of the earth.
Biosphere
The biosphere is the biological component of the Earth. It includes all of the microbes,
plants and animals that can be found 1 km above sea level down to the deepest parts of the
oceans. It extends to any place where life of any kind might exist. Under the biosphere is the
anthroposphere or the human sphere. This sphere includes the part of the Earth that has been
modified by humans. When the population of humans was still small, human activities hardly
affected the systems. But with the rapid growth of human population, human activities now have
greater impact on Earth systems.