God Created the Earth to be Inhabited

Last week I read through the beautiful, glorious, encouraging book of Isaiah. Yesterday I preached the first message in a series on Isaiah at our church. Teaching and preaching don’t look like hard work, but for some reason I’m always wiped out Sunday afternoon and evening. So, I was relaxing and watching some geeky science YouTube videos. One of these videos was based on a recent scientific article with the admittedly not-too-exciting title of “Extreme hydrodynamic losses of Earth-like atmospheres in the habitable zones of veryactive stars.” The creator of the video does a great job of explaining the main point and relevance of the paper in a way that normal folk (at least normal folk who like geeky science stuff) can understand. Early this morning my brain realized there was a connection between the science video posted yesterday and some words God spoke through Isaiah about 2,700 years ago. Then I started getting excited, which led to worshipping God and writing this blog post.

Here’s the eight minute video (the paragraph after the video includes a short summary of its contents):

For me, this video adds just one more piece of evidence that shows that our planet earth is very special. As God explained to Isaiah, He made the earth specifically so that it could be inhabited. None of the other planets in our solar system are habitable. We now know that other stars have planets, too. There are potentially trillions upon trillions of planets in our universe. But most likely extremely few of these planets are capable of supporting advanced life (most probably could not even support bacteria). The video focuses on just one issue. Most stars are smaller than our sun. These smaller stars are also more active than our sun. By more active, I mean that the surface of the star has more solar flares and coronal mass ejections. If an earth-like planet is at the right distance from one of these stars to allow liquid water to exist on the planet, then the particles emitted from these small, active stars would strip away most of the atmosphere leaving an atmosphere that could not support animal life. Such planets would indeed be empty wastelands.

Orbiting the right type of star (and there are many types of stars!) is only one of many special factors that make our earth a suitable home for us and all the other creatures God made to live here.

More Science

Believe it or not, I’ve read two whole books about the very special conditions that are required in order for a planet to host complex life like butterflies, giraffes, and people. Both Rare Earth and The Privileged Planet discuss the many conditions which have to be just right for the earth to be habitable. Here are some of the special things about the way God made our planet:

1. It is located just the right distance from the sun. A little closer and it would be too hot for animal life, and just a little further away and it would be too cold. Not only must the earth be in a narrow “just right” zone, it must remain in this zone for the whole time it hosts advanced life. Because the sun is getting brighter and hotter, this creates a very narrow zone for the earth’s orbit to support animal life.

2. The earth is rotating around just the right kind of star. Most stars are too small. In order to be close enough to these smaller stars to stay warm enough for life, a planet would likely experience tidal lock. Tidal lock causes the same side of the planet to always face the sun (Mercury is very nearly tidally locked around the sun, and our moon is tidally locked around the earth). On a tidally locked planet, it is likely that the atmosphere would freeze out on the cold side of the planet making advanced life on the planet impossible.

3. Our planet has a lot of water but is not entirely covered by water. This is just right to support advanced life like us.

4. We experience relatively few large impacts from asteroids and comets. It is likely that having Jupiter in our solar system has helped a lot. Jupiter has likely swept up many asteroids and comets that otherwise would have impacted earth with devastating effects. Thankfully, Jupiter is not closer to the sun, as it would then have a very negative impact on earth instead of a helpful one. By a negative impact, I’m talking about driving the earth into the sun, which would of course be very bad for all of us!

5. The earth is in the best type of galaxy. Globular, elliptical, and small galaxies don’t have enough metal (this is called being metal-poor) to produce many (if any) earth like planets.

6. The earth is just the right size. Smaller planets cannot hold life supporting atmospheres and the large gas giants are very hostile to any life (this fun video explains what the atmosphere of Saturn is like by imagining what would happen to a poor astronaut who fell into it).

7. The earth has plate tectonics, which means our continents move around (very slowly!). This may be crucial to supporting advanced life because it creates a complex CO2-silicate global thermostat that helps keep the earth’s temperature in a good range for animal life.

8. Having a relatively large moon (which is rare in our solar system) also helps the earth. Our moon stabilizes the tilt of our planet. Having a stable tilt prevents severe weather fluctuations that could freeze out our oceans and make other parts of the planet too hot for animal life.

9. The earth has just the right kind of atmosphere for animal life.

10. Not only are we in a good type of galaxy (for life), we are in a good location within our galaxy. In many other locations we would be fried by gamma rays, or the earth’s orbit would be disturbed by nearby stars, or we would be incinerated by supernovas, or we would be in a part of our own galaxy without enough metal to make an earth like planet.

11. Our solar system has just one star. “About two thirds of solar-type stars in the solar neighborhood are members of binary or multiple star systems” (Rare Earth, 24). Planets in such systems are unlikely to have stable enough orbits and receive stable enough amounts of solar energy to remain friendly to animal life.

12.  Thankfully, earth’s soil is not toxic like the soil on Mars!

There are many specific factors that make earth a nice home for us. God did a great job when He created the earth to be habitable. It’s not a barren wasteland like all the other planets and all the moons in our solar system. It is very likely that the vast majority of other planets (maybe even all of them) in the universe are also barren wastelands. Our home planet is rare and special. This should move us to trust and worship our God, who created the heavens and the earth!

For this is what the LORD says-- the Creator of the heavens, the God who formed the earth and made it, the one who established it (he did not create it to be a wasteland, but formed it to be inhabited)-- he says, "I am the LORD, and there is no other.

(Isa. 45:18 CSB17)

If you liked this, you might want to read these other posts about evidence for God from science and how nature shows us things about God:

How the Sun glorifies the Son

Seeing God in Creation Gives Me Courage to Keep Serving Him

Nuclear Submarines and Living Cells

A Stronger Attraction than Sin (uses the solar system as an analogy)

Excited both as a Science Geek and a God Worshiper

Sunflowers and Sonpeople

Spiritual Lessons from Elephants and Water Buffalo

White Fields

Theistic Evolution Demagnifies God's Glory

Octopi from Outer Space

Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .