After the big bang, why did the planets including earth take spherical shape?

Question

After the earth was formed, how can the stardust evolved to a living cell that swims in the sea.

Can we say stardust a living thing?

Answer 1

This is the second time this question has been asked in 24 hours. I wonder why. It is actually creationist nonsense.

Big bang - about 13.7 thousand million years ago, produced space, time and matter in the form of hydrogen mixed with a very little helium. The hydrogen and helium formed after things had cooled down a bit, it was not there at the start.

After a couple of million years the hydrogen started to form stars by collapsing together here and there under its own gravity. Most of these stars were very big. Really huge - ginormous. The bigger the star, the shorter it's life, sometimes just several million years. Nuclear fusion in star cores formed elements up to carbon (or was it iron - I forgot which but it doesn't much matter) during the ordinary life of the stars, but when they exploded in supernovae the higher temperatures and pressures formed the heavier elements up to uranium and possibly beyond, but heavier elements have short lives and most of them decayed back to lighter ones pretty quickly. However that only used up a small percentage of the hydrogen. Leftover hydrogen cooled down then began to form new stars.

After a couple of generations of large stars things calmed down. The Universe was bigger and the concentration of hydrogen was smaller, so stars got smaller on average. We got fairly well behaved middle sized stars like the ones we see today. This has been the situation for hundreds or possibly a couple of thousand million years.

The Earth began to form a shade over 4500 million years ago around a small to middle sized star that has been behaving itself nicely for a very long time. Stable conditions in local space combined with the presence of water and possibly the influence of the Moon creating tides made things favourable for the appearance of life on Earth based on carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and some other elements, all originally cooked up in stellar cores. The appearance of life on Earth is not currently the subject of a scientific explanation. All that can be said is that it happened.

The evidence for the big bang is in the observed expansion of the Universe and the cosmic microwave background, which is at a temperature which is within a tiny fraction of a degree of that predicted from the expansion of the Universe. This background radiation was first observed almost accidentally more than 40 years ago and has been the subject of many more careful observations since.

Gravity works equally in all directions. The most stable shape for an object which generates it's own gravitational field is a sphere.

Those who suggest that a big bang is incapable of producing round planets and stars are in effect liars. They are deliberately confusing two different phenomena so that they may deceive the public into believing their creationist hokum and collect money from those deceived. Thats right, creationist leaders are persistent liars and frauds, just like those who promote alien abductions, the Bermuda triangle, anti-vaccination and the "didn't go to the Moon" hoax.

http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/creationdebate5.htm

Answer 2

Big bang!! Why couldn't it be a Big Juicy Raspberry!BJR

Actually, the shape of the earth is rather flatter at the poles, like a deflating basket ball. The molten core with a high percentage of iron maintains a magnetic field.North & South
But the way I understand it is the analogy of a large cement mixer or stones worn smooth by tumbling along the river.
It may be the centripital force of spinning and friction which the orbitting body(ies) develop in the style of least resistance that is- rounded or as you say spherical.
Star dust as a living thing ? mmmm
Again the analogy - you need the right ingredients the right conditions mixed in the right way for the right amount of time
with the specific energy requirements maintained for an inordinate amount of eons to raise bubble and form into anything approaching a matrix which invests the ebb and flow of seasonality the pull of tides from a satellite combining the chemical / physical properties of the planet, to even resemble that which we find sensate pulsing reactive reproductive and alive. One heck of a recipe eh!
But in a way - why not? God said let there be light!
Nothing would exist as we know it without the source..
Pretty fundamental stuff and look at the nuclear reaction of the sun- every thing is made in this cauldren and then consumed but not lost totally but radiates fuelling heat light and cosmic reactions throughout the system, inside a galaxy within our section of the universe which sits on the back of an elephant standing on the back of a turtle!!!
BJR I reckon!!
Cheers

Answer 3

Gravity is an unusual phenomena that we just take for granted. Few people realise that our earth would not exist with its current climate if the earth was just a few centimetres closer or further away from the sun. We would either have extreme cold or heat. Unbelievable.

Contrary to popular belief, a good portion of believers in God
do not subscribe to a literal 7 day creation period. The 'day' often reffered to in the bible can be 1000 years or more. The fact is that the hypocrisy of religion in general leaves little room for people to take the possibility of a God seriously.

Our very nature leads us to ask why how who. The big bang sounds plausible enough. So who or what started the big bang? The great Carl Sagan has in a 2006/2007 Time magazine article accepted the possiblity of a higher intelligent life force. If someone had the intelligence to create a watch with all its intricate detail, is it not even slightly logical that a super intelligent being had a hand in the making of the universe? The logic is undeniable.

Answer 4

Gravity and time make planets spherical it seems.

No surprise that a religious slant has appeared in people's answers. I don't recall theology being part of the question however?

The big bang, like evolution, is indeed just a theory but a very good theory based on the evidence. The universe is a very strange place, stranger than we could possibly imagine (someone said) and it is impossible to say with certainty whether there is a god or not.

Nonetheless evolution makes a huge amount of sense to anyone willing to look at the facts. There are no doubt gaps in the theory which will be filled in time (i watched some bizarre underwater creatures on TV the other day and could not imagine how they just evolved but we are talking huge timescales here, we just can't get our human brains around such timescales).

Something may have created the planets, the universe and everything but i certainly see no evidence of a benevolent being still hanging around helping us out.

May we all work together as humans and do the right thing regardless of our faith.

Peace and love.

Answer 5

The shape of small objects (like people and houses and mountains and small asteroids) are determined by their mechanical properties. You can take a rock and cut it into a particular shape and it will pretty much stay that way.
The larger the object, though, the stronger its gravitational field. Imagine that you want to build a really tall building. You have to make sure it has a really strong foundation, or the foundation will be crushed by the weight of the building and the building will fall. If there was anything really big sticking up on a planet or a star, gravity would pull it down.
If a planet was like a cube, the corners of the cube would be higher than the rest of the planet. Since planets and stars are so big, you cannot build a "foundation" strong enough to hold up those corners! Anything you built it out of would be too weak to hold them up. Gravity would eventually pull them down.
Even solid rock will flow like a liquid, although very slowly, if it is pulled by a very strong gravitational force for a very long time. Corners on a cubical planet or star would eventually just squish down.
Since gravity pulls toward the center of the planet or star, everything gets pulled down into a sphere. However, planets and stars are not really perfect spheres. They spin, so they bulge out a little around the equator.

As for the stardust who knows maybe there is something

Answer 6

Planets are spherical in shape simply due to the fact if they were square it would be a nightmare when travelling around the world.

The sad part of the spherical shape business is that it stops a hell of a lot more people living on the edge.

As for Stardust being a living thing.....You better believe your **** it is...drop some of that bad boy and you just see how takes you to places you never knew existed.

Simple really, when you know how.

Answer 7

This is really interesting.....
why is it that people believe that God made the earth and all in it in 7 days (1 God day could be 1million human years) but find it hard to believe that he could have done the same with the Big Bang???
We were not there?

I have loved reading all the answers though.
I believe the geoid shape of the earth is formed by the gravitational pull on the moon - it has to pull the moon along with it as it rotates and this causes the bulge, the moon being pulled along creates a bigger circle each time thus moving further away from the earth albeit very slowly ..

Answer 8

Now that I am sure that we have all read enough answers about gravity and centrifugal force creating the shape of the planet....... I would quickly like to mention a few theories on the formation of life on the planet.
- The accidental formation of life due to external environmental influences on elements buzzing around a barren planet is the most popular theory and has been covered in many of the above replies. no need for that to be explained further
- Another theory is that we have radiation to thank for life. Evidence suggests that parts of the universe are highly radioactive (backing up the thoery of nuclear fusion taking place when a star pops). All matter is radioactive to a degree, but when matter is exposed to higher levels of radiation than its own there are often changes that occur which are hard to explain/predict/understand.
So if a 'bit of ye olde stardust' was exposed to high radiation levels en route to earth or during the planets early days of formation, it is possible that the radiation changed the nature of the make-up of this matter and brought on the 'spark of life' through a chain reaction, leading to the formation of living single cellular organisms.
- There is also a theory which states that life quite possibly was introduced to earth from elsewhere !!! Shock and Horror!!!
Fragments of meteorites and other space debris have been found to contain what look like fossilised single cells. Tragically a fossilised single cell is very hard to examine and we do not have the technology yet to determine whether these items are really fossils or just look incredibly like fossils under the microscopes.
If they are genuine fossils though, it means that single cellular life actually formed somewhere else in the universe and was introduced here on meteorites or other interstellar debris( I personally do wonder how they survived the trip since they would have been exposed to some pretty extreme conditions)


There are obviously gaps and holes in all the theories and theologies on this matter, I think that we need to accept that we will not have any definite answers in our lifetimes.

Answer 9

One of the reasons is because most planets and moons spin! Centrifugal force throws stuff outwards, gravity pulls it back in, hence it retains a spherical shape. It's moving slower at the top and bottom opposed to the middle and so the top and bottom are compressed up and the middle is thrown out. Our moon doesn't spin but it has gravity because it's mass is sufficient and the gravity keeps it all together. It's believed to have been "knocked off" of the Earth billions of years ago and at the time was a molten mass which settled into a sphere. If you watch astronauts in the space station opening a water bottle, or messing around with liquids, you'll notice that the liquids when released in a weightless environment nearly always form spherical globules. It's natures easiest form to take due to surface tension directing an even force all over the sphere.
Watch those old fashioned "globule lamps" which have a light at the bottom which heats the liquids inside, they usually have two or three oils of close but slightly differing weights or viscosities, as the heat causes the oil at the bottom to warm up and then become lighter than the surrounding oil it's suspended in it'll rise up and a bubble will break off. It forms a sphere after a few seconds. It's due to the surface tension.
Ciao.

Answer 10

Round, circular, spherical shapes are the most common in the universe. They are the easiest to form, given all the forces/factors at work, and they are the most dynamic in terms of the use & loss of energy (that is to say that they use very little energy to form and expend very little energy when moving).

Take the shape of a raindrop as an example. We all think it's tear shaped, but a raindrop is actually a perfect sphere as it fall's from the sky because of all the forces and pressures at work and how easy that sphere shape is to form.

It would be impossible for the raindrop, or a planet (or even a planets orbit for that matter), or the galaxy we're a part of to move in a square or triangular or hexagonal or trepezium shape.

As for "stardust evolving" into a living thing, it's not "stardust", it's a collection of atoms & molecules which, when put together in various quantities form "stardust", gases, planets and everything in our universe, including all living things.

Finally, can we call stardust a living thing? Well, can we call the Earth a living thing? It move's, it breathes, it reacts when we hurt it, just as we do when something on our skin causes us a discomfort. I think the answer to your question is a quite simple yes. The entire universe is a living entity, it's not just us.