A few billion years ago, when the earth was still molten, a rogue planet collided with it.  Orpheus, as this planet is called, hit the earth at an incredible speed. This event caused the cooling earth's surface to once more boil. Much debris was flung into the surrounding space. Over the millennia, this debris collected to become the moon. When man first laid eyes on it in the plains of Africa millennia ago, it would have appeared much larger in the sky. Due to the circumstances of its birth, the moon is slowly moving away from the earth. Our gravity is acting like a slingshot and eventually the moon will leave us. I cannot imagine what the sky would look like without the moon. I also cannot imagine what live on Earth would be like without it. The moon's presence very well could have contributed to the emergence of life on our planet. I wish I could have seen the moon in all its majesty in the sky when it was much closer...

Speaking of the universe, I don't see why some people think that after the Big Bang there has to come a Big Crunch... Why would everything in the universe stop expanding and then come back towards the center? The Big Bang sent everything accelerating away from the center. In the void of space, the only force that can counteract this acceleration is gravity, but with everything so spread out I don't see how any part of the universe could pull another against its outward acceleration. Gravitational forces could alter the trajectory of others, but I don't think there is enough mass in the center of the universe to stop and bring everything back. Science shows that the universe's expansion is actually accelerating still and I believe it will continue to do so. Of course, no one really knows what'll happen for sure, and we are talking trillions upon trillions of years, so it's not like it really matters.

posted by Rick at 7:22 PM

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