The Big Bang’s Metaphysical Baggage: Part One

The Big Bang event is the leading scientific cosmological theory when it comes to explaining the origin and evolution of life, the Universe and simply everything. While the Big Bang event is the leading candidate and the standard model, it’s not the only one. That’s fortunate, because while a fair bit of once theoretical now verified observational evidence supports that standard cosmological model, it also comes as well with a fair bit of metaphysical baggage. It’s mainly that metaphysical baggage that concerns me.

When anyone ponders the origin and evolution of our Universe, the science of cosmology, one is confronted with the Big Bang theory – the Big Bang event. So, what did the Big Bang do, or didn’t do; what was it, or wasn’t? And, most importantly, should you put any credibility into the Big Bang scenario seeing as how 1) nobody was around to witness the event, and 2) the scenario, as given by the standard model, is grossly in violation of the very laws, principles and relationships of physics that you’d expect cosmologists to support. Are their any solutions that are out-of-the-box that can reconcile the Big Bang event without violating what scientists should hold most dear? I can think of two!

For those of you unacquainted with the Big Bang scenario, in the beginning (13.7 billion years ago) the Big Bang event created our Universe – all of space and time; all of matter and energy; all from a volume less than a standard pinhead! Now for the objections!

THE BIG BANG VIOLATES BASIC PHYSICS

1) Standard Big Bang violation number one - the Big Bang didn’t create time:

The concept of time is nothing more than a measurement of rate-of-change. If nothing ever changed, the concept of time would be meaningless. Now change suggests there must be at least two events. Event One happens; Event Two happens. The change is that difference between the state of play identified with Event One and the state of play identified with Event Two. That change equates into a time differential. Event One happens at a time separate and apart from that of Event Two. Event One if it’s the cause of Event Two, must have happened prior to Event Two. Event Two in turn, can act as the cause of Event Three, and so on. Translated, there was no first event; there was no first cause. There was no first event because there had to be a prior cause that caused that event. There was no first cause because there had to have been an earlier event that caused that cause.

Now the Big Bang event was both a cause and an effect. As a cause, the Big Bang caused the subsequent event, the kick-starting of the evolution of our Universe. As an effect, well something prior to the Big Bang must have acted as a cause of the Big Bang effect. Translated, that cause must have been prior in time to the Big Bang; therefore there is such a thing as a before the Big Bang and therefore the Big Bang event could NOT have created time.  Taken to its logical conclusion, there could never have been a first cause; there could never be a first effect, therefore time is infinite since the chicken (cause) and egg (effect) paradox is only solvable by postulating infinity.

2) Standard Big Bang violation number two - the Big Bang didn’t create space:

This supposition is easily disposed of. Can any handyman reading this think of any possibility of how they could create something, anything, be it building something from scratch, or writing words on paper, or even thinking those words or thinking about building something, without there being pre-existing space, be it space in your garage, space that exists in your exercise book, or the space that exists between your ears that conceives of building X or writing Y? No? Nothing, but nothing, springs into reality, even if only a nebulous mental reality, without there being pre-existing space. The Big Bang is a reality. It had to have been created in a reality. Any reality has a space or volume component. Therefore, the Big Bang (creation of our Universe) event happened in pre-existing space or volume; therefore the Big Bang event did not, could not, have created space. You can not create your own space, the space you yourself exist in. It’s sort of like giving birth to your own self. It’s a paradox.

3) Standard Big Bang violation number three - the Big Bang didn’t create matter/energy:

One of the most cherished conservation principles, drummed into every science student, from junior high through university, is that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but only changed in form. Also, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but only changed in form. Post Einstein, the two have been combined, since matter can be turned into energy and vice versa. However, the central bit is creation. Creation from nothing (or destruction into nothing) is not allowed – except for some unfashionable reason at the Big Bang according the standard model of cosmology. Why this should be the sole exception to the rule is quite beyond me.

Now there is such a thing as creation of virtual particles from the vacuum energy (quantum fluctuations). However that’s not a free lunch (something created from nothing). It’s the conversion of energy to mass (as per Einstein’s famous equation) and the virtual particles can annihilate each other and return back into energy. I just thought I’d better mention that in case some bright spark considered that process a mini version of the Big Bang. It’s not as in this case the creation (and annihilation) of virtual particles would be just a very, very tiny bang that violates nothing in terms of the conservation of matter and energy.   

4) Standard Big Bang violation number four - the Big Bang wasn’t a pinhead event:

The Big Bang wasn’t a quantum event: The Universe is expanding, ever expanding. That’s not in doubt (see below). Standard model cosmologists now play that expanding Universe ‘film’ in reverse. Travel back in time and the Universe is contracting, ever contacting. Alas, where do you stop that contraction? Well the standard model says when the Universe achieves a volume tinier than the tiniest subatomic particle! When (according to some texts) the Universe has achieved infinite density in zero volume – okay, maybe as close to infinite density and as close to zero volume as makes no odds. Translated, in the beginning the Universe was something within the realm of quantum physics!

Now just because you can run the clock backwards to such extremes, doesn’t mean that that reflects reality. How any scientist can say with a straight face that you can cram the entirety of not only the observable Universe, but the entire Universe (which is quite a bit larger yet again) into the volume smaller than the most fundamental of elementary particles is beyond me. Either I’m nuts for not comprehending the bloody obvious, or the standard modellers are collectively out of their stark raving minds. Actually I suspect the latter because they are caught out in a Catch-22. They are between the proverbial rock and hard place.

Now if cosmologists really believe the entire contents of our Universe was crammed into a small space, even one larger than quantum-sized, then of necessity you have our embryo Universe nicely, and tightly, confined within a Black Hole! Nothing can escape from a Black Hole (except Hawking radiation, but that leakage is so slow it’s like having just one drop of water come through your roof over the duration of a category five hurricane). So you can’t have a Big Bang that releases our Universe from its Black Hole prison. So there! The Big Bang had to have been of such a size that a Black Hole was not part of the picture.

To be continued...

A Parallel Analogy Between Supernovae & Cosmology: Part Three

Parts of the current standard model of the origin of our Universe (the Big Bang event) violate nearly every principle of physics there is – from causality to the conservation laws. There’s got to be a better answer. Fortunately there are cosmological alternatives (not detailed here) including perhaps my own variation on the theme (which is detailed here). Supernovae gave me a possible clue to a cyclic Multiverse.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

POINT AND COUNTERPOINT: Now your standard run-of-the-mill, everyday professor of cosmology at your local leading university will tell you if you show her this scenario that it is all total nonsense and I should be consigned to the pseudoscientific rubbish bin. The Big Bang event was a one-off; it was unique; a one-of-a-kind; a fluke; just one of those interesting things that happen for no apparent reason at all. The Big Bang event created time and space, therefore time and space cannot be infinite. 

But – and you’ll read that non-observation (since there was no one around including any lady cosmologists to observe at the Big Bang’s ground zero) in any standard book on the subject – it’s nonsense, a scientific fabrication if you really stop and think about it. You cannot create something, anything, without having the space already available to create it into. That applies to the creation of our Universe as much as it applies to creating widgets in a factory! To claim otherwise is to suggest all of ultimate creation was kick-started in no space at all! How absurd is that! Consider the reverse: how can you cram everything into nothing?  

Now if the Big Bang event did not, could not, create space way back then, then space is not undergoing continuous creation today contrary to the standard spiel. Translated, space is not expanding into some non-space region of non-existence. Expanding space either means that space is getting thinner and thinner (less dense) like an expanding balloon skin stretching (and that’s nonsense – how can space decrease in density?), or new space is being created out of nothing to fill the void as space expands. You can’t create something out of pure nothing; not then (at the Big Bang); not now. That’s a violation of all the basic conservation laws that are the bedrock of physics.

So, the obvious alternative is that what’s expanding is the stuff vomited out by the Big Bang event into pre-existing space and the vomit just keeps thinning out as it expands throughout an ever wider volume of that pre-existing space. Now fortunately for me, and unfortunately for those cosmology professors, there’s no actual observational test or experiment that can be done to distinguish between the two possibilities and settle the matter. If there were such observational evidence that proved that space itself was expanding (and thus being continuously created even as I type this) that evidence would be given in the textbooks. But it’s not there. All you get is just the standard scenario: “the Big Bang created space; space is expanding and therefore space is still being created today”. The unwritten sentence is “just take my word for it” because I can’t back it up with any evidence, far less proof. The only evidence is that something is expanding. That something could equally be Big Bang stuff spewing out into pre-existing space like an exploding firecracker will spew its contents outward bound and ever expanding.

It’s the unanswered question that remains in fact unasked in the standard textbooks – what exactly is our Universe’s expanding space expanding into? What is our expanding space shoving out of the way as it expands, ever expands? It can’t be pre-existing space according to the standard model since the Big Bang event created all of space; the entirety of space in the beginning 13.7 billion years ago. Perhaps space is pushing into a theoretical higher dimension (whatever that really means), but that would be an ad hoc pull of the rabbit out of the proverbial hat where nobody advocating that could provide any evidence that either the rabbit or the hat exists at all. Besides, all those extra dimensions predicted by the purely mathematical and hypothetical string theory (if string theory is to work) are compactified; curled up into super-ultra microscopic foetal positions; they are tiny. They aren’t the sort of higher dimension you can expand a universe of space into. So it’s back to the drawing board for our standard lady (and gentlemen) cosmologists.

The other bit, the creation of time, is equally absurd. The Big Bang was an event. It was an effect. If causality has any meaning at all, and it’s one of the foundations upon which all of science rests on, then an effect has a cause. Causes must precede effects when cause and effect are intimately related (there are of course lots of causes and lots of effects that have no connection). Therefore, whatever caused the Big Bang event (or effect), must of necessity have happened before (preceded) the Big Bang event. Therefore, there must have been an already existing time prior to the Big Bang event and therefore the Big Bang event did not, could not, create time. Since there was a before the Big Bang, since cause always precedes effect, then again time could not have been created – time has always been, is, and always will be.

Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for those professors of cosmology ramming down the standard ‘creation of time and space’ scenario to their students, all equations (that which usually substitutes for lack of ways and means to do actual observations) that try to describe the Big Bang event; ground zero when space allegedly equals zero and time allegedly also equals zero, totally break down. So the standard ‘create time and space’ model is pure extrapolation (running the film backwards from today’s data) and ultimately a best guess. So while I’ve no doubt the Big Bang scenario is correct in the broad-brush generalities, there is a lot of observational evidence that something really big happened 13.7 billion years ago that kick-started our Universe off on its evolutional path, when it comes to some of the nitty-gritty details, like that ‘create time and space’ detail, well I just think that is plain wrong – pure and simple. 

So why is that ‘Big Bang created time and space’ the only accepted scenario? It is beyond me, except it probably has a lot to do, not with science, but the sociology and the office politics of science – peer pressure. Science, like the church and other formal institutions does not approve of mavericks that go against the grain. So if you want a Ph D., a job, research funding, a career with promotions, publications, etc. you don’t rock the boat. Science, and that includes cosmology, for all its self-correcting ways and means and methods and ideals is still, ultimately, a human endeavour. As such, you tow the party line; go with the flow; parrot to your students what your professors parroted to you.

Now there are a few bold cosmologists who do acknowledge that the Big Bang event still has some kinks to be ironed out and that there was a “before the Big Bang”. That’s not to say they would endorse my scenario. They probably wouldn’t in a pink fit! 

Heading back on track, even if my supernovae analogy is wrong, there still had to have been an existence both of time and space prior to the creation of our Universe via the Big Bang event, and that alone suggests that all things are still cyclic or re-cyclic in the cosmos. 

A Parallel Analogy Between Supernovae & Cosmology: Part Two

Parts of the current standard model of the origin of our Universe (the Big Bang event) violate nearly every principle of physics there is – from causality to the conservation laws. There’s got to be a better answer. Fortunately there are cosmological alternatives (not detailed here) including perhaps my own variation on the theme (which is detailed here). Supernovae gave me a possible clue to a cyclic Multiverse.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THE PARALLEL COSMOLOGY ANALOGY: So what the hell does yesterday’s post have to do with cosmology? There’s lots of stars; only one Universe – or is that really the case?

One set of assumptions has to be made from the get-go. I postulate that the cosmos, all that is and ever will be, is infinite in both space and in time. This assumption is more philosophical than scientific. If you ever postulate a finite cosmos, a cosmos with a boundary, a fixed volume, you must, of necessity, deal with that maverick who asks, “Well, what exists beyond that boundary?” If you postulate a beginning and/or an end, that same maverick will annoy you with, “Well, what happened before that or after that?” It’s just easier to wrap your head around a cosmos that is infinite; a cosmos that had no beginning and will have no end. Unfortunate, the standard model of cosmology postulates a beginning, and a fade-away ending and a finite amount of stuff and space to stuff it into.

We all know the standard scientific spiel to the creation of our Universe – no, not the Biblical Book of Genesis, but the Big Bang event. Well, already we have a parallel analogy – supernovae are mini big bang events.

Now the Big Bang and other associated real time events like an additional oomph of an in the beginning “inflation” have resulted in our Universe expanding, ever expanding. There’s lots of observational evidence for the Big Bang and the expansion. So, lots of stuff has been vomited out into the cosmos from a unique point in time – 13.7 billion years ago. But if there was a finite Big Bang, then there must also have been a finite amount of space to stuff that vomit into. That violates my philosophical ideals of not only no boundary in time, but no bounds in space for our Universe to strut its stuff in.

Anyway, we have expansion of stuff spreading out through space. Well, that’s a parallel analogy with the spewing out of gas and dust via stars going nova and supernovae. Now commonsense might suggest that the original oomph of the Big Bang would eventually run out of puff as the one-way attraction of gravity would slow the expansion down, and down, and down and eventually cause the expansion to come to a grinding halt – then reverse, as gravity would cause everything to contract once again back into the configuration from which the Big Bang arose from. In other words, the expected fate of our Universe was to be born from a Big Bang, live and evolve, and die in a Big Crunch.

Alas, life isn’t that simple – Mother Nature is a baseball pitcher with a wicked curveball or knuckleball. Mother Nature’s a real Hall-of-Fame bitch. A bunch of astronomical party-poopers discovered that the expansion of the Universe isn’t slowing down; it bloody well accelerating! Thus, no Big Crunch is on the horizon in the far future, only a “Heat Death” as entropy ends up ruling the roost. So runs the standard spiel.  So how are you going to eventually generate a second or third or one-hundredth generation universe out of that mess? But that’s the limited view. Let’s climb the cosmic mountain for the grander picture. 

What comes now to the rescue is that there is more than one Big Bang (maxi nova or supernovae) universe; more than one expansion event, because, there’s more than one universe, more than just our Universe, within that infinite (in space and time) cosmos referred to above.

And so, while from our limited point of view there is our Universe, and thus we assume the one-and-only-Universe, in fact there is more – much, much more. If you have a lot of universes in the infinite cosmos, all of which started off with a supernovae-like Big Bang, then, sooner or later, the spew of one (or more) will intersect with the spew of another (or more).

Thus, a lot of expanding regions of individual universes will intersect, eventually. That intersect region will, under combined gravities, start to slow things down. That region will slowly, but surely, start to contract. That contraction will eventually collapse into a Big Crunch. It seems something cyclic has happened. Lots of Big Bangs have generated a Big Crunch – actually a lot of Big Crunches when you look at the total 3-D picture. Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions B, C, and D in one direction, say left. Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions E, F and G in the opposite direction. Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions H, I, J and K in the up direction; Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with the L, and M Big Bangs in the downward direction, and so on and so forth. The Big Crunches (resulting in the Mother of all Black Holes) will be symmetrical, turning inside out into newly vomiting Big Bangs, or White Holes.

And so the endlessly cycling of stellar nova/supernova (expansion) to intersecting clouds of interstellar gas/dust (contractions) thus forming new stellar objects, some of which will in turn vomit up their quota of interstellar gas/dust has a parallel though many orders of magnitude on up the line. Endlessly cycling Big Bang expansions intersect to form high gravity regions which contract (in Big Crunches) to form new regions where conditions are ripe for a new Big Bang event. And so we have an overall cyclic cosmos or Multiverse (because there is more than one universe). There’s not just one expanding universe slowing down and contracting to ultimate reform that one expanding universe again, but a whole potpourri of universes that are all just expanding, intersecting and contracting, comings and goings at different times and places – night and day; Full Moon to New Moon; evaporation to rainfall; etc. 

In fact, if you think about it, the idea that there are many expanding and contracting universes is but the next logical step in what was already proven to be a natural progression. Once upon a time Terra Firma (Earth) was the centre of the Universe. Now we know better. Then the Sun and solar system were elevated to that centre. Now we know better because there are lots of suns and planets that have eliminated our uniqueness. Once upon a time our galaxy was considered to be the be-all-and-end-all of the Universe. Today we know better. There are billions and billions of other galaxies out there and our galaxy occupies no special place in space or time and has no special appearance. So, I suggest that our Universe is now not the centre of the universe (or cosmos to avoid confusion). We have a Multiverse! And we have a cyclic Multiverse that should satisfy that philosophical idealistic need referred to at the start.  

Now it could already be the case that part of our expanding Universe has recently (even as in multi-millions of years ago) intersected part of another expanding universe. However, we wouldn’t be aware of that because it’s going to take billions of years for the visuals and the gravitational effects to reach us from such vast distances.

There is at least one interesting consequence inherent in this cyclic Multiverse. Even if there is only a finite amount of mass and energy in this infinite volume (and that doesn’t have to be the case since you can fit an infinite amount of mass and energy into an infinite volume), that finite mass and energy has been recycled an infinite number of times in the unending past and will be recycled an infinite number of times in the unending future. The upshot of that is that anything and everything that can happen, everything that is not forbidden by the laws, principles and relationships inherent in nature, has happened an infinite number of times and will happen again an infinite number of times. Translated, you have and will exist again, and again, and again in all possible permutations. Although the ‘you’ that is reading this in the ‘now’ will fade away (that sounds nicer than kicking-the-bucket), take comfort in that another ‘you’, somewhere and somewhen else, will carry on carrying on the ‘you’ tradition. 

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JOHN’S COSMOLOGY-SUPERNOVAE ANALOGY IN SUMMARY FORM

1) Contraction of a universe                               1) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

2) Big Crunch   (Black Hole)                             2) Massive star forms

3) Transition to                                                  3) Stellar life span

4) Big Bang (White Hole)                                  4) Supernovae

5) Expanding Universe                                      5) Expulsion of gas/dust

6) Intersection with another expanding universe 6) Interaction with other gas/dust

7) Gravity rules                                                 7) Gravity rules

8) Contraction of new universe                          8) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

To be continued...

A Parallel Analogy Between Supernovae & Cosmology: Part One

Parts of the current standard model of the origin of our Universe (the Big Bang event) violate nearly every principle of physics there is – from causality to the conservation laws. There’s got to be a better answer. Fortunately there are cosmological alternatives (not detailed here) including perhaps my own variation on the theme (which is detailed here). Supernovae gave me a possible clue to a cyclic Multiverse.

Cosmology is the study of the evolution of our Universe as a whole – from birth to death, or maybe birth to death to rebirth. Stellar objects and events, like nova and supernovae are in the cosmic scheme of things almost insignificant in comparison. It’s like comparing the life and times of an individual insect to the life and times of Planet Earth. Still, there might be a lot to be gleamed from comparing the life and death of our Universe to the life and death of the stars within that Universe.

A cyclic universe – one with birth, death, rebirth, death, rebirth, death, etc. is a far more philosophically satisfying universe than a one-off born, live, and fade-away universe, which is what our Universe appears to be. A cyclic universe is probably more pleasing because such a concept more closely mirrors nearly all local reality – the cyclic four seasons endlessly repeating; day-night-day-night; New Moon – Full Moon – New Moon – Full Moon; evaporation – rainfall – evaporation – rainfall; the carbon cycle; the nitrogen cycle; you name it, it recycles. Okay, maybe you don’t. You maybe are like our Universe – born, live yet doomed to fade-away. But the broader human species continues to recycle – birth, death, birth, death, etc. The names and the faces change, but the human cycle continues. Actually all of your stuff will recycle too. Part of you today might be part of a cockroach 100 years down the track! That aside, the Big Question is how can you generate a cyclic universe, one which eventually goes from initial Big Bang expansion to one which contracts into a Big Crunch then rebounds again? How do you generate that from a Big Bang universe that’s apparently doomed to keep expanding, ever expanding, forever, and ever, amen? 

The standard model of cosmology suggests that our Universe had a one-off moment of creation (the Big Bang) and will over trillions of years surrender to entropy (the evolution of a state of order to ultimate disorder) and die an eventual “heat death” (where the temperature – heat energy, the ultimate end product of all other forms of energy conversion – is exactly uniform throughout). So we go from Once Upon A Time/In the Beginning through to Cosmic Evolution through to The End. But that’s the narrow view. What if there were many universes, and they could interact? Then there might not be an overall Once Upon A Time/In the Beginning and ultimately The End. The parallel analogy with supernovae explains all.

THE STORY OF THE SUPERNOVAE: We’ve all heard of supernovae, and while quite rare, there has been one visible to the naked eye recently that occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud (SN 1987A), a nearby companion mini-galaxy to our own visible from the Southern Hemisphere. It was first witnessed on Planet Earth after the light flash travelled thousands upon thousands of years, traversing intergalactic and interstellar space, to arrive locally on the 23^rd of February 1987. It was the first visible naked eye supernovae event since 1604 – rare indeed.

Their cosmic story and cosmic significance is fairly straight forward. Stars form out of interstellar gas, dust and perhaps larger debris. This mix of stuff slowly but surely contracts, all under the mutual attraction of their individual gravities that eventually brings it all together in a lump sum – if massive enough an embryo star forms. The intense pressures heat up the interior, and if the embryo star is indeed massive enough, the heat and pressure will be enough to cause the gas, etc. to start to fuse, usually starting with hydrogen fusing to helium and releasing [solar] energy in that conversion – nuclear fusion is what powers the stars. 

Now interstellar gas and dust clouds are not all uniform in size. So, some stars fire up with the bare minimum of stuff, other stars fire up with a lot of stuff in their core bellies, but not too much. These are sort-of like Goldilocks stars; stars like our Sun. A few stars formed from such a thick region of gas and dust that they were ‘born’ obese.

How massive newborn stars are will determine their lifespan and their fate. The relationship tends to be that the thinner you are at birth, the longer you’ll live. Very skinny stars are very frugal with their fuel. These misers have stellar life-spans perhaps measured in roughly a trillion or so years. When their fuel finally runs out, they just slowly, ever so slowly, fade away into a white dwarf then finally as a dark and cold black dwarf cinder. Average stars, like our Sun, are less thrifty, but even so manage a lifespan of roughly ten billion years. Average stars will go through a more complex evolution, but ultimately they too will settle down to a long retirement, cooling, ever cooling when the fuel is exhausted. They too will go out not with a bang but with a whimper.

However, some stars are born just plain fat! Some stars can also put on weight after-the-fact by stealing mass from a nearby companion star via their stronger gravity and close proximity. However the star gets fat, fat in a stellar sense (lots and lots of mass), the more massive a star is, the greater the temperatures and pressures in that star’s core, and the faster nuclear fusion reactions go. Really massive stars live life in the fast lane; they live fast; they die young. And they don’t go out with a whimper, but with a bang – sometimes endlessly hiccuping or burping or vomiting – novas; sometimes imploding due to massive gravity when their core fuel gets close to empty (leaving a bit of a void) which causes a massive rebound and a super-ultra-violent explosion called a supernovae. That really does spew their stellar guts back into the interstellar winds. While there are several different types of supernovae that have ultimately different origins, that’s of no concern in this context. The important bit is that stuff gets spewed back into space and eventually recycled.

Exploding stars, the novae but especially the supernovae return not only gas and dust and debris back to the interstellar medium, but enriched gas, dust and debris since the enormous temperatures and pressures cook up the heavier elements (elements more complex than helium), elements that are essential for life to ultimately grace the cosmos with its presence.

Gas and dust from one star’s ‘burp’ intersect with gas and dust from another star’s ‘hick-up’ and maybe intermingle with the ‘spewing vomit’ from a supernovae, all ultimately contracting again under mutual gravity to form a second, even third generation star and stellar planetary system. Our Sun is at least a third generation star and is made up of former spewed stuff, some of which is now heavier than just hydrogen and helium; ditto the Sun’s family of planets, including Planet Earth. If it weren’t for supernovae, we wouldn’t be here. The late astronomer, Carl Sagan, said it best when he stated that we are indeed the end product of “star-stuff”.  

So the basic cosmic cycle is stars form from interstellar gas and dust; stars live; some stars spew their guts of gas and dust back out into interstellar space, providing the raw materials for the next generation of stars. You get creation – destruction – creation – destruction, over and over again, albeit at different times in different places.

To be continued...

Jovian Life: The Moons Versus the Planets: Part Three

In our solar system, the planets are divided between the inner terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars and of course the Earth) and the outer gas giants, collectively called the Jovian planets (after Jupiter, but including Saturn, Uranus and Neptune), which along with their many moons form the Jovian system. Since it’s easier to look in our own planetary backyard neighbourhood first for alien life, there’s been much speculation about what pieces of solar system real estate, if any, might be suitable abodes for extraterrestrial life. While Mars has always been top-of-the-pops, a once heavily favoured Venus fell by the wayside a while back, only to be replaced with a few bits of real estate somewhat further out. It’s those “somewhat further out” bits of real estate that are now under-the-gun. While most speculation is on selected Jovian satellites, I put the accent on the parent bodies.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Uranus: CHON: Uranus is similar in atmospheric and chemical composition to Neptune (see below), but both are slightly different in their chemical composition than their larger gas giant sisters, Jupiter and Saturn. As such, astronomers sometimes place them in a separate category called the "ice giants" because these planets contain a lot of – wait for it – “ices” like water (the O in CHON), ammonia (the N in CHON), methane plus other hydrocarbons (your C and your H in CHON) that includes ethane, acetylene, methylacetylene, and diacetylene. In short, instead of say liquid water vapor, you have ice crystals. Uranus's atmosphere is however similar to the “gas giants” in having the majority of its stuff consists of hydrogen and helium, hence followed by methane (there’s some more of your C). Even more C is present in carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide which has been detected. While carbon consists of only about 3% of the composition of Uranus, that’s still vastly more carbon relative to the solar percentage, so Uranus has been enriched in carbon.

Uranus: Environment: Uranus (as well as Neptune), are often refereed to as the “ice giants” instead of the “gas giants” as noted above. One other distinction is that relative to Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus (and Neptune) are way smaller in volume. That apart, the “ice giants” are way more akin to the “gas giants” than to any of the Jovian moons or any of the terrestrial planets for that matter, both in terms of composition and in terms of relative volume. While pretty god-awful from a human’s perspective, some hardy microbes might love to call Uranus home.

Uranus: Mixing: Any lump of gas molecules, or molecules in a liquid, almost by definition, isn’t going to sit still, unlike say the molecules in a lump of rock. A puff of smoke emitted into Earth’s atmosphere gets dispersed; a drop of ink plonked into a bowl of water will equally get dispersed, or mixed in and throughout.  I’d expect nothing less in the non-solid soupy atmosphere of Uranus. In any event, wind speeds have been clocked at up to 900 km/hour – that’s pretty breezy!

Uranus: Energy: Uranus radiates just ever slightly more heat than it receives in the form of solar radiation. In case you think that makes Uranus frigid through-and-through, you’d be wrong. The interior core temperature still approaches over ten to twenty times the maximum temperature of your average home oven! So, while solar energy is just about zilch, energy percolating upwards nevertheless is present for utilization by the locals – if any. However, of all the four Jovian planets, Uranus is probably the least likely planet to have achieved the distinction of harbouring local (Uranian) life forms.

Neptune: CHON: Neptune’s atmosphere is mainly, as you’d expect one that consists mainly of hydrogen and helium, but with substantial amounts of water, ammonia and methane. CHON is present, as are various sulphide compounds.

Neptune: Environment: While the top of the atmosphere is very cold, as you’d expect being so far out from the Sun, the interior core is hot indeed – many thousands of degrees hot. Obviously, somewhere in-between, you’ll get a happy Goldilocks medium as far as biology is concerned.

Neptune: Mixing: Neptune has lots of varied weather and storm systems, all contributing to atmospheric mixing. The temperature differential between interior temperatures and the atmospheric ‘surface’ temperatures, like on Earth, will drive wind systems leading to mixing of the chemicals that make up the CHON-rich atmosphere

Neptune: Energy: Despite being farther away from the Sun than Uranus, Neptune radiates quite a bit more heat than it actually receives from Sol. In fact, slightly over two and a half times more heat. From the point of view of this analysis, the exact reason(s) aren’t overly relevant, just the fact that it does so. Of course being so very, very far away from the Sun there’s no chance in hell of photosynthesis; chemosynthesis is possible, even probable.

In conclusion, I suggest that the soupy atmospheres of the giant planets have all the fundamentals required not only for the origin of life, but long-term habitability for any biological organisms that have been and are being provided with appropriate CHON, a Goldilocks environment (at least in places), an energy supply, and mixing. The CHON box is ticked on all four Jovian planets. With respect to CHON, there are probably all sorts of way more complex organic molecules present in the four Jovian atmospheres but in such relatively small quantities that are dispersed widely and deeply so as to have escaped detection to date from our relatively faraway fly-by and orbiting probes. The habitable environment box on all four Jovian planets is also ticked; ditto the mixing box; and ditto the available energy supply box. You also have had over four and a half billion years for interesting biological happenings to have occurred. In addition, there’s a lot of volume in each of the Jovian planets for interesting stuff to happen in. The odds of things all coming and getting their act together in a small pond is small relative to a large ocean.

That all four Jovian planets have evolved life is problematical; that at least one has become a biological abode is much more certain, IMHO. Throw in one or more of their satellites like Europa and Enceladus that offer a liquid water ocean environment – well that’s a bonus. On top of all that, the Jovian planets have the highest gravities apart from the Sun. Now that means they suck in more than their fair share of other solar system debris – like comets and asteroids. Now comets and asteroids, the leftovers of that initial stuff out of which our solar system was made, also tend to be rich in CHON. No doubt they, via impacts with the Jovian planets, have contributed their CHON bit to the already potential suitability of those abodes as habitable abodes.

So what sort of Jovian life might we expect? On Planet Earth there is a sharp boundary between the atmosphere and the hydrosphere. On the four Jovian planets one just slowly merges into the other as one goes deeper and deeper. Terrestrial but airborne microbes, bacteria, germs, and other single-celled beasties, and their marine equivalents, like plankton and other unicellular critters, occupy both environments and are happy little campers. There’s no reason for there not to be Jovian equivalents that ‘swim’ and multiply in whatever region of the various four varieties of Jovian atmospheric ‘soups’ that have a comfortable, Goldilocks temperature regime. Of course that Goldilocks region could extend over hundreds of vertical kilometres in range. Some organisms might be better adapted to the thinner cooler upper regions; others to the murkier but warmer depths. Regardless, it gets dark fast so eyesight in the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum might be problematical. Of course phosphoresce, not all that uncommon in marine life here on Earth, can’t be ruled out of course.    

If simple life forms originated and evolved on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and/or Neptune, then more complex and far larger ‘marine’ and ‘aerial’ life forms might be present too. Their trick, in order to stay in the Goldilocks zone, will be to have evolved the capability to maintain neutral buoyancy, but also to be able to rise if turbulence pushed them downwards towards greater heat; be able to sink if currents push them too high where chill factors come into prominence. So ‘gas bag’ floaters or ‘fish’ with ‘airbags’ might be possible Jovian alien life-forms. There’s no reason such critters couldn’t have developed a relatively sophisticated degree of intelligence. It’s possible to have intelligence without the means of developing technology as our whales and dolphins and even the humble octopus demonstrate.

The fly in the ointment is that our on-site investigation is going to prove to be an extremely daunting technological task, one that most certainly won’t happen in the next several decades – probably much longer. In the short term, the best bet is to use remote spectroscopic analysis of the atmospheric ‘surfaces’ or actual surfaces (in the case of the satellites) to identify biological signatures – compounds that just cannot be accounted for by non-biological processes. An example would be the pinkish-red areas on Europa noted above. 

Jovian Life: The Moons Versus the Planets: Part Two

In our solar system, the planets are divided between the inner terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars and of course the Earth) and the outer gas giants, collectively called the Jovian planets (after Jupiter, but including Saturn, Uranus and Neptune), which along with their many moons form the Jovian system. Since it’s easier to look in our own planetary backyard neighbourhood first for alien life, there’s been much speculation about what pieces of solar system real estate, if any, might be suitable abodes for extraterrestrial life. While Mars has always been top-of-the-pops, a once heavily favoured Venus fell by the wayside a while back, only to be replaced with a few bits of real estate somewhat further out. It’s those “somewhat further out” bits of real estate that are now under-the-gun. While most speculation is on selected Jovian satellites, I put the accent on the parent bodies.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Now on to the major players! It’s time to introduce the main players, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and those four essentials: CHON, environment, mixing and energy. If there is life-as-we-know-it on these four planets, then we need CHON, we need a proper environment, we need mixing to bring essentials together at one time and place, and we need a source(s) of energy.

One clarification is in order first. Although the Jovian planets are usually called “gas giants”, that is a slight misnaming. While it’s true that relative to Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, the Jovian planets are indeed great big balls of gas, they still must have at their centre a solid rocky core, due to, if for no other reason, that over 4.5 billion years of their existence, asteroids, maybe even small planets, meteors, dust, and comets have all slammed into them. The rocky stuff, ultimately, must sink to the bottom forming a solid heavy element core. With that clarification made, let’s see what there is to be speculated upon. 

Jupiter: CHON: Jupiter, a gas giant, is composed mainly of molecular hydrogen (the H in CHON) and helium (much like the Sun’s composition and in roughly the same ratios). There are certainly ammonia (probably as ice crystals) and ammonia compounds (like ammonium hydrosulphide) in the atmosphere, adding nitrogen (the N in CHON) to the mix. Methane (which contains the C in CHON), as does the carbon contained in carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are also present in the upper atmosphere. Water vapour (the O in CHON) is certainly present, even though in small proportions relative to hydrogen and helium. The colourful bands of latitude could easily be suggestive of complex, even organic chemistry involving not only CHON but sulphur and phosphorus and other trace elements. The upper atmosphere of Jupiter contains small amounts of simple hydrocarbons such as ethane and acetylene, which forms from methane under the influence of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation and the highly charged particles incoming from the Jupiter’s magnetosphere.   

Jupiter: Environment: There’s no disputing that the cloud tops are bitterly cold; the deep interior is way too hot. But, that alone suggests that there will be a Goldilocks area in-between, probably extending vertically for hundreds of kilometres, and extending as well horizontally around the globe. That volume, given Jupiter’s size, comprises a lot of Goldilocks territory. 

Jupiter: Mixing: Since Jupiter has a very hot interior core and the top of the atmosphere is extremely cold, and since heat rises and cold descends, that alone suggests that mixing in Jupiter’s primarily gaseous/quasi-fluid body must take place. Quite apart from that, all one needs to do is view time-lapse photography of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere to see all the turbulent motion that takes place. A tranquil pond Jupiter isn’t.

Jupiter: Energy – Solar energy is highly unlikely to drive any Jovian biology because the atmosphere is very thick, and just like with our terrestrial oceans, things get very dark very quickly as one descends. However, chemical energy is a possibility, like that which drives terrestrial hydrothermal vent communities. Then there’s infrared (instead of visible) radiation. Jupiter radiates much more heat that it receives from the Sun, the heat being slowly radiated outward from Jupiter’s original quota of primordial heat energy largely stored in the core of the planet.  Jupiter is a fantastic place to visit if you’re fond of thunderstorms. Lightning really lights up the Jupiter’s skies. Lightning is a prime source of energy for driving chemical reactions. Translated, all up, Jupiter is awash with potentially useful energy sources to drive any local biology.

Saturn: CHON: The atmosphere of Saturn (which is what the mainly planet is – a ball of gas) consists of one hell of a lot of molecular hydrogen and some helium, a really skewed ratio relative to those elements found in the Sun, but that’s another story. However, it does explain why Saturn, if you could find a freshwater ‘pond’ large enough, would float in it! That aside, the atmosphere contains trace amounts of ammonia (there’s your nitrogen), acetylene, ethane and methane (and your carbon), plus phosphine - all have been detected. The upper atmosphere has clouds composed of ammonia crystals, while the lower atmospheric clouds appear to be composed of ammonium hydrosulfide and/or water (thus some oxygen).

Saturn: Environment: The same discussion that applies to Jupiter applies to Saturn, although because Saturn is a smaller planet (albeit massive relative to Earth) the habitable volume of Saturn’s quasi-liquid atmosphere will be somewhat less.

Saturn: Mixing: Saturn also has that hot interior, cold exterior dichotomy that exists in this gaseous/fluid planetary ball. It’s akin to the convection that occurs when you heat water on your stove. Hot water rises; cooler water descends. And while not as dramatic as time-lapse films of Jupiter’s atmosphere, it’s also obvious that Saturn’s visual ‘surface’ is anything but tranquil. In fact the winds on Saturn are among the highest of any planetary body in the solar system. However, being farther from the Sun, Saturn’s chemistry is not going to be quite as dramatic as closer-in Jupiter, and thus Saturn’s atmospheric ‘surface’ is a lot blander appearing.

Saturn: Energy – As is the case for Jupiter, and for much the same reason, solar energy (photosynthesis) is out on Saturn; chemical energy and infrared radiation (heat energy) will be the way to go. Saturn also radiates more heat that it receives from the Sun – two and a half times more in fact; Saturn is also a fantastic place to visit if you’re fond of thunderstorms. Lightning also lights up the skies of Saturn.

To be continued...

Jovian Life: The Moons Versus the Planets: Part One

In our solar system, the planets are divided between the inner terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars and of course the Earth) and the outer gas giants, collectively called the Jovian planets (after Jupiter, but including Saturn, Uranus and Neptune), which along with their many moons form the Jovian system. Since it’s easier to look in our own planetary backyard neighbourhood first for alien life, there’s been much speculation about what pieces of solar system real estate, if any, might be suitable abodes for extraterrestrial life. While Mars has always been top-of-the-pops, a once heavily favoured Venus fell by the wayside a while back, only to be replaced with a few bits of real estate somewhat further out. It’s those “somewhat further out” bits of real estate that are now under-the-gun. While most speculation is on selected Jovian satellites, I put the accent on the parent bodies.

If you are a professional scientist interested in astrobiology (exobiology), searching for life in the Universe, your mantra is “follow the water”. If you want to find life, find liquid water first. But liquid water isn’t the total be-all-and-end-all when it comes to finding LGM – Little Green Microbes. Water, based on Planet Earth’s own terrestrial life as the only statistical sample we have, is certainly critical, but so to are lots of other things as we shall soon see.

Astronomy textbooks written until around or about the 1970’s gave little shrift to the Jovian system as an interesting place to look for extraterrestrial life. The Jovian planets and moons were obviously outside the solar system’s habitable or Goldilocks zone, of which Planet Earth was square in the middle of. My how times change, because, following our robotic exploration of the outer solar system, that point of view has had to partly fly out the window, at least with respect to three pieces of Jovian real estate – the moons Europa, plus Titan and Enceladus (orbiting Jupiter and Saturn respectively). Actually Titan is only really interesting from a pre-biotic perspective. While rich in organic molecules/compounds, it’s considered way too cold for really active chemistry and biochemistry to take place. Titan froze before life could actually grab hold. It lacks a viable energy supply, one of the key items required for life-as-we-know it.  

Alas, the parent bodies, including those gas giants further out (Uranus and Neptune) continue to be overlooked as habitable abodes for ET. The logic of this escapes me as we shall soon see, for the idea that the Jovian planets could in theory harbour life forms as complex as jellyfish or other quasi-aquatic life forms even up to and including the equivalents of Jovian dolphins and whales can’t be ruled out. While Jovian extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) might be possible, Jovian ETI with technology can pretty much be ruled out, and for much the same reason as to why dolphins and whales here on Earth aren’t a technological species - they can’t build things in the environment to which they have adapted to.

So what’s needed to build us an ET? Well, minimum requirements are 1) appropriate life-as-we-know-it chemicals (CHON – Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen – and of course water or water vapour); 2) a proper comfortable environment for life-as-we-know-it (an appropriate temperature range for liquid water or water vapour); 3) mixing that brings the various inorganic and organic chemicals required into proximity; and 4) an energy source(s) to drive things along, like solar energy does for many terrestrial organisms on Earth.

Mars, though not part of the Jovian system, has been associated with extraterrestrial life for over the past century and then some. That association remains to this very day. Mars is still the poster-boy and remains the prime target in the hunt for ET – even though that association has suffered a downgrade from Martians with ray-guns (as in “The War of the Worlds”) to Martians as microbes – though a microbial ET is just as significant a discovery as a Martian pointing a ray-gun at you. The principle is the same; otherwise it’s just a matter of relative biological complexity. 

Europa (Moon of Jupiter): Science fiction writers can sometimes really hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial head. Take Arthur C. Clarke’s “2010: Odyssey Two” (1982) and “2061: Odyssey Three (1988). Clarke had aliens taking an interest in the primitive life forms under Europa's ice. They transform Jupiter into a star to kick-start their evolution. Fifty years later, Europa has become a tropical ocean world from which humans are banned. Well, the aliens, transforming Jupiter and the tropical ocean are flights of fancy, but the primitive life under the ice of Europa might be something else yet again.

Actually Clarke was tipped off by the two Voyager space probe flybys in 1979. The data and images that were captured strongly suggested to scientists that Europa had to have a salty ocean, perhaps a hundred kilometers deep, but an ocean underneath a vast ice sheet, perhaps up to ten kilometers thick. The energy source was tidal friction, the endless to-and-fro tugging via gravity on the moon by Jupiter and Europa’s companion sister moons. The flexing heated up Europa’s interior, and as heat escaped upwards, melted the covering of ice. The freezing temperature of outer space (Europa has no atmosphere to speak of) freezes the surface which then insulates the heated ocean below from further freezing.

So, you have water, an energy source, mixing, and given the water is in a liquid form, you apparently have a suitable habitat for life-as-we-know-it, well sort of. There’s not going to be any photosynthesis, not that far out and sunlight is not going to be very effective in any event after penetrating kilometers of ice. Translated, the oceans of Europa are going to be pitch-black. The analogy with terrestrial biology is life in our marine hydrothermal vent communities – life driven by Earth’s interior heat and the venting of various chemicals from beneath the ocean floor, and chemosynthesis instead of photosynthesis. Europa’s interior composition mirrors the terrestrial rocky planets – iron and silicates and stuff like that. What is less certain is whether there are abundant sources of carbon and nitrogen.

The one really interesting feature we can see on Europa’s surface is numerous streaks of pinkish-red lines and markings. The source is probably upwelling of the waters below as the surface ice rotates and cracks, sort of like ice floes in our polar oceans. There are lots and lots of organics with pinkish-red colors, though organic chemistry doesn’t of necessity mean biochemistry. Still, perhaps examples of Europa’s life (probably microbial) lie as frozen fossils on the surface. That pinkish-red stuff would be prime material for sampling when and if a probe lands on Europa. In conclusion however, the C and the N in the CHON is the big question mark IMHO.

Enceladus (Moon of Saturn): Europa has competition in our local solar system’s ‘where are the aliens?’ extraterrestrial life debate. We move now from the fifth to the sixth ‘rock’ from the Sun. In 2005 the Cassini spacecraft performed several close flybys of the moon of Saturn, Enceladus, revealing a water-rich plume venting from the moon's South Polar Region. This discovery, along with the presence of escaping internal heat and very few (if any) impact craters in the South Polar Region, suggests that Enceladus is geologically active today. The water vapor spewing from Enceladus's surface would indicate the presence of liquid water immediately under the surface of the moon, which, using NASA’s mantra of “follow the water” might make it possible for Enceladus to support life. The presence of liquid water under the crust means there has to be an internal heat source. That heat source is actually sources, a combination of radioactive decay and tidal heating as tidal heating alone is not enough to explain the amount of heat required.

So the data from instruments on the Cassini spacecraft produced evidence of what’s now termed cryovolcanism - cold volcanism - where water and other volatiles comprise the ‘molten’ stuff that gets erupted from these cold ‘volcanoes’ instead of molten iron and silicate rock – like terrestrial lava that is erupted from our own hot volcanoes.

These cold volcanic eruptions – basically ejections of vapor clouds into space - have been, as noted above, discovered on Enceladus. The detailed composition of these gas clouds are in the main mostly water vapor, plus some other minor volatile components like molecular nitrogen, ammonia, methane, and carbon dioxide. Additional observations have revealed further chemicals in the plume, including both simple and complex hydrocarbons such as propane, ethane, and acetylene. These chemicals and their relative abundances are similar to those seen in many comets. Perhaps Enceladus was once a super-giant comet that got captured by Saturn’s gravity!

All up, these findings raise the possibility for the existence of potential life forms existing beneath the surface of Enceladus. The composition of the gas cloud plume strongly suggests that its source is a subsurface salty ocean or subsurface caverns filled with salty water. Enceladus is therefore a prime candidate for those wishing to investigate non-terrestrial sites harboring potential extraterrestrial life. We have CHON, energy sources, an appropriate temperature regime underneath the surface, and probable mixing, since liquid water facilitates mixing.

Titan (Moon of Saturn): I’ve already noted that while Titan is fascinating from an astrobiology point of view, that point of view is from those interested in pre-biotic organic chemistry that leads to biochemistry, not those hopeful of actually seeing things wiggle. Translated, while it has the CHON, and probably mixing, that’s just about it. The environment is way too cold which suggests that energy available to drive biology is in pretty short supply.

To be continued...

Gods of the Chariots

One telltale sign that the ‘gods’ were really extraterrestrials would be if they displayed advanced high technology before humans could have come up with those same high-tech goodies. An obvious electronic circuit; a diagram of some sort of particle physics interaction; an aerodynamically sound aircraft, even a depiction of Saturn’s rings represented as a 50,000 year old  petroglyph or as cave art would just about be proof positive to convince the most strident of ancient astronaut sceptics. Alas, no such evidence – yet at least. But we do have those ‘chariots of the gods’, a topic worthy of further exploration.

When it comes to high-tech in our ancient history, few things impress me as representing extraterrestrial technology, such as the Baghdad (Parthian) battery or the Antikythera mechanical/astronomical ‘computer’. While impressive in their own terrestrial right, they are hardly the stuff of which extraterrestrial influences on our home planet are made. Ditto that for most of the megalithic structures like Stonehenge or massive building works like the Egyptian or Mesoamerican pyramids. Terrestrially impressive as representing massive undertakings involving lots of hard labour over long periods of time – yes. As extraterrestrial structures they leave a bit to be desired. You tend to think of alien stuff as a lot more futuristic looking – polished metals, weird designs, next generation computers, lots of flashing lights and unexplainable gizmos. If ET builds a building on Earth you’d hope for something more imaginative than a pyramid built with blocks of stone.

What else is there to consider? Well, machines that fly seem to be futuristic gizmos that were beyond the capabilities of the ancients to build and operate.

We have those vimanas (flying machines in Hindu mythology)  and the ‘Wheel of Ezekiel’ (in Biblical mythology) and those Pre-Columbian little gold model ‘aeroplanes’ from Central and South America, not to forget to mention those ancient Egyptian wooden ‘birds’, so-called, and pigeon-holed as such, yet ‘birds’ aerodynamically perfect as rigid fixed-wing  models that could really fly when scaled-up. While these and more have occupied much attention from ancient astronaut theorists, more traditional ‘chariots’ from much better known mythologies haven’t really captured their attention despite that title of Erich von Daniken’s best selling book. Alas, Erich didn’t provide an index entry for “chariots” in that tome of his, so maybe not even he was willing to put money where his mouth was when it came to just plain every old day aerial ‘chariots’.    

There’s nothing overly high-tech about a chariot, apart from those cultures like those of the Americas (North, Central and South) for example that never invented the wheel or cultures who hadn’t domesticated a horse to pull one. I guess to the Incas a horse-drawn land chariot of the ancient Egyptians might have seemed high-tech indeed.

But to the ancient Europeans, especially southern Europeans like the Greeks, Romans, and other cultures in the Mediterranean and nearby regions like Mesopotamia, and of course the Egyptians, even unto India and China, chariots were part and parcel of their transport and means of waging war.

But chariots that fly, aerial ‘chariots’, are a whole new ballgame, yet those ancient cultures and more had aerial ‘chariots’, often described as ‘fiery’, contained within their mythologies. Of course these winged ‘chariots’ weren’t meant as a public transport network for the great unwashed (like a subway or bus system), rather as limousines reserved for the gods, goddesses and just plain deities in general. Are they fact or fiction?

There’s no shortage of ‘gods’ who make use of aerial transport in the form of ‘chariots’. They tend to read like a who’s who of deities in mythology. They can be sky gods like Zeus; Thor (of the Norse) is obviously another; Apollo (Greece) ditto that; the Greek Moon goddess Selene (Luna if you’re Roman) is another as is the Greek goddess of the dawn Eos (the Roman’s Aurora). Most mythological Sun gods are associated with aerial chariots like the Nordic god Sol and the Hindu god Surya, or a solar barge (or boat) as in ancient Egypt.

Now you might think it obvious that chariots (or a boat) would be associated with a Sun god or a Moon goddess (or a sky deity in general).  Something has got to pull those celestial orbs along (recall this was way before Newton and that falling apple that came down with gravity). But, do you see a chariot (or a boat) associated or in proximity with the Sun and the Moon? You don’t? Well the ancients had eyesight equal to us moderns, so no doubt they didn’t see any chariots associated with the Moon or Sun, any more than you do. So there has to be another explanation for those ‘chariots’. Perhaps one needs to separate the god or goddess or deity from what they represent. Selene may be the goddess of the Moon, but she is not actually the Moon and it’s her ‘chariot’ not the Moon’s ‘chariot’ that is an issue here. Translated, the Moon doesn’t need transport; the goddess does.

Now following the Greek god’s War of the Titans, Zeus divided up the cosmos among his clan by their drawing of lots for the various portfolios and spoils of war that go to the victors. The Greek Sun god Helios, though well respected by Zeus, missed out on the spoils being fully occupied at the time with solar duties. However, Helios did take a ‘shine’ to a new piece of real estate that popped up in the Aegean Sea, so Zeus gave him title to that. It was called Rhodes and the locals later erected a statue of Helios in his honour – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – the famed ‘Colossus of Rhodes’. Now mortals do not go to that sort of time and trouble, expend vast amounts of money and energy, on constructing gigantic statues of and to imaginary beings. There’s no benefit of doing so, either personally or for the community. Conclusion: Helios was real.

Now Helios, like nearly the entire ancient Greek pantheon of deities, had his share of offspring. Helios had various offspring-producing lovers like Rhode (the nymph of his island) and Clytie (another nymph) as well as his wife Perse (or Perseis), an Oceanid. [Talk about girls having a really hot time in bed – it doesn’t get any hotter than with the Sun god!] Among his kids were Circe (a sorceress) and Pasiphae, Queen of Crete, who had herself an affair with a bull (but that’s another story). Helios also had a fling with the Oceanid Clymene, resulting in a son Phaeton; setting the stage for the tragedy to follow.  

Now after that little interlude, let’s return back to those ‘chariots’. There’s one ‘chariots’ case history that really stands out and that’s the story of that Greek Sun god Helios, and especially the story of Helios and his son Phaeton. Now daddy very unwisely grants his son a wish. That wish is to drive the family car without benefit of a driver’s license or even any driving lessons. Now the family car is of course an aerial ‘chariot’. The end result was that the son suffered a bit of a prang – well that’s actually quite the understatement. Let’s just say modern Greeks even today could be finding pieces of the wreckage. Shades of Roswell! In fact, this might be the ancient Greek or Mediterranean version of Roswell!

Being a bit of a typical teenage hoon with a yen for fast ‘chariots’ (some things are probably universal even across extraterrestrial societies), Phaeton put the pedal to the metal, doing burnouts in the sky, and of course he lost control. Passing too close to ground level, the out of control ‘chariot’ scorched fertile plains, burned mountains and forests, turned lands into deserts, destroyed towns while burning the locals to a brownish crisp. No wonder Helios’s ‘chariot’ was thought to be the personification of the Sun!   

With the fate of the Earth at stake, a rather pissed-off Zeus brought this unhappy state of affairs to a quick conclusion by blasting the ‘chariot’, Phaeton and all, out of the sky via one of his famous thunderbolts. The ‘chariot’, trailing fire like a shooting star, fell from the heavens. The ‘chariot’ crashed and Phaeton’s dead body ended up in the River Eridanus. Good riddance to bad rubbish Zeus and no doubt the rest of ancient Greek society probably concluded. It doesn’t seem to be recorded what Helios thought – probably a silent “I told you so”. And that’s the story of the ancient Greek version of what I conclude as their Roswell.

In a further conclusion, the ancients could only label unknown exotic flying machines (UFOs) by what they were familiar with – like boats and chariots. In that sense I guess they, those aerial ‘chariots’ weren’t really UFOs since they had been identified, albeit incorrectly, in familiar terms.

Zeus, the Extraterrestrial: Part Two

The well known and recognized ancient Greek character Zeus, was either as fictional as Alice in Wonderland, or a supernatural deity as described, or a terrestrial mortal or a flesh-and-blood extraterrestrial. Of the four possibilities, the final one, Zeus the ET, is the most intriguing.

I’ve argued long and loud that the polytheistic gods were not supernatural deities but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials. I’m not the only person who has come to this conclusion – there’s an entire set of ‘ancient astronaut’ buffs who also have argued equally long and loud that the mythologies of the gods are really the history of extraterrestrials that have influenced humanity over the millennia. Rather than cover generalities yet again, I’ll focus on probably the best known of the polytheistic gods – Zeus, IMHO the extraterrestrial (though one could just about pick any of the thousands of polytheistic deities and perform a similar analysis).

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The Evidence for Zeus the Extraterrestrial: Why was this Zeus character an alien?

Well Zeus possessed and frequently used high technology not available to his Greek subjects. That high technology revolved around those famous and fearsome thunderbolts that Zeus liked to chuck around. Zeus and his mates using such high technology (supplied by the way via a trio of Cyclopes – and if they ain’t alien looking I don’t know what is) defeated the Titans (the Titanomachy) thus achieving power after a decade long battle (one of those ‘star wars’ in the heavens). Then Zeus had to use his thunderbolts battling against the mother of all monsters, the Typhon. Zeus suffered grievous injuries but he prevailed, those thunderbolts flashing every which way.

Another form of high-tech was suggested above and refers back to those alien-human demigods and demigoddess hybrids, human-animal hybrids, and those wired ‘births’ like that of Athena and Aphrodite. 

More high-tech could be suggested in that Zeus had the ability to shape-shift, or at least had the technology that allowed him the illusion of shape-shifting. It was through such trickery that he was able to have his wicked way with some of those mortal female humans that produced some of those demigods and demigoddesses.

Zeus was ‘immortal’, yet vulnerable, as the battle with Typhon proved. In theory, Zeus (unlike God), could be bumped off. Very long-lived extraterrestrials might be considered by us mortals to be, for all practical purposes, immortal.

Zeus of course was a sky god in Geek mythology. He came from the sky; he was of the sky. 

Zeus rode around in an aerial chariot (what we might call today a UFO).

A Hard Act to Swallow:

I noted above the ‘birth’ of Athena which gave Zeus a bit of a headache (to say the least)! Recall that Zeus swallowed Metis, his pregnant wife, who gave birth to a fully grown, clothed and armed Athena while in that swallowed condition!

But even before that Cronus swallowed his offspring, but was tricked into swallowing a rock instead of baby Zeus. Later on down the track Cronus was forced to cough up the other five of the siblings of Zeus.

But before even that, and somewhat akin, Uranus stuffed his brats, one of which was Cronus, back into the womb of his beloved mother and sexual partner, Gaia. That didn’t work for long, Gaia finally bursting at the proverbial seams. Gaia then had her revenge getting Cronus to slice off the private parts of Uranus – ouch!

So what do we make of all this swallowing and stuffing? On the surface it was the mechanism for daddy to make sure his offspring wouldn’t survive or be able to be around to ever challenge his power base. While the rational might be true, the biological act can’t be.

So what might the swallowing or the stuffing actually represent? Well, if you get into a vehicle; car, bus, train, plane, submarine, Apollo space capsule, etc. you have, to someone ignorant of the vehicle concept, that vehicle swallowing you. Did Jonah get swallowed by a whale? - Of course not. Jonah entered into some sort of mechanical device. In the same way, Zeus forced Metis into some sort of contraption where she eventually gave birth to and raised her daughter, Athena. Cronus forced his offspring into some sort of contraption, all later to be freed, but Zeus escaped that fate entirely while being raised on Crete. Uranus stuffed his brats into some sort of device, probably along with Gaia, but they escaped and Gaia got her revenge for their imprisonment.

The reverse procedure by the way, vomiting, is a commonplace theme in creation mythologies around the world. 

Where Did Zeus Go? I can not find a satisfactory explanation in classical mythology texts as to what happened to the ancient Greek sky-god.

Unfortunately, the story of Zeus (and the other Greek/Roman pantheon of deities) just stops mid-sentence. There’s no happy ever ending, ending or even a happy never ending, ending. There’s no ending at all, full stop! If the gods are mythical, why no last chapter in their saga? It must have been very frustrating to the ancient Greeks not to get the next and ultimately final installment in “The Amazing Adventures of Zeus, the Sky God”.

If Zeus and his comrades were real, but terrestrial, then it would have been difficult, but probably not impossible, for them to become incognito; disguised for the rest of their ‘immortal’ days, changing jobs and appearances and nationalities every few decades or so. 

But if Captain Zeus of the Starship Olympus and crew decided to pack up and leave and boldly go elsewhere in the cosmos to seek out another primitive civilization to rule over, they being under no obligation to inform and seek permission from the terrestrial authorities first, then it’s understandable why their story stops in mid-verse and why we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of the lot of them in over 2000 years!

One Final Thought: By my reckoning as related above at least demigods and demigoddesses like Gilgamesh, Brahma, and Shiva as non-Greek examples, and Achilles, Helen of Troy, Heracles, and [King] Minos [of Crete] were really human-alien hybrids. Since many of them in turn mated with mortals and produced offspring, and they in turn ditto, right on down the timeline, that means that most of us have probably a tiny percentage of our genetic makeup that is ultimately extraterrestrial in origin.