Exoplanet Investigation: Another Earth?

I am not a Christian who is threatened by science. I am fascinated by it and love to hear of new discoveries and theories that are being propounded. This does not mean that I understand everything I hear or read. I don't. But I also believe that the God who created the heavens and the earth is secure enough in His own Being and His own Truth to stand firm under all investigations and theories.

So, it was with interest that I read the piece in this week's TIME Magazine (Jan. 13, 2014) called "Finding A Second Earth". It features an astronomer, Lisa Kaltenegger, who leads a research group exploring the existence of other "Earths": planets or moons that could support plant and animal life. Planets outside of our own are called exoplanets.

"You need a nice, solid hunk of planet you can plant your feet on. You need lots of water and other friendly chemistry, some of it forming a quilt of atmosphere to keep out the cold. And you need to be just the right distance from just the right star--not too close, not too far; not too hot, not too cold. A terrarium like that incubating for, say, a billion years, might have a fair chance of cooking up something living. Those just-right conditions don't occur often, which explains why it's been so hard to find life on the tiny handful of worlds we have even a remote chance of visiting," the article explains.

And, how to conduct this extraterrestrial search (what, exactly, are we looking for?) poses its own set of diagnostic questions for the computer model working in conjunction with telescopes on earth and in space:

"Our planet, seen by extraterrestrials, would have looked very different depending on the point at which it was being observed. Take a look at us 3.9 billion years ago, and we would have had a brown, globe-girdling ocean and at atmosphere made mostly of hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Not exactly the rain forest. Check in 2.4 billion years ago, and Earth's atmosphere was mostly nitrogen, carbon dioxide and methane; blue-green algae were blooming in the seas. Not long after that, photosynthesis began flooding the atmosphere with oxygen, leading to an explosion of modern forms of life," the TIME article instructs us.

In my daily Bible reading, I read a chapter in Proverbs every day that corresponds with the date on the calendar (handy, since there are 31 chapters in Proverbs!) In today's reading of Proverbs 8, I encountered this description of "Wisdom" personified, meaning "Wisdom" is speaking as a human being. She is describing her role in the creation of Earth:

"The Lord formed me ("Wisdom") from the beginning,
before he created anything else.
I ("Wisdom") was appointed in ages past,
at the very first, before the earth began.
I ("Wisdom") was born before the oceans were created,
before the springs bubbled forth their waters.
Before the mountains were formed,
before the hills, I was born--
before he had made the earth and fields
and the first handfuls of soil.
I ("Wisdom") was there when he established the heavens,
when he drew the horizon on the oceans.
I was there when he set the clouds above,
when he established springs deep in the earth.
I was there when he set the limits of the seas,
so they would not spread beyond their boundaries.
And when he marked off the earth's foundations,
I ("Wisdom") was the architect at his side.
I ("Wisdom") was his constant delight,
rejoicing always in his presence.
And how happy I ("Wisdom") was with the world he created;
how I ("Wisdom") rejoiced with the human family!"
Proverbs 8:22-31 (New Living Translation)

Only time and "Wisdom" from God will tell if there are other "Earths" out there. The Bible only addresses the creation of this one. But I see that "Wisdom" is on the side of believing that a loving, intelligent, powerful God purposely designed our "Earth" to be inhabited by plants and animals. I'll choose to believe "Wisdom".

--Posted by Mama O.