III. Ecosmos: A Revolutionary Fertile, Habitable, Solar-Bioplanet, Incubator Lifescape

I. Our EarthMost Distinction: A Rarest Planetary Confluence of Life in Person Favorable Conditions

Waltham, David. Lucky Planet: Why Earth is Exceptional – and What That Means for Life in the Universe. New York: Basic Books, 2014. The University of London astrobiologist and geologist contends that our relatively stable biosphere climate over a billion years is why we are here to witness. But such a stretch of benign weather is so improbable as to make it statistically unique. By one man’s analysis and opinion, no other neighbors are out there, this Earth is it. But could we just as well proffer that Earth is a “Plucky Planet” whereupon innate Gaian feedback processes have served to regulate, and life’s cooperative intelligence has keep evolution on an ascendant course?

As we discover countless exoplanets orbiting other stars, we become ever more hopeful that we may come across extraterrestrial life. Yet even as we become aware of the vast numbers of planets outside our solar system, it has also become clear that Earth is exceptional. In Lucky Planet, astrobiologist David Waltham argues that Earth’s climate stability is one of the primary factors that makes it able to support life, and that nothing short of luck made such conditions possible. Describing the three factors that typically control a planet’s average temperature—the heat received from its star, how much heat the planet absorbs, and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — Waltham paints a complex picture of how special Earth’s climate really is. Citing factors such as the size of our Moon and the effect of an ever-warming Sun, Waltham challenges the prevailing scientific consensus that other Earth-like planets have natural stabilizing mechanisms that allow life to flourish. (Publisher excerpts)

Waltham, David. Star Masses and Star-Planet Distances for Earth-like Habitability. Astrobiology. 17/1, 2017. The Royal Holloway University of London exoplanet researcher and author of Lucky Planet: Why Earth is Exceptional (2014) discusses current studies about how conducive stellar types and solar systems may or may not be conducive for life to originate, inhabit and evolve.

Wang, Haiyang, et al. The Volatility Trend of Protosolar and Terrestrial Elemental Abundances. arXiv:1810.12741. Australian National University, Canberra astrophysicists including Charles Lineweaver provide a detailed quantification of stellar and planetary chemical affinities via dynamic out-gassings over the ages of solar system evolution. See also Enhanced Constraints on the Interior Composition and Structure of Terrestrial Exoplanets by this group at arXiv:1810.04615 In regard, still another variable is involved with the relative habitability of a candidate exoEarth.

We present new estimates of protosolar elemental abundances based on an improved combination of solar photospheric abundances and CI chondritic abundances. These new estimates indicate CI chondrites and solar abundances are consistent for 60 elements. We compare our new protosolar abundances with our recent estimates of bulk Earth composition, thereby quantifying the devolatilization in going from the solar nebula to the formation of the Earth. (Abstract)

To first order, Earth is a devolatilized piece of the solar nebula. Similarly, rocky exoplanets are usually devolatilized pieces of the stellar nebulae out of which they and their host stars formed. If this is correct, we can estimate the chemical composition of rocky exoplanets by measuring the elemental abundances of their host stars, and then applying a devolatilization algorithm. The main goal of this paper is to go beyond the usual comparison of the silicate Earth with CI chondrites. We do this by comparing the bulk elemental abundances of Earth and Sun, and thus calibrate this potentially universal process associated with the formation of terrestrial planets. (1)

Ward, Peter and Donald Brownlee. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe. New York: Copernicus, 2000. A University of Washington paleontologist and an astronomer wrote this original volume which stated a contrarian case two decades ago. They argued that a constellation of appropriate conditions such as plate techonics and a large moon are required for life and its billion year evolution to get all the way to technological entities as us. So rather then multitudes, our home planet may be exceedingly rare or unique in the cosmos.

Ward, Peter and Joe Kirschvink.. A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016. As a sequel to Ward and Brownlee’s 2003 Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, the University of Washington Earth systems scientist is joined by a CalTech geobiologist to much expand this perception over 20 chapters such as Origins to Oxygenation, The Triassic Explosion and Greenhouse Oceans. The book is highlighted by Marcelo Gleiser in his 2023 Dawn of a Mindful Universe version since the evidence bodes for a revolutionary appreciation.

Peter Ward and Joe Kirschvink show that many of our long-held beliefs about the history of life need to be revised. They first argue that catastrophe shaped life's history the from events like the sudden extinction of dinosaurs to a "Snowball Earth" and "Great Oxygenation Event." Second, life consists of carbon, but oxygen, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide determined how it evolved. Third, ever since Darwin, evolution is seen in terms of species. Yet it is ecosystems - from deep-ocean vents to rainforests - that formed the living world as we know it.

Watson, Andrew. Gaia and Observer Self-selection. Schneider, Stephen, et al, eds. Scientists Debate Gaia. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Some thoughts on a “biological anthropic principle” whereof only conducive planets that evolve complex sentient beings can achieve their own intelligent discovery and self-recognition.

Way, M. J.. et al. Large-scale Volcanism and the Heat Death of Terrestrial Worlds. arXiv:2204.12475. NASA Goddard, Carleton University, Ottawa and NASA Ames researchers pile on with still another deleterious factor in occurrence in early Hadeon and Archean eras and on to today. Not only do meteors pound the planet, a vicarious degree of eruptions from inside the Earth can have a serious impact and influence on life, pluck and luck.

We argue that more so that meteor impacts, volcanos have played a critical role in the long-term habitability of Earth as a cause of mass extinction events.. We estimate the likelihood of effects that could drive a planet into an extreme moist or runaway greenhouse inhospitable states. In one approach, we make a conservative estimate of the rate at which sets of near-simultaneous LIPs (pairs, triplets, and quartets) occur in a random history statistically the same as Earth's. We find that LIPs closer in time than 0.1-1 million yr are likely; significantly, this is less than the time over which terrestrial LIP environmental effects are known to persist. (Excerpt)

Webb, Stephen. If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens-- Where is Everybody? New York: Springer, 2015. The entry is a second, award-winning edition of the British physicist’s 2002 volume with the same Fermi paradox title. Since huge advances have been made since, especially about myriad exoplanets, 25 more possible answers have been added to the original 50 as to why amongst billions of galaxies, each with billions of solar systems, there are as yet no overt signs of extraterrestrial civilizations. The work is also seen as an update to Rare Earth (2003) by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee whence celestial, geologic, and evolutionary stages that need to happen or be passed through (Lineweaver) pile up even more, such as just the right degree of asteroid impacts.

While an argument has long been the immense number of chances, by this further winnowing out (Morbidelli, Pliat-Lohinger, Tinetti, et al, herein) an auspicious resolve may begin to dawn upon us. The new additions are in a long chapter that sums up the author’s conclusion – They Don’t Exist! Here is an awesome 2010s finding as Earth’s evolution and history enters a critical phase of emergent personsphere self-sapience, of intentional peaceable sustainability or runaway nuclear, ecological devastation, indeed much a cosmic and planetary self-selection of Kinder or cinder.

Weinberger, Alycia. Building Planets in Disks of Chaos. Sky & Telescope. November 13, 2008. Reviewed in the Exoearths section, this article by a Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC astronomer is also noted here, along with “Planetary Peculiarities” by Ken Croswell in the September S. & T., “Are Super-Sized Earths the New Frontier” by Ray Jayawardhana in the November 2008 Astronomy, and other such postings, because the latest celestial research conveys how stochastic and variable are the occasions, orbits and kinds of myriad terrestrial worlds. We human beings have the rarest of opportunities to therefore choose Earth as a fruitful abode of future, peaceful, sustainable, life and mind, a child of the expectant cosmos.

Zenil, Hector. Reprogramming Matter, Life, and Purpose. arXiv:1704.00725. This is a prognostic paper by the Karolinska Institute “computational natural scientist” (see his HZ website) about temporal and spatial implications of this nascent algorithmic revolution. After a wide survey, an intrinsic Reprogrammable Nature is conceived and described which forms, evolves, and flourishes by way of universally iterative mathematical programs. With an inadequate explanation of random mutation-selection set aside, as this genome-like source code (although not yet recognized as such) may just now pass to humankind’s literate cognizance, a wondrous new phase of beneficial, creative rewrite and advance of life, mind and materiality is upon us. But we note again that this unexpected acumen still requires an encompassing phenomenal ecosmos so as to provide an animate integrity, sensible explanation, and familial destiny.

Reprogramming matter may sound far-fetched, but we have been doing it with increasing power and staggering efficiency for at least 60 years, and for centuries we have been paving the way toward the ultimate reprogrammed fate of the universe, the vessel of all programs. How will we be doing it in 60 years' time and how will it impact life and the purpose both of machines and of humans? (Abstract)

Today we have literally taken the calculating power of a small region of the universe, living and inanimate, and used it to perform our very own calculations. Imagine what we will be able to do in the future if we manage to become more efficient at exploring and harnessing the sources of the Sun’s and the Earth’s energy. This minor deviation from the otherwise regular computational course of the universe may look small at the cosmic scale, but it is a huge accomplishment that may end up reshaping the universe itself, and even creating other universes. (10) We are just starting to scratch the surface of the many possibilities that universal computation has opened up for the future in the way of reprogramming matter and life. And our current efforts to reprogram it actively contribute to shaping the final computational fate of the universe itself. (12)

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