They all revolve around the Sun the same way, counter-clockwise as viewed from Polaris (the North Star). Most of them rotate the same way, also counter-clockwise... not Venus, of course, which is a female planet. And Venus is hot. Not because of gender, really, rather because of atmosphere.

Mercury is closest to the Sun, but it has no atmosphere and therefore does not retain the heat absorbed by the planet's surface when it rotates into nighttime. Venus has a really thick atmosphere, which does retain the radiant heat of it's daytime surface, even when it rotates into nighttime. Thus the average heat of Venus, at it's surface, is greater than Mercury, despite the fact that Venus is farther from the sun than Mercury.

The capacity of the atmosphere to absorb heat energy is often referred to as the "green-house effect." Thought you might be interested. Every atmosphere has a green-house effect, including Earth's. Most, like Venus, do not have an atmosphere suited to the development of life. In fact, only one planet is known to have the required density to support life. That one planet also has the right ingredients in it's atmosphere to support life. And it's located the right distance from a star of the right size and age to maintain an atmospheric temperature which is conducive to life. That would be the blue planet! My favorite!

Now I'm told that there's likely to be a tenth planet in our solar system. And astronomers have been discovering new planets with some regularity since the Hubble Telescope was placed into orbit.

How many planets would it take, under random conditions in the universe, for the formation of a planet with the right atmosphere and the right amount of heat energy to support life?

Let me elaborate just a tad. The atmosphere of Venus is so hot that all of it's water has been vaporized. The atmosphere of Mars, the next planet out from the blue one, is so cold that on the warmest day of summer on it's loveliest tropical beaches it just reaches 0 degrees Celsius... that's 32 degrees Fahrenheit... freezing! Thus it is that temperatures on either Venus or Mars preclude life as we know it. Earth temperatures, however, are so perfectly fitted for life that scientists have used the term "Goldilocks" to describe the excellent positioning of the Earth relative to it's heat source (the Sun). You know the story... about Goldilocks finding the porridge that was "just right!"

Why stop here? The atmosphere on Venus is 96% carbon dioxide and, because of the concentration of a heavy gas like carbon dioxide, is about 90 times heavier than the Earth's atmosphere. The atmosphere on Venus is so dense that ground level pressure is about the same as at 3000 feet below sea level on Earth. Really hard on the eardrums, you know! The concentrated carbon dioxide absorbs heat so well that there is no appreciable difference in temperature between day and night on Venus! What are the odds that life will ever develop there? Better odds at a 5 Card Stud table in Las Vegas.

This brings up a very important and most easily overlooked factor which should be kept close to the vest for the balance of this book. The gaming tables in Las Vegas, like the lottery in California, will have winners. The lottery will go on week after week until someone wins. The system is predisposed to have a winner. You know that someone will win the big bucks... and why can't it be you? With a recent lottery, there were 40,000,000 reasons that it wouldn't be you! Those were the odds against picking the winning numbers. But several times that many tickets sold and something like $180,000,000 was divided between 3 winners. After all, everyone knew that SOMEONE was going to win! I had a 100% certainty, by the way, that I would not win. I like to say that I've never lost a dollar in the lottery. I've never bought a ticket!

But nature doesn't have to have a winner. Think of the universe like a big old lottery. The winning combination of numbers results in life spontaneously and incredibly just "happening." In a universe of randomly scattered matter and energy, however, there isn't anyone out there to buy a ticket! Why should anyone win? There's no guarantee that anyone will win our "life lottery." In fact, why should life be spawned? The answer is that there is no reason. None whatsoever... assuming impersonal randomness.

In other words, it's deceptive to even consider "odds for" or "odds against" when pondering the existence of life in the universe. If there is no assumption or, more forcefully stated, purposing of life then there is no special reason that life should even be an option. Where "NO" to life is the most reasonable random option, as it certainly is mathematically, we would only consider that there is any likelihood at all for life forming if we already existed to ponder such a notion!

Will you permit me to restate myself? Where there is nothing but random stuff in the universe, two things: One, it is highly unlikely that life will magically happen. Two, it is extremely likely that it won't ever happen!

Do you see what I'm doing here? I'm trying to grasp the obvious! Someone who no doubt has a big brain has been greasing the obvious so that when we reach for it the thing slips away! But it's there. It's... obvious! And it's even more obvious than I've expressed it so far!

So, it is clear by now that there is no reason for life ever to happen accidentally. Here's still another matter that's often overlooked: There's no evidence that life even could happen accidently if all of the numbers were rightly ordered. To simply place the correct material ingredients next to each other, even on a Goldilocks planet like Earth, does not imply that life would or could spontaneously self-generate. That would be like having the materials for a skyscraper scattered together in one place. The next step, which is to assemble them all together properly, doesn't have to happen in a billion years or a gazillion years! Indeed, why should it ever just "happen?" If there's no builder, what logic accounts for a building?

After singing "Chances Are",(9) together, let's get back to the solar system.

Mars, in terms of temperature, is the opposite of Venus. On Mars the temperature can never reach the point where H2O changes state from solid (ice) to liquid (water). My point here is that only the blue planet resides in our solar system at a place where temperatures permit water to exist in it's liquid state. Remember that liquid water is necessary for life to develop and improve.

If Mars were a little warmer, it really wouldn't matter much. The atmosphere, like that on Venus, consists almost entirely of carbon dioxide (95%). But, unlike Venus, the atmosphere is so thin that it's only 1% of the density of Earth's atmosphere. Although H2O is present, there's only about a fourth as much atmospheric moisture as in the Earth's atmosphere. Note that if there were a smaller proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere on Mars, with more nitrogen and oxygen (which animals favor, according to survey, about a gazillion to one,(10)), then life still couldn't thrive because it would be even colder than it now is! C02 (carbon dioxide), remember, is an excellent greenhouse gas; it retains heat very effectively. Reduce the C02 and heat is more quickly lost to the night sky and the Martian surface gets even colder! The cold reduces the odds that intelligent life will develop... Intelligent enough, for example, to learn skills (like quilting) which serve to improve life in cold places! Nope, naked little creatures would be spontaneously generated without electric blankets to keep them warm... They'd freeze to death.

The other planets get even colder as we move toward Pluto. Some have atmospheres... but none have healthy ones!

The idea that life could exist on one of the many moons in the solar system is interesting. With the right internal heat energy on a moon, and the right atmosphere, life certainly could be supported. Could be, should be, would be. Mighta, shoulda, coulda.

Goldilocks not only found the right porridge, but the right bed for a nap, as well! What are the odds of the universe naturally fostering just the right gaseous mix and density with just the right amount of heat energy? If it's all random, and we have 15 billion years to arrive at the proper equation... Heck, I don't know! I do, however, know that I wouldn't buy a ticket in that lottery!

Since we're having such fun, let's bring Jupiter into Goldilocks' porridge. Now, Jupiter is big. REALLY BIG! How big, you ask? Before I wow you with statistics let me tell you how it relates to Earth. (I'm concerned that the statistics alone won't wow you sufficiently... even if I make them up!)

The Earth is held in orbit around the Sun by solar gravity and the velocity of it's own tangent flight toward the stars. What that means is that the Earth is currently falling into the Sun because of gravitational pull. Fortunately for those of us who don't like slow roasting, the Earth is also hurtling out into space at a speed perfectly balanced with the strength of solar gravity. The effect of this is that the Earth takes one step at a tangent to it's orbital position and one step toward the sun. Oh, heck. Let me draw it! (I'm an excellent artist!)
I remember being told by a Londoner what a tangent is. It should help to know that a tangent is... an Englishman on the beach! (OK, gag me with a spoon. I get it.)

If the Earth travels outward, along a tangent line, at precisely the right velocity to balance it's fall into the Sun, it will forever go around and around in it's orbit. The tilt of the Earth will define it's seasons in this circuit... which is to be affectionately gazed upon in the next chapter. But the Sun is not the only gravitational influence on the Earth. All matter (does this really matter?) has attraction for other matter. Thus Venus and Mercury and Mars and... Jupiter... all pull on the Earth as it orbits the Sun.

To balance tangent velocity with gravitational pull requires some mathematical finesse. When NASA puts a satellite into orbit around the Earth, they need mathematic skills. They don't hire High School drop-outs for these calculations! The rocket carrying the satellite must leave the Earth's atmosphere in just the right ‘window' then curve into position just the right distance above the Earth's surface and do so at exactly the right speed. Any error in the equations and either the satellite will spiral back to the Earth or it will spiral out to meet with E.T. somewhere... beyond. Some satellites are placed into orbits to circle the Earth for remote-sensing (mapping) purposes. Some satellites are placed into orbits which maintain place in order to reflect Cable TV images to the happy residents of Indianapolis (which hasn't had a single tsunami in over 2 billion years), intoxicated as they are with re-runs of "Third Rock From The Sun." What a coincidence that those satellites just happen to maintain the right tangent speed for their altitude (thus, gravitational pull) above the Earth!

Random numbers don't serve NASA very well. Isn't it wonderful to know that random numbers have fallen coincidentally on the Goldilocks planet to traverse the Sun in just the right location? Wow! Who woulda thunk?

Back to Jupiter, like I promised. Mercury and Venus and Mars are all so small that their gravitational pull is minimal. Don't misunderstand. They have a pull and it does affect the Earth's orbit. It just doesn't have much effect because all three of them are smaller than the Earth and, well, they're pip-squeaks! But Jupiter is big. REALLY BIG! Jabba-the-Hut is a 98 pound weakling next to Jupiter! Just because the nearer planets don't have so great an influence on Earth's orbit doesn't mean that the big boy on the solar block doesn't. It does... and it could easily have ruined Earth's orbit because of it's massive size and gravitational attraction. Instead, it serves to stabilize Earth's orbit.

The following numbers are given for comparative purposes. Planetary diameter gives a sense of comparative size, mass provides of sense of comparative gravitational pull.

Mercury, the planet closest to the sun has a diameter of 4880 kilometers (2900 miles) and a mass of 3.3 (x1023 kg).

Venus, second from the Sun, is 12,100 km in diameter (7300 miles) with a mass of 49 (x1023 kg).

My favorite, the third planet, is just a little bigger than Venus with a diameter of 12,740 km (a little less than 8000 miles) and a mass of 60 (x1023 kg).

Mars is bigger than Mercury but much smaller than Earth. It's 6800 km. in diameter (about 4100 miles) with a mass of 6.4 (x1023 kg).

Next out is Jupiter. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system; it's diameter is 139,822 km (about 84,000 miles) and it's mass is 18,986 (x1023 kg). It's diameter is 10 times greater that of the Earth; it's mass is 316 times greater than the Earth!

Ok, so that was a bore. But, you can certainly see that wherever Jupiter is located it's mass is so great that it's likely to have a profound gravitational effect on Earth's orbit. If it were too close to the Earth it could draw the Earth into an orbit farther away from the Sun, cooling the porridge considerably. If it were farther from the Earth it could allow Earth to gravitate closer to the Sun, which could burn Goldilocks' tongue (when she eats the porridge).

What if the orbit of Jupiter were different in shape? It is an unusually round orbit; it's not nearly as elliptical as the Earth's orbit, for example. This very regular orbit has a powerful influence on the stability of the Earth position in space.

What are the odds that Jupiter just happens to be the size that it is, located where it is located? Well recent information may help with that question! According to Hugh Ross,(11), a probe into Jupiter has revealed that the planet's consistency indicates that the big planet originated in a colder place than it currently occupies... somewhere outside our solar system. About 80 gas-giant planets (Jupiter being one of them) have been discovered by astronomers to date... and most (or all) of them evidently have drifted according to interaction with space dust. Jupiter drifted into it's current location just in time to stabilize Earth's orbit in it's Goldilocks location.

Enough for now, what? Next time let's look more closely at Earth's orbit and it's tilt relative to the axis of that orbit. Perhaps we'll find some more amazing random coincidences!

9. Remember? Johnny Mathis sang it in the 1950's (I think)!
10. I read (in a highly authoritative source) that 70% of all statistic are made up.
11. Reasons to Believe, PO Box 5978, Pasadena, CA 91117. This is an outstanding source of good science. It also upholds the Bible. Hugh Ross is much smarter than me. I, however, am better looking (which is the best reason I can think of for you to read my stuff instead of his). Note that this comparison is subjective and should not be considered scientific!

Chapter 2