The age of the earth according to modern data. How old do you think the earth is? Lack of scientific evidence

Not only terrestrial samples, but also meteoric matter. They are produced primarily by the lead-lead method, developed by Claire Patterson. This number corresponds to the age of the oldest terrestrial and lunar samples and has hardly changed since 1956.

After the scientific revolution and the development of radioisotope dating methods, it turned out that many mineral samples were over a billion years old. The oldest found so far are small zircon crystals from the Jack Hills in Western Australia - their age is at least 4404 million years. Based on a comparison of the mass and luminosity of the Sun and other stars, it was concluded that the solar system cannot be much older than these crystals. Calcium- and aluminum-rich nodules found in meteorites are the oldest known specimens to have formed within the solar system: they are 4567 million years old, making it possible to establish the age of the solar system and an upper bound on the age of the Earth. There is a hypothesis that the accretion of the Earth began shortly after the formation of calcium-aluminum nodules and meteorites. Since the exact time of the Earth's accretion is unknown and different models give from a few million to 100 million years, the exact age of the Earth is difficult to determine. In addition, it is difficult to determine the exact age of the oldest rocks that come to the surface of the Earth, since they are composed of minerals of different ages.

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Literature

• Hal Hellman. Great confrontations in science. The Ten Most Exciting Disputes - Chapter 6. Lord Kelvin vs. Geologists and Biologists: The Age of the Earth = Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever. - M .: Dialectics, 2007. - S. 320. - ISBN 0-471-35066-4.

Notes

History of the Earth Physical properties of the Earth Shells of the Earth Geography and geology Environment see also

An excerpt characterizing the Age of the Earth

“But, dear princess,” Anna Mikhailovna said meekly and convincingly, stepping out of the way from the bedroom and not letting the princess in, “won’t it be too hard for the poor uncle at such moments when he needs rest? At such moments, talking about worldly things, when his soul is already prepared ...
Prince Vasily sat on an armchair, in his familiar pose, with his legs crossed high. His cheeks jumped strongly and, drooping, seemed thicker at the bottom; but he had the air of a man little occupied with the conversation between two ladies.
- Voyons, ma bonne Anna Mikhailovna, laissez faire Catiche. [Leave Katya to do what she knows.] You know how the Count loves her.
“I don’t even know what is in this paper,” the princess said, turning to Prince Vasily and pointing to the mosaic briefcase that she held in her hands. - I only know that the real will is in his bureau, and this is a forgotten paper ...
She wanted to bypass Anna Mikhaylovna, but Anna Mikhaylovna, jumping up, blocked her way again.
“I know, dear, kind princess,” said Anna Mikhailovna, clutching her briefcase with her hand and so tightly that it was clear that she would not let him go soon. “Dear princess, I beg you, I beg you, have pity on him. Je vous en conjure… [I beg you…]
The princess was silent. Only the sounds of the struggle for the portfolio could be heard. It was evident that if she spoke, she would not speak flatteringly for Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna held on tightly, but in spite of that, her voice retained all its sweet malleability and softness.
- Pierre, come here, my friend. I think that he is not superfluous in the family council: isn't it, prince?
- Why are you silent, mon cousin? the princess suddenly cried out so loudly that her voice was heard and frightened in the drawing room. - Why are you silent when here God knows who allows themselves to interfere and make scenes on the threshold of the room of the dying. Schemer! she whispered angrily, and tugged at the briefcase with all her might.
But Anna Mikhailovna took a few steps to keep up with the briefcase and grabbed her hand.
- Oh! - said Prince Vasily reproachfully and in surprise. He got up. - C "est ridicule. Voyons, [This is ridiculous. Come on,] let me go. I'm telling you.
The princess let go.
- And you!
Anna Mikhailovna did not listen to him.
- Let go, I'm telling you. I take over everything. I will go and ask him. I... that's enough for you.
- Mais, mon prince, [But, prince,] - said Anna Mikhailovna, - after such a great sacrament, give him a moment of peace. Here, Pierre, tell me your opinion, ”she turned to the young man, who, going up to them, looked in surprise at the embittered face of the princess, which had lost all decency, and at the jumping cheeks of Prince Vasily.
“Remember that you will be responsible for all the consequences,” Prince Vasily said sternly, “you don’t know what you are doing.
- Nasty woman! cried the princess, suddenly throwing herself at Anna Mikhailovna and snatching her briefcase.
Prince Vasily lowered his head and spread his arms.
At that moment, the door, that terrible door that Pierre had been looking at for so long and which opened so quietly, quickly, with a noise, leaned back, banging against the wall, and the middle princess ran out of there and clasped her hands.
- What are you doing! she said desperately. - II s "en va et vous me laissez seule. [He dies, and you leave me alone.]
The eldest princess dropped her briefcase. Anna Mikhailovna quickly bent down and, picking up the controversial thing, ran into the bedroom. The eldest princess and Prince Vasily, having come to their senses, followed her. A few minutes later the eldest princess came out first with a pale and dry face and a bitten lower lip. At the sight of Pierre, her face expressed irrepressible anger.
“Yes, rejoice now,” she said, “you have been waiting for this.
Sobbing, she covered her face with a handkerchief and ran out of the room.
Prince Vasily followed the princess. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was sitting, and fell on him, covering his eyes with his hand. Pierre noticed that he was pale and that his lower jaw was jumping and shaking as if in a feverish tremor.

The history of our planet still holds many mysteries. Scientists from various fields of natural science have contributed to the study of the development of life on Earth.

It is believed that the age of our planet is about 4.54 billion years. This entire time period is usually divided into two main stages: Phanerozoic and Precambrian. These stages are called eons or eonoteme. Eons, in turn, are divided into several periods, each of which is distinguished by a set of changes that have taken place in the geological, biological, atmospheric state of the planet.

1. Precambrian, or Cryptozoic- this is an eon (time interval of the development of the Earth), covering about 3.8 billion years. That is, the Precambrian is the development of the planet from the moment of formation, the formation of the earth's crust, the proto-ocean and the emergence of life on Earth. By the end of the Precambrian, highly organized organisms with a developed skeleton were already widespread on the planet.

The eon includes two more eonotemes - katarche and archaea. The latter, in turn, includes 4 eras.

1. Katarchaeus- this is the time of the formation of the Earth, but there was still neither the core nor the earth's crust. The planet was still a cold cosmic body. Scientists suggest that during this period there was already water on Earth. The Catarchean lasted about 600 million years.

2. Archaea covers a period of 1.5 billion years. During this period, there was no oxygen on Earth yet, deposits of sulfur, iron, graphite, and nickel were being formed. The hydrosphere and the atmosphere were a single vapor-gas shell that enveloped the globe in a dense cloud. The sun's rays practically did not penetrate through this veil, so darkness reigned on the planet. 2.1 2.1. Eoarchean- this is the first geological era, which lasted about 400 million years. The most important event of the Eoarchean is the formation of the hydrosphere. But there was still little water, the reservoirs existed separately from each other and did not yet merge into the world ocean. At the same time, the earth's crust becomes solid, although asteroids are still bombarding the Earth. At the end of the Eoarchean, the first supercontinent in the history of the planet, Vaalbara, is formed.

2.2 Paleoarchaean- the next era, which also lasted approximately 400 million years. During this period, the core of the Earth is formed, the magnetic field strength increases. A day on the planet lasted only 15 hours. But the oxygen content in the atmosphere increases due to the activity of bacteria that have appeared. The remains of these first forms of the Paleoarchean era of life have been found in Western Australia.

2.3 Mesoarchean also lasted about 400 million years. In the Mesoarchean era, our planet was covered by a shallow ocean. Land areas were small volcanic islands. But already during this period, the formation of the lithosphere begins and the mechanism of plate tectonics starts. At the end of the Mesoarchean, the first ice age occurs, during which snow and ice form for the first time on Earth. Biological species are still represented by bacteria and microbial life forms.

2.4 Neoarchean- the final era of the Archean eon, the duration of which is about 300 million years. Colonies of bacteria at this time form the first stromatolites (limestone deposits) on Earth. The most important event of the Neoarchean is the formation of oxygen photosynthesis.

II. Proterozoic- one of the longest time periods in the history of the Earth, which is usually divided into three eras. During the Proterozoic, the ozone layer first appears, the world ocean reaches almost its present volume. And after the longest Huron glaciation, the first multicellular life forms appeared on Earth - mushrooms and sponges. The Proterozoic is usually divided into three eras, each of which contained several periods.

3.1 Paleo-Proterozoic- the first era of the Proterozoic, which began 2.5 billion years ago. At this time, the lithosphere is fully formed. But the former forms of life, due to the increase in oxygen content, practically died out. This period is called the oxygen catastrophe. By the end of the era, the first eukaryotes appear on Earth.

3.2 Mesoproterozoic lasted approximately 600 million years. The most important events of this era: the formation of continental masses, the formation of the supercontinent Rodinia and the evolution of sexual reproduction.

3.3 Neo-proterozoic. During this era, Rodinia breaks up into about 8 parts, the super-ocean of Mirovia ceases to exist, and at the end of the era, the Earth is covered with ice almost to the equator. In the Neoproterozoic era, living organisms for the first time begin to acquire a hard shell, which will later serve as the basis of the skeleton.

III. Paleozoic- the first era of the Phanerozoic eon, which began approximately 541 million years ago and lasted about 289 million years. This is the era of the emergence of ancient life. The supercontinent Gondwana unites the southern continents, a little later the rest of the land joins it and Pangea appears. Climatic zones begin to form, and flora and fauna are represented mainly by marine species. Only towards the end of the Paleozoic does the development of land begin, and the first vertebrates appear.

The Paleozoic era is conditionally divided into 6 periods.

1. Cambrian period lasted 56 million years. During this period, the main rocks are formed, the mineral skeleton appears in living organisms. And the most important event of the Cambrian is the appearance of the first arthropods.

2. Ordovician period- the second period of the Paleozoic, which lasted 42 million years. This is the era of the formation of sedimentary rocks, phosphorites and oil shale. The organic world of the Ordovician is represented by marine invertebrates and blue-green algae.

3. Silurian period covers the next 24 million years. At this time, almost 60% of living organisms that existed before die out. But the first cartilaginous and bone fish in the history of the planet appear. On land, the Silurian is marked by the appearance of vascular plants. Supercontinents converge and form Laurasia. By the end of the period, ice melting was noted, the sea level rose, and the climate became milder.

4 Devonian is characterized by the rapid development of various forms of life and the development of new ecological niches. Devon covers a time interval of 60 million years. The first terrestrial vertebrates, spiders, and insects appear. Land animals develop lungs. Although fish still dominate. The kingdom of flora of this period is represented by ferns, horsetails, club mosses and gosperms.

5. Carboniferous period often referred to as carbon. At this time, Laurasia collides with Gondwana and the new supercontinent Pangea appears. A new ocean is also formed - Tethys. This is the time when the first amphibians and reptiles appeared.

6. Permian period- the last period of the Paleozoic, which ended 252 million years ago. It is believed that at this time a large asteroid fell to Earth, which led to significant climate change and the extinction of almost 90% of all living organisms. Most of the land is covered with sand, the most extensive deserts appear that have only existed in the entire history of the Earth's development.

IV. Mesozoic- the second era of the Phanerozoic eon, which lasted almost 186 million years. At this time, the continents acquire almost modern outlines. A warm climate contributes to the rapid development of life on Earth. Giant ferns disappear, and angiosperms appear to replace them. The Mesozoic is the era of dinosaurs and the appearance of the first mammals.

The Mesozoic era is divided into three periods: Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.

1. Triassic period lasted a little over 50 million years. At this time, Pangea begins to split, and the inland seas gradually become smaller and dry up. The climate is mild, the zones are not pronounced. Nearly half of land plants are disappearing as deserts spread. And in the realm of fauna, the first warm-blooded and terrestrial reptiles appear, which became the ancestors of dinosaurs and birds.

2 Jurassic covers a gap of 56 million years. A humid and warm climate reigned on Earth. The land is covered with thickets of ferns, pines, palms, cypresses. Dinosaurs reign on the planet, and numerous mammals have so far been distinguished by their small stature and thick hair.

3 Cretaceous- the longest period of the Mesozoic, lasting almost 79 million years. The split of the continents is practically coming to an end, the Atlantic Ocean is significantly increasing in volume, and ice sheets are forming at the poles. An increase in the water mass of the oceans leads to the formation of a greenhouse effect. At the end of the Cretaceous, a catastrophe occurs, the causes of which are still not clear. As a result, all dinosaurs and most species of reptiles and gymnosperms became extinct.

V. Cenozoic- this is the era of animals and Homo sapiens, which began 66 million years ago. The continents at this time acquired their modern shape, Antarctica occupied the south pole of the Earth, and the oceans continued to grow. Plants and animals that survived the catastrophe of the Cretaceous period found themselves in a completely new world. Unique communities of lifeforms began to form on each continent.

The Cenozoic era is divided into three periods: Paleogene, Neogene and Quaternary.

1. Paleogene period ended approximately 23 million years ago. At that time, a tropical climate reigned on Earth, Europe was hiding under evergreen tropical forests, and deciduous trees grew only in the north of the continents. It was during the Paleogene period that the rapid development of mammals takes place.

2. Neogene period covers the next 20 million years of the planet's development. Whales and bats appear. And, although saber-toothed tigers and mastodons still roam the earth, the fauna is increasingly acquiring modern features.

3. Quaternary period began more than 2.5 million years ago and continues to this day. Two major events characterize this time period: the Ice Age and the advent of man. The Ice Age completely completed the formation of the climate, flora and fauna of the continents. And the appearance of man marked the beginning of civilization.

It is so nice to know that the planet Earth turned out to be the most suitable for various forms of life. There are ideal temperature conditions, enough air, oxygen and safe light. It's hard to believe that this never happened. Or almost nothing but a molten cosmic mass of indeterminate shape, floating in zero gravity. But first things first.

Explosion on a global scale

Early theories of the origin of the universe

Scientists have put forward various hypotheses to explain the birth of the Earth. In the 18th century, the French claimed that the cause was a cosmic catastrophe resulting from the collision of the Sun with a comet. The British assured that an asteroid flying past the star cut off part of it, from which a number of celestial bodies subsequently appeared.

German minds have moved on. The prototype of the formation of the planets of the solar system, they considered a cold dust cloud of incredible size. Later it was decided that the dust was red-hot. One thing is clear: the formation of the Earth is inextricably linked with the formation of all the planets and stars that make up the solar system.

Today, astronomers and physicists are unanimous in their opinion that the universe was formed after the Big Bang. Billions of years ago, a giant fireball exploded into pieces in outer space. This caused a gigantic ejection of matter, the particles of which possessed colossal energy. It was the power of the latter that prevented the elements from creating atoms, forcing them to repel each other. This was facilitated by the high temperature (about a billion degrees). But after a million years, space has cooled down to about 4000º. From that moment, the attraction and formation of atoms of light gaseous substances (hydrogen and helium) began.

Over time, they clustered into clusters called nebulae. These were the prototypes of future celestial bodies. Gradually, the particles inside rotated faster and faster, building up temperature and energy, causing the nebula to contract. Having reached the critical point, at a certain moment a thermonuclear reaction was launched, contributing to the formation of the nucleus. Thus the bright sun was born.

The emergence of the Earth - from gas to solid

The young luminary possessed powerful gravitational forces. Their influence caused the formation of other planets at different distances from accumulations of cosmic dust and gases, including the Earth. If we compare the composition of different celestial bodies in the solar system, it will become noticeable that they are not the same.

Mercury is primarily made up of a metal that is most resistant to solar radiation. Venus, Earth have a rocky surface. And Saturn and Jupiter remain gas giants because of the greatest remoteness. By the way, they protect other planets from meteorites, pushing them away from their orbits.

Formation of the Earth

The formation of the Earth began according to the same principle that underlay the appearance of the Sun itself. This happened about 4.6 billion years ago. Heavy metals (iron, nickel) as a result of gravity and compression penetrated into the center of the young planet, forming the core. The high temperature created all the conditions for a series of nuclear reactions. There was a separation of the mantle and the core.

The release of heat melted and ejected light silicon to the surface. He became the prototype of the first bark. As the planet cooled, volatile gases broke out from the depths. This was accompanied by volcanic eruptions. Molten lava later formed rocks.

Gas mixtures were kept at a distance around the Earth by gravity. They made up the atmosphere, at first without oxygen. Encounters with icy comets and meteorites led to the emergence of oceans from vapor condensate and melted ice. The continents were separated, reunited, floating in a hot mantle. This has been repeated many times for almost 4 billion years.

path to life

Forming, the Earth increased its ability to attract cosmic particles (stones, asteroids, meteorites, dust). Falling to the surface, they gradually penetrated into the bowels (centrifugal forces acted), completely giving up their own energy. The planet condensed. Chemical reactions served as prerequisites for the formation of the first forms of life - unicellular.

In the process of evolution, when photosynthesis began, new species were born - already multicellular. They were able to exist thanks to the appearance of air with oxygen and the ozone layer. For millions of years, some living forms have disappeared due to destructive icing, warming, volcanic eruptions. Those that survived acquired new features and the ability to adapt to changing conditions.

Our planet arose from a clot of cosmic dust (nebula) under the influence of solar energy., thermonuclear reactions and the force of attraction. Its formation took so many years that in comparison with this, a person with his life activity takes only a moment from the point of view of the Universe. And he is obliged to protect his house, and not to destroy it, because he has nowhere else to live.

How the Earth appeared - an interesting video

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Creation Science: How old is the Earth according to biblical texts? What evidence is there for the correctness of the Christian belief in the creation of the world? All about it in our material!

Creation Science

Here it is said that the originally unified world ocean, which covered the entire earth, broke up into separate basins, separated by land. The appearance of continents and seas on the face of the Earth was of great importance in the history of the development of our planet, but it happened in such a distant past that no traces of this event remained in the geological record.

In modern science, the question of the origin of the hydrosphere, as well as the atmosphere, is the object of mutually exclusive hypotheses, which are based not on direct geological data, but on certain cosmogonic constructions and general views on the origin of the Earth. For a geologically observable period of time, there are no data that allow one to admit a noticeable increase in the volume of the hydrosphere, which V. I. Vernadsky drew attention to. If this position is correct, then it should be assumed that the land appeared only as a result of a long process of geological development of our planet, expressed in the differentiation of its solid shells into oceanic depressions that contained the bulk of surface water. Thus, modern scientific data do not contradict the picture drawn by the book of Genesis, but one has to be surprised, if one denies its divine inspiration, that the writer of a people who hardly see the sea attached such great importance to its water shell in the development of the Earth.

Bible and geology

We do not consider questions about the causes of the origin of oceans and continents, mountains and plains in this essay, since none of them contradicts the Bible. Another thing is important for us now - a comparative analysis of the sequence of creations according to the Bible and the sequence of the appearance of various types of the material world in the light of modern scientific and natural knowledge.

These verses say that the inanimate nature, at the command of God, produced the living nature in the form of plants, which thus came into being before the animals. So, already at the relatively early stages of the development of the Earth, the plant world reached a significant diversity and developed not only in water, but also covered the land.

There are no traces left of the very first stages of life in the geological record, so we have to confine ourselves to general considerations and conjectures. It is generally accepted that life originated in the oceans, but G. S. Osborne and L. S. Berg (1946) believe that the first stages of life took place on land, in swampy and damp places. According to modern ideas, first expressed by V. I. Vernadsky and now included in textbooks, our modern topoatmosphere (without which no animal life is possible that needs free oxygen) is biogenic. Without plants, animals would not only suffocate, but they would have nothing to eat, because only plants have the ability to convert inorganic forms of matter into organic ones.

There are no reliable organic remains in the deposits of the Archean era (see the Geochronological table on p. 36). The oldest known undoubtedly plant remains have been found in the Precambrian limestones of Montana; bacteria and various algae have been found and well studied in the Proterozoic deposits; in the Precambrian deposits of the Czech Republic - wood described under the name Archaexylan, with signs of the structure of gymnosperms (that is, conifers); in the Precambrian of the Urals, indefinable remains of terrestrial plants and spores of higher plants were found; from the deposits of the Cambrian of the Baltic, spores of higher terrestrial plants - bryophytes and ferns are described; from the Upper Silurian of the Australian province of Victoria - the flora of primitive, now extinct psilophyte plants. In the Devonian, the known terrestrial flora is already characterized by a great variety of species and groups.

Geological table

Vegetable world

Thus, based on modern scientific ideas and data, it is necessary, in full accordance with the Bible, to consider that plants were the first organized forms of organic life on Earth, and the plant world already in ancient times reached a significant variety of forms.

Gen 1:14	And God said: Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to illuminate the earth, and to separate the day from the night, and for signs, and times, and days, and years;
Gen 1:15	and let them be lamps in the firmament of heaven to give light to the earth. And it became so.
Gen 1:16	And God created two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the smaller light to rule the night, and the stars;
Gen 1:17	and God set them in the firmament of heaven to shine on the earth,
Gen 1:18	and govern the day and the night, and separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:19	And there was evening and there was morning: the fourth day.

The above verses tell of the creation of the sun, moon and stars. We have already talked a lot about cosmogony in the previous essay, so now we will formulate only brief conclusions from two scientific hypotheses of the origin of stars: 1) both hypotheses suggest the presence of prestellar matter in the Universe. This matter forms stars only under certain conditions; 2) when implementing the mechanism of the second concept (assuming the presence of a special superdense state of matter), the existence of invisible stars is fundamentally possible, which can flare up in subsequent times. Further, the formation of clumps of matter in such limited areas is possible, beyond which no radiation can penetrate. Such formation of matter can be characterized in figurative biblical language as God separated the light from the darkness.

Age of the Universe

Let us consider the problem of the age of the Earth and the bodies of the Universe, as it appears to theology and modern natural-science consciousness.

For theology, the only criterion for the age of the world is the biblical texts. In the above texts of the book of Genesis, the creation of the world is described in certain stages, called “days”. It is impossible to understand by them our usual astronomical days associated with the rotation of the Earth around its axis, since the Sun did not exist until the fourth “day” and, therefore, there was no change of day and night. Since the six days of the Bible - the conditional division of time - has nothing to do with astronomical days, with their day and night, therefore the night is not mentioned in the book of Genesis in connection with the day of creation: “and there was evening, and there was morning” - for every hour has its own work, and it was not interrupted at night. This is emphasized by the order of the words “there was evening and there was morning” instead of the seemingly natural one: “there was morning and there was evening - the fourth day”.

It is necessary to dwell on the chronology from the creation of the world, which was previously accepted by the entire Christian world and covers about 7000 years.

There is no data in the biblical texts to determine the age of the world. Consequently, the question of calculating the age of the world is not within the competence of theology. Some interpreters of the Bible tried to approach the chronology indirectly, using the information available in the Bible about individual genera and generations and the history of the Jewish people, and received completely different numbers. The method used by them, by its very nature, could not be included in the task of determining the age of the world from the first day of creation. Science, on the other hand, has long been trying to estimate the age of various parts of the world from their very formation in various ways and methods. First of all, let us dwell on determining the age of the Earth.

Rough, simplified calculations represent the first infantile attempts of science to determine the age of the Earth. Only the discovery of radioactive decay by Becquerel and the Curies allowed geology to obtain a “standard of time”, independent of any geological processes. At any temperature, at any pressure, radioactive elements pass at the same rate into non-radioactive lead and helium. The ratio between radioactive elements, in particular uranium, and the lead or helium formed from it, adjusted for the decay rate, is a measure of time. The same measure of time can be the ratio between radiogenic and non-radiogenic isotopes of the same element. Not being able to delve into the details of the method for determining the time, we will report only the final results of the work done by a number of researchers.

1) The oldest minerals found on earth are 2.0–2.5 billion years old. The most ancient rocks on the earth's surface were found in Antarctica and have an age of 3.9–4.0 billion years.

2) The age of meteorites reaches 4.0–4.5 billion years.

3) Based on the study of solar radiation, V. G. Fesenkov believes that the age of the Sun should closely correspond to the age of the Earth and, probably, other planets, and suggests that the planets, in particular the Earth, could exist even in the absence of a fully formed Sun.

4) The theory of the expanding Universe predicts its age at 15–20 billion years.

Thus, in all the above cases, the determination of the age of objects (the expanding metagalaxy, the earth's crust, the Sun), made by different researchers, by different methods and methods, gave figures of the same order. It is impossible to talk about more, based on the requirements of scientific caution. Are these coincidences coincidental? It is difficult for us, brought up on the scientific thinking of the 20th century, to imagine that the entire majestic Universe with its billions of stars would have an age close to the age of the oldest rocks on the surface of our planet and the first birth of life on it.

Of course, one can doubt that the “redshift” indicates the scattering of galaxies, one can doubt Einstein’s theory, from which, regardless of the “redshift”, the expansion of the Universe theoretically follows, one can doubt the principles of determining the age of minerals and meteorites by radiological method and any other, one can doubt the reliability of astrophysical data, but then one has to generally deny the suitability of our observations for the interpretation of the universe. Atheists are on this path. They say that it is impossible to transfer the laws of motion of a finite, limited region of the Universe to the entire infinite Universe. In other words, they recognize two worlds: one world, where laws are in force that lead to "priestry", where, unfortunately, they have to live, and another world, a world not yet discovered and unknown to us, a world "other world" (!), where there are no laws leading to "priestry". The best thing that atheists should do, in order not to fall into a trap themselves, is to admit that science, due to its limitations in each specific period of time, cannot give a complete picture of the Universe that accurately reflects it, and, therefore, is unsuitable as a method of anti-religious propaganda.

Wanting to understand the meaning of the biblical description of the fifth day of creation, we must remember that the classification of the ancient peoples, as well as the modern peoples of archaic culture, has an externally morphological ecological character, and not a comparative anatomical one, like modern natural science systematics. For the ancients, the lizard seemed more related to some centipede, and not to a frog, a sparrow - to a bee, and not to a mole, a bat - to a swallow, and not to an elephant; Will not, finally, our poorly educated contemporary also compare the dolphin with a fish rather than with a cow? From a scientific biological point of view, the kinship relations of animals in the examples given are just the opposite.

Reptiles and birds

So, what is the meaning of the ancients put in the concept of "reptiles and birds"? Reptiles (20th century, in Hebrew sheres) means the worms of water and animals proper, in some cases multiparous, which is emphasized in this text by the word yish e r e su 'let it bring forth', which comes from sharas, which means 'swarm, give birth' or 'beget in abundance'. Luther translated verse 20 more successfully than the Russian translation: Und Gott sprach: Es errege sich das Wasser mit webenden und lebendigen Tieren, lit. ‘God said: Let the water be stirred by swarming and living animals.

Such an expanded understanding of the word sheres is also given by St. Basil the Great in his “Shestodnev”. In his commentary on verse 20, he writes: “A command went out, and the rivers produce, and the lakes bring forth their own and natural rocks; and the sea is morbid with all kinds of swimming animals”, and below in this connection lists not only fish, but also slugs and polyps, cuttlefish, scallops, crabs, crayfish and “thousands of various oysters”.

Under the birds in antiquity, as the same Basil the Great testifies, all animals flying above the earth were understood, both the birds themselves and insects.

In verse 21, the word tanninim is used, denoting a large sea animal proper, translated in Russian as 'fish', and as reptiles, not the word sheres is used, as in verse 20, but romeset, denoting crawling, reptile animals, so that in this case, the Russian translation is quite accurate.

So, in verses 20-23 now being analyzed, it is told about the appearance on Earth of various animals, the ancestral home of which, according to the Bible, is water; it is said that the sea was inhabited by a wide variety of creatures - small and large, and that terrestrial reptiles occurred after water ones and their ancestral home was also water.

Without dwelling on the relationship of individual types of the animal world and the genetic transition from one type to another, about which there are a large number of often mutually exclusive hypotheses, let us consider the factual material that geology and paleontology currently provide.

The earliest stages in the development of the animal world are hidden from us; the first animal remains belong to the Upper Precambrian, these are the nuclei and imprints of protozoa, the remains of the skeleton of sponges, the tubes of the passage of worms, the horn shells of brachipods, mollusks and the tubes of pteropods (crustaceans).

In the Cambrian, judging by the available remains, the animal world already reaches a huge variety of forms. There are representatives of almost all living types. In the deposits of the Cambrian, not only the remains of hard skeletons, usually only preserved in a fossil state, were found, but also (in North America) excellently preserved imprints of organisms that have only a soft body: jellyfish, holothurians, various worm-like and arthropods. The words of St. Basil the Great are applicable to the Cambrian Sea that "the sea was morbid with all kinds of floating animals."

With even greater reason, these words can be attributed to the Silurian period: up to 15,000 species of Silurian marine organisms are known. Apparently, the attempt of animals to get out of the water is connected with the Silurian, since in the sediments of this age, however, extremely rarely, there are remains of land arthropod centipedes and scorpions, that is, in biblical terminology, reptiles. How this transition was carried out in general, what were its stages - we do not know; it is known that by the end of the Devonian it had already ended, because from the Devonian of North America (Pennsylvania) the imprint of the four-toed foot of a terrestrial vertebrate (Thinopus) has long been known, and from the Upper Devonian of Greenland - the first reliable bone remains of an amphibian skull.

In the Carboniferous period following the Devonian, triton-like amphibians were widespread - they were animals that reptiles on the earth in the full sense. At the same time, insects from the Orthoptera group appear and reach their greatest development. The number of their known species - with the incompleteness of the geological record - reaches 1000. About this period, we can say that "birds flew across the firmament of heaven."

In the Permian period, along with amphibians, reptiles (reptiles in the modern sense of the word) were also widespread. The Mesozoic era is the true realm of reptiles, which not only gave rise to gigantic forms such as the 28-meter-high Brachiosaurus, but also filled the "waters of the seas", along with a variety of fish, amphibians and a rich world of invertebrates.

In the Jurassic, flying reptiles have been identified whose wing structure in general terms resembled that of bats, and two finds of real, although very primitive birds from the lithographic schists of Bavaria, are known from Jurassic deposits. In the Cretaceous the birds become quite numerous.

Thus, according to biblical terminology, the Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian period and a significant part of the Mesozoic era can be called the day of reptiles and birds.

This is what the Bible tells about the first stage of the creations of the sixth day. Undoubtedly, by animals and cattle, land mammals should be understood, and that their homeland is the mainland, but it is not clear what is meant by reptiles, since reptiles have already been mentioned in the description of the fifth day. Perhaps the natural scientific data themselves will help us to understand the meaning of this term in the Bible.

At present, the appearance of mammals is associated with the finds of extremely scarce remains in the sediments of the Middle and Upper Jurassic. Rare remains of marsupial and placental mammals are known from the Upper Cretaceous, and the Tertiary period following it can be named together with the modern Quaternary era of mammals; they not only dominate the land (animals and cattle), but rose into the air (bats, etc.) and took possession of the seas (whales, dolphins, seals, walruses, etc.). The shape, richness of colors and size variations of mammals are striking - from tiny voles to giant elephants and whales. They have mastered all the forests and steppes of the globe, they are not afraid of either the heat of the deserts or the cold of the polar countries - everywhere they are the most mobile, the most active, the most intelligent animals. Man himself belongs to them.

In all likelihood, the reptiles in the book of Genesis mean frogs, toads (that is, tailless amphibians) and snakes. Paleontological data also incline us to this understanding of this word, since the appearance of amphibians and snakes coincides with the time of the appearance of mammals.

Is the world static?

We have seen on previous pages that, according to biblical and scientific data, the face of the earth and the cosmos as a whole has changed. Thinking about the meaning of the biblical text, theology puts forward a problem of great natural scientific importance: did God create the world immutable and static, or can the world of God change and develop? Is it possible to improve in this world and grow from the lowest to the highest in the field of spiritual and material, especially biological development, or is everything that exists subject to monotonous, eternally repeating closed cycles, like the movement of machine pistons? To the question: The Creator of which world should have greater wisdom and greater power? - only one answer is possible: of course, the world is moving and developing. Thus, from a Christian theological point of view, recognizing God as Almighty, it is easier to accept the natural scientific theories of an evolving universe than a static one. The great principle of universal development, penetrating to one degree or another all of God's creation, is concentrated with special force in the inner, spiritual world of man - the crown of Divine creativity. Consequently, if a person is a creature with will and mind, does not work on his spiritual development, does not strive for it, then he consciously or unconsciously is an opponent of the great creative idea of ​​the Divine, that is, a conscious or unconscious God-fighter, and therefore spirituality begins in him. desolation, regression.

The possibility of the mental and spiritual development of man has been undeniably proven by all human history, and especially by the countless host of Christian ascetics, canonized and non-canonized saints.

It seemed that theology was supposed to anticipate the ideas of the natural evolution of the world. They are indeed present in the bud in some Church Fathers, although they start from other starting positions. So, for example, the Monk John of Damascus wrote: “what began with a change must change.” But why, then, did the Inquisition and the Jesuits fight against scientific discoveries, why did some of the churchmen meet with hostility to the theory of evolution of animals and plants? Why in the 19th century did they stubbornly defend the idea of ​​the immutability of species, although such an assumption has no basis either in Tradition or Revelation and is contrary to all analogies in nature? Based on the limited scientific data of the ancient world and the Middle Ages, theologians created a speculative scheme of the universe, which, in their view, exhausted the power of God. And so, when the empirical study of nature, the creation of God, expanded the limits of His power and wisdom known to people beyond the boundaries of their old ideas, these theologians forgot that the power of the Creator extends beyond the limits of human understanding, raised a fuss about the imaginary atheism of scientific theories, “for His immeasurable creative power and wisdom” (Lomonosov’s words) were measured by their limited knowledge. However, not all clergy are guilty of this. Some of them were even the founders of evolutionary theories in biology. So, for example, the English priest W. Herbert (1837) believed that “species were created in a highly plastic state, and that through crossings and deviations they produced all currently existing species.”

At present, biological evolution can be considered a scientifically established pattern. However, contrary to popular belief, neither zoology nor botany as a science of modern life forms (neobiology) can prove it. They can only prove the plasticity of the organism or its stability, or the nature of the relationship between these two polar properties of the organism. In short, neobiology deals with factors that can be considered factors in evolution, but not with evolution itself.

Only paleontology, together with geology, has actual documents of past epochs of life. Consequently, only it can provide a factual basis for the history of the organic world, that is, a framework within which questions of the development of life can and must be worked out - that empirical basis, outside of which the realm of fantasy begins.

Paleontology and evolution

However, paleontology did not immediately start talking about evolution. The famous Belgian paleontologist Louis Dollo divides the history of paleontology into three periods: the first is the period of the creation of fables, when instead of studying, they preferred to reason, and large extinct animals were mistaken for the skeletons of giants or mythological creatures; the second is the morphological period; it essentially begins paleontology as a science of fossils, created by Cuvier in the same way as comparative anatomy; and the third period - the period of evolutionary paleontology, created by the works of V. O. Kovalevsky. “The work of Kovalevsky,” wrote Dollo, “is a true treatise on method in paleontology.”

What geological and paleontological evidence can be given in favor of the evolution of the organic world?

1) It has been empirically established that in ancient deposits there are no modern forms and there are remains of now extinct animals, and different deposits differ from each other in different fauna, and in the transition to younger deposits we meet more and more highly organized forms. This can be explained either by Cuvier's theory of catastrophes (which assumes an infinite number of repeated creations and destructions of everything previously created, and each time more highly organized organisms appear than in previous acts of creation), or the result of evolution.

From a theological point of view, the theory of catastrophes is nonsense and has no basis in Revelation. It reflects not Christian theological views, as they are now trying to portray, but the state of the factual material in the era of Cuvier, when, with a comparatively small number of paleontological finds, intermediate forms between known species and genera were not found. This circumstance, by the way, forced Darwin to devote a large section in his Origin of Species to the incompleteness of the geological record in order to save his theory from the blows of paleontologists.

2) In the fossil state, before the appearance of the remains of new classes and other classification groups, there are remains of organisms that occupy an intermediate position between the new “future” class and the previously existing one, and it is very difficult to assign them to one class or another. In this case, it is impossible to restore all the stages due to the incompleteness of the geological record, since we do not know whether we are really dealing with transitional phenomena or with traces of the presence of certain classes unknown to us. This leaves a loophole for skeptics.

3) But there are genera in which it is possible to trace all the gradual transitions from one form to another from successive horizons. Moreover, the extreme forms are so different from each other that they, of course, should be attributed to different types; it is impossible to draw a boundary between these species in the section, since the intermediate forms give very gradual transitions. We are confronted, as it were, with the situation that it is necessary somewhere conditionally to attribute the mother to one species, and the daughter born by her to another - new, and to attribute two half-brothers, born simultaneously, to different systematic units, so that somehow, at least conditionally to draw a line between species. A fact that is impossible in neobiology, but often happens in paleontology.

In this work, we do not dwell on the currently established laws of evolution (adaptive radiation, acceleration of the development of tachygenesis, irreversibility of evolution, non-specialization, etc.), since this is not directly related to our topic. We only note that between Darwinism and evolutionary views one should not put an equal sign, they are not identical, as our high school students think.

Creation of the world and the origin of man

Gen 1:26	And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the beasts, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
Gen 1:27	And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Gen 1:28	And God blessed them, and God said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the beasts, and over the birds of the air, and over every livestock, and over all the earth, and over every living thing. creeping on the ground.

The problem of the origin of man is one of the most exciting in biology and anthropology. For several centuries, it has been a battlefield between people holding different philosophical, scientific, religious and even political views.

Beginning with Giordano Bruno, who in his work "The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast" (1584) spoke in favor of the independent origin of man in different parts of the globe, the ideas of polyphilia were used in the fight against the Christian religion. Similar goals were pursued by the development of the hypothesis of the polygenesis of human races, which contained the assertion that different races are either different species of the same genus, or even different genera. The works of monophilist scientists, in particular in modern times (analysis of anatomical features that do not have adaptive significance - Henri Balois), proved that the only possible concept regarding the human race is monophyly.

If the question of the unity (monophily) of the human race can now be considered scientifically more or less resolved, then questions about the specific ways of the formation of the species Homo sapiens and the antiquity of modern man are the subject of fierce discussions.

Between the previous stage and the Neanderthals and modern humans, whose oldest race is known as the Cro-Magnons, there is a certain break in the gradualness, which is recognized by all scientists.

Archaeological finds show the impossibility of palaeontologically protecting the antiquity of Homo sapiens.

The question arises, why are they so stubbornly striving to prove the great antiquity of modern man, to prove his antiquity even at the cost of unconsciously or consciously distorting scientific facts?

The fact is that orthodox Darwinism explains the formation of man with his amazing mental abilities, which sharply distinguish Homo sapiens from the entire animal world, by the action of natural selection, which determines the entire diversity of animals and plants. According to Darwin's theory in its orthodox form, any species can evolve as a result of the fact that its individual representatives receive a slight superiority over their relatives, and only these more perfect representatives always survive in the struggle for existence and only they pass on their progressive signs to their descendants. In order to explain the origin of man as the result of this extremely slow-acting mechanism of evolution, one must admit the enormous duration of his existence. The human brain clearly exceeds the human need to survive in its struggle for existence with other animals. Therefore, Darwin was forced to attribute his improvement to the long and most severe struggle of man against man and one human tribe against another. He also had to resort to the factor of sexual selection. In other words, according to Darwin, the mental abilities of a person satisfied his need to survive in the fight against his own kind. Consequently, they must be immeasurably lower for peoples standing on lower levels of historical development than for peoples who have moved forward in their historical development. However, modern research has discarded the idea of ​​mental retardation of the so-called savages.

In the cited biblical verses, first of all, attention is drawn to the grammatical agreement of the singular and plural. In verse 26, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." In this there is an allusion to the mystery of the Holy Trinity, Which in Three Persons is the One Indivisible Deity. God is One, but Three Persons of the Divine Essence. The dogma of the Trinity of the Deity is completely unknown to the ancient Jews, but is entirely connected with Christianity, so for an atheist this discrepancy turns into a simple typo of the compiler or copyist. For a Christian, it is a pre-revelation of what later became a revelation.

So, man was conceived by the special will of the Deity as the lord of the earth and everything that is on it. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,” the second chapter of the book of Genesis complements the narrative of the first chapter (Genesis 2:7).

In the Bible, we do not find a story about how, by what means man was made from the dust of the earth. It only indicates, as St. Gregory the Theologian notes, that man was created from the already existing “material”. Both our soul and our body, as the great Christian ascetic St. Seraphim of Sarov taught, are created from “the dust of the earth.” Man, created from the dust of the earth, was “an active animal being, like other living beings on the earth<…>though he excelled over all beasts, cattle, and birds.” They, as part of the earth, that is, as originating from the earth, could even serve as material for its creation. Therefore, there is nothing anti-Christian in including man in one systematic row with other animals, as Linnaeus did and as is customary now in biology - this is a statement of one of the sides of human nature. There is nothing anti-religious in the hypotheses of the origin of man from an ape-like creature; for a Christian, the confirmation of these hypotheses only reveals how man was created in the biological process of his formation. The main thing for the Bible is not this, but that God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,” that is, a man who had previously been “the dust of the earth”, an animal, although the most perfect and most intelligent of all animals , acquired the Holy Spirit and through this - the ability of real communication with the Divine and the possibility of immortality. Contacting the earthly world with his material nature, man became the king of this world and the vicar of God on earth. And as the vicar of God on earth, he must continue the work begun by God - the decoration and cultivation of the earth to the glory of God.

In creativity, in whatever form it manifests itself, whether in art, in the creation of new breeds of animals and plants, or in the creation of new celestial bodies, one of the aspects of our likeness to God lies. “You are gods,” the Lord said (John 10:34). Creativity must be approached with prayer, with sacred mystical awe, with deep gratitude to God for the joy of our likeness to Him, with fear of what we will use this likeness bestowed upon us. Human creativity has two sides: the outer one, which was just mentioned, and the inner one, which is now forgotten by many people. Carried away by their external creativity, directed not to the glory of God, but to the glory of man, people forgot about the inner creativity and, amusing themselves with their discoveries, inventions and the so-called “miracles” of technology, they lose the Kingdom of God and their immortality in a game of chance.

God offered life and death to man, good and evil (see Deuteronomy 30:15), so that man himself could choose and make himself this or that.

A person can descend to an animal state and rise with the help of God to an angelic state, for the seeds of a diverse life are laid in him; constantly, regularly changing world gives a person the opportunity to develop and grow according to his will.

The world could not be built according to Beautiful Arbitrariness and not have laws, if only because a person could cognize only a world in which laws exist; only in a world that developed according to laws could a person possess, only in it could a person manifest his creative abilities.

Having considered the biblical story about the creation of the world in the light of modern ideas, we did not see anything in it that contradicted science. It can be quite definitely stated that science in its development is more and more consistent with the story of Moses. His story in many details becomes clear only now: the beginning of the world, light before the Sun and stars, emphasizing the anthropological factor in the development of nature, and much more. A comparison of the latest discoveries of science with the Bible clearly shows how much the providence of the Jewish prophet rose above not only the limited ideas of the ancient peoples, but also above the views of the naturalists of modern times. For an atheist, this is an inexplicable miracle, for an anti-religious person, a fact that must be kept silent; for a Christian and a Jew this is not surprising, for for them the Bible and Nature are two books written by God, and therefore they cannot contradict one another. The imaginary contradictions between them are explained by the fact that a person incorrectly reads one of these books or both together.

Looking back at the path of knowledge of the Great Book of Nature passed by science for many centuries, we can say in the words of Einstein: “The more we read, the more fully and highly we appreciate the perfect construction of the book, although its complete solution seems to be moving away as we moving forward.”

At the very beginning of the essays, it was said that Christianity considers God the Creator to be the beginning of everything. In presenting the history of creation, we consciously tried to remain on the basis of well-established facts and generally accepted opinions in our atheistic age, contrasting them with the biblical story and not rising to theological contemplation and thought. Now, finishing this essay, it is worth, perhaps, touching them a little, at least with hints.

From the biblical story about the creation of the world, it can be seen that in the creation of the world after its creation, natural forces and natural processes acted and developed: “and the earth brought forth greenery”, “let the water bring forth reptiles”, etc. But these elements did not act arbitrarily, but upon receiving the special abilities granted to them by God: “And God said: let the earth bring forth greenery,” and she produced, “let the water bring forth reptiles,” and she produced, that is, matter did not simply develop as a result of its inherent properties , and the will of the Divine, passing from one stage to another, granted new abilities to the elements, expressing Itself in the form of natural laws, that is, laws that have retained their significance to this day. In other words, God, having created matter, did not leave it to remain in chaos, but as a wise Ruler directed the development of the Universe isolated from Him, being in this sense the Creator of everything visible and invisible.

The manifestation of the will of God is visible throughout the history of mankind, but in most cases it is expressed in the form of natural laws - imperceptible to the outside world, which does not even heed miracles, but significant for a Christian. A Christian scientist must be able to see with his mind and feel with his heart the manifestation of the Divine Will in Nature and in human history and tell about It.

“It is fitting to keep the sovereign’s secret, but it is commendable to announce the deeds of God” (Tov. 12:11).

Cm. Archpriest Gleb Kaleda. The Bible and the science of the creation of the world // Alpha and Omega. 1996. No. 2/3 (9/10). - Ss. 26–27. - Red.

In the sacred books, the word "day" is used quite often without connection with astronomical days. Jesus Christ calls the entire time of His ministry a “day.” “Abraham your father,” He says to the Jews, “was glad to see My day” (John 8:56). The Apostle Paul says: “The night has passed, and the day has drawn near; therefore let us put aside the works of darkness” (Rom. 13:12); “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). In the latter case, the day is the time after the birth of Christ. “Before your eyes,” David figuratively exclaimed in the psalm, “a thousand years are like yesterday” (Ps 89:5), and the apostle Peter wrote: “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet 3:8).

We find the same understanding of the biblical day in St. Basil the Great. In the second discourse on the Six Days, this “universal teacher,” as the Church calls him, says: “Whether you call it a day or an age, you express the same concept; whether you say that this is a day, or that this is a state, it is always one, and not many; If you call it a century, it will be unique, not multiple.”

A critical analysis of this chronology was given in 1757–1759. the founder of the Russian natural-scientific apologetics of Christianity, M. V. Lomonosov, who in his work “On the Layers of the Earth” wrote about the presence of “…implicit and dubious numbers in the Jewish Old Testament, which, like many other places in it, could not quite make out to this day the most skilful teachers of this language; and this is not the last reason that all Christian nations begin the calculation of years from the birth of Christ, leaving the ancient, as not quite definite and doubtful; moreover, there is no agreement between our Christian chronologists on this; for example, Theophilus Bishop of Antioch believes from Adam to Christ 5515 years, Augustine, 5351, Jerome 3941”.

Polyphilia- a theory according to which life (or its individual forms) could independently originate in different places. Monophyly- the theory of a single origin of life. Accordingly, the terms polygenesis and monogenesis(as well as monophyly) reflect views on the origin of mankind. - Ed.

The so-called theory of primitive (prelogical) thinking, put forward in the last century by L. Levy-Bruhl and supported by a number of ethnographers and psychologists, is based, firstly, on bias and, secondly, on insufficient knowledge of the material. The same can be said about the absolutely untenable statement according to which the languages ​​of the peoples of archaic culture lack words of abstract meaning. - Red.

The age of the Earth, according to the generally accepted scientific version, is 4.54 billion years.

When did life begin on Earth and how long will it last?

According to recent scientific studies, life appeared on Earth about 3.9 billion years ago, according to another version - about 2.7 billion years ago. According to scientists, the Earth will maintain the conditions for the existence of living organisms for another 0.5-2.3 billion years.

How does the Moon affect the Earth and why might it disappear?

The moon stabilizes the tilt of the earth's axis and gradually slows the rotation of the earth.

The moon is moving away from the earth at a rate of 4 cm per year.

According to one hypothesis, in 5 billion years, due to the influence of the Sun, the Moon will come so close to the Earth that it will be torn into pieces and dispersed, forming a grandiose ring from the debris, similar to the ring of Saturn.

How much dust from space reaches Earth?

Every year, 30,000 tons of interplanetary dust reach the Earth's surface.

Where is the hottest and coldest place on earth?

Minimum temperature on Earth: -91.2 °C. It was recorded at Vostok station in Antarctica. The maximum temperature on Earth: +56.7 ° C is recorded in Libya.

If not for the greenhouse effect, the average temperature on the planet would be -18 °C, instead of the current +15 °C.

The Earth was and can become one big continent.

About 200 million years ago, all the continents were united and made up a single supercontinent Pangea. The northern part of the vast continent - Laurasia, consisted of Eurasia and North America. The southern part included Australia, South America, Africa, Antarctica and India.

The earth's crust consists of blocks - plates that are in constant motion relative to each other. The plates of the earth's crust move at a speed of several inches per year, which is about the length of a human fingernail growing in a year. On this basis, it can be argued that in 250 million years a new supercontinent will appear on Earth.

When will the ice age start?

According to one hypothesis, between 750 and 580 million years ago, the Earth was completely covered with ice. Periods of glaciation on Earth are cyclical, they alternate with periods of warming (interglacials).

According to scientists, about 12 thousand years ago, another interglacial period began on the planet, which may end in several thousand years.

Where on earth it never rains?

The driest place on the planet is Antarctica. Technically, the definition of "desert" is given to places in which the annual rainfall is less than 254 mm. Some parts of Antarctica have not had rain for over two million years. The so-called Dry Valleys - places completely devoid of any precipitation and not covered with ice or snow, occupy 2% of the entire territory of the mainland.

The second driest place is the Chilean Atacama Desert. Some areas of the Atacama have been without rain for 400 years.

What is the strength of the earth?

The large energy of the Earth's core and magma help it hold the oceans and atmosphere. The ability of the Earth to hold an atmosphere depends on the strength of the earth's gravity and the speed of movement of air molecules. Any object that moves away from the Earth at a speed of less than 8 km / s returns to it under the influence of gravity. At a speed of 8-11 km / s, the object is launched into a near-Earth orbit, and over 11 km / s it overcomes the Earth's gravity.

About the structure of the core of our planet

Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Honorary Professor of MISiS, Johanssonis one of the authors of the theory according to which the core of the Earth is a crystal with a cubic lattice.

cubes inside

The fact that our planet has a core was established by scientists only in the 20th century. At first it was believed that the core was liquid. Then there was a version that the substance there is in an amorphous state. In 2005, it was proved that the core of the "ball" is solid, but it is surrounded by a liquid core, the radius of which is twice the radius of the moon. The composition of the solid core (according to indirect evidence, it should be dominated by iron) and its structure remained a mystery.

“It was a fundamental issue for science,” Borje Johansson told AiF. - We became interested in the phenomenon: why do waves after earthquakes reach opposite points of the planet at different speeds? In some places on the Earth it happens faster, in others - more slowly. We assumed that the matter is in the structure of the core - it changes the speed of waves passing through the "innards" of the planet. But it is impossible to recreate experimentally the conditions that exist in the core - the temperature there is the same as on the surface of the Sun, and the pressure reaches 3.7 million atmospheres. However, a computer model can be built. We made such a program and put parameters into it (temperature and pressure, the structure of the iron atom, etc.), after which we began to “let off” seismic waves. And it turned out that only one possible structure of matter meets the given conditions. All the atoms that make up the core of the Earth are ordered in the form of cells-cubes. At the top of each are iron atoms, and in the center is another atom.

What will this knowledge give us? The first is the prediction of earthquakes. Modern science claims that it is impossible to reliably name the time and place of the next cataclysm. Now it is possible to create computer models that take into account how the structure of the core affects seismic processes.

The second application is data on the Earth's magnetic field. They depend, for example, on the reliability of satellite communications and space systems, which are now “tied” to navigation, mineral exploration, weather forecasts, observation of natural processes, and much more.

"Well to Hell"

Is it possible to penetrate into the "heart of the Earth"? Most of all, Soviet geologists succeeded in this: the Kola super-deep well, the drilling of which was started in 1970, sank into the earth's crust for more than 12 kilometers. The work was intermittent, but they gave scientists valuable new information about the structure of the crust. And besides, they gave rise to mysterious legends. So, the Western press wrote that “the Russians dug a well into hell”: the drillers, having stumbled upon voids in the depths of the Earth, lowered a microphone into the well, and he recorded terrible screams and groans.

There was also an idea to use a directed nuclear explosion to penetrate the bowels. Or, for example, put a tungsten ball filled with nuclear fuel at the bottom of the well. As soon as the reaction starts, the ball will begin to melt the rock and, under its own weight, will fall to the earth's core. If you equip this probe with the necessary sensors and establish communication (which is the most difficult thing under these conditions), it will transmit invaluable information about the “stuffing” of the planet upwards.

All these projects, however, belong to the realm of fantasy. And the core of the Earth is a reality that still holds many mysteries.