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SUPERNOVAS

DAY TWO

INTRODUCTION

On page 5, of entry Creation of the Earth 1,  I provided a tentative chronology of the beginning and end of the creational periods of the earth, which some cosmologists think may have consumed 20 billion years or more. We can plug In the new data that is certain to accumulate with the new instruments built or planning to be, including the new big one; the WEBB, or James Webb Telescope (JWST), scheduled for launch in 2021. “It will be the largest such instrument in the world,” [joining the HUBBLE, HST,] launched in 1990,” (Bell p. 496) and other great instruments including the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Kepler Space Telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Surveys, the Chandra X-Ray and the great ALMA facilities in Chile, and the Keck Observatories. The JWST was conceived in 1989, has been upgraded and modified many times, missed its launch time in 2018, and if not delayed any further will become operative in 2021.  It will also contain newly developed coronagraph equipment to study the Sun. It will take thirty days to put it 930,000 miles beyond the earth’s orbit. It has cost 10 billion so far. It “should be a spectacular astronomical discovery machine.” (Bell p. 496) There are more, these are the most importent.

NUCLEOSYNTHESIS AND SUPERNOVAE

DAY ONE was planned to create the preliminary earth on which the rest of creational activities would be built. Essential were all of the elements required for all of the varieties of life that was intended to be hosted by the earth. All Latter-Day Saints know that the earth will be celestialized and become a part of the Celestial kingdom. (D&C 88:25-26) Therefore the most careful and complete attention is given to the creation. (Abr. 4:7) Many generations of Supernovae were require for billions of years.

“The observed abundance of nuclei in stars and galaxies are thought to be the result of thermonuclear processing in previous generations of stars.  These stars are called Nova. The most spectacular example is the explosion of a star as a supernova.…other conditions may occur that are sufficiently extreme for nuclear processing for which… The ‘Big Bang;’ itself the most violent event; Seyfert galaxies and quasi-stellar objects, x-ray sources and pulsars…Nucleosynthesis is a term coined to refer to those processes by which atomic nuclei are transformed on the cosmic scale. …The nature of nucleosynthesis is deeply connected with the nature  of stellar evolution…..most of the nuclear processing occurs during the last, most extreme  conditions,  with the later and final stages of stellar evolution are of particular importance.” (Arnett pp. 2-3) This is where all the elements of the periodic table are  formed by one or the other of the explosions providing the “unorganized matter” from which a world and solar system could be formed.

The initial formation of the elements now contained in the periodic table has been summarized by seven processes: 1.) Big Bang fusion, 2.) Cosmic ray fusion, 3.) Exploding massive stars, 4.) Exploding white dwarfs, 5.) Merging neutron stars, 6.) Dying low mass stars, 7.) Very radioactive isotopes,” (Johnson pp.474-475) Johnson discusses in detail the seven processes, it is the most up- to- date discussion available, but too lengthy to be included in this summary. Day one had a lot of technical things which had to be completed.  (Johnson pp. 474-478) “And the Gods watched those things which they had ordered until they obeyed.” (Abraham 4:18)

SUPERNOVAS: GETTING THE EARTH PREPARED FOR MAN

“The Big Bang nucleosynthesis occurred in the presence of copious amounts of free neutrons, produced in collisions between high-energy protons and electrons when the Universe was 10 billion degrees Kelvin (K).  When the temperature fell to 1 billion K, those free neutrons fused easily with protons to make deuterium (He-2). Two deuterium nuclei quickly combined to make helium (He-4). Side reactions between protons, neutrons, He-4 and He-3 produced some Li-7, but nucleosynthesis, [could not take place] because the expanding Universe was cooling rapidly, halting fusion…Therefore a mixture of only hydrogen and helium was available to make the first stars…. The first star formed 100 million years after the Big Bang…Before this time the gas was not cold enough for gravity to overcome thermal pressure and collapse the gas into stars… The formation of the first stars is unlike that of all other stars.”  (Johnson p. 474)

WATER COVERED EARTH

At the end of DAY ONE the surface of the earth is covered with water. There is very little, if any, topographic features. The earth is stable with its solid “inner core, outer liquid core, lower mantle, upper mantel, oceanic crust….and magnetic field.”  (Luhr pp. 54-55) The crust or Conrad layer is not yet formed. Much more has to be done to accomplish the rest of the additions and modifictions to render it “prepared for man.”  

Notable events of Day One include: (1) “Twentieth century astronomers such as Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe [The Bubble, The Big Bang Event] is expanding by observing that the large scale structures like galaxies are all moving away from each other…the universe was smaller and that… at some point in the distant past, everything started out as a single point of space and time a ‘singularity.’ … the universe was born in a violent explosion of the singularity…. Within the first second of the universe’s existence, the temperature dropped from a I00  million billion degree to “only” 10 billion degrees, and all of the universe’s present supply of protons, hydrogen atoms, and neutrons formed out of this primordial plasma. By the time the universe was only three minutes old, helium and other light elements had been formed from hydrogen, the most abundant element within each of our bodies, hydrogen, was created in the very first second.” (Bell p. 18)   But it was not the beginning of space or of time.  The Big Bang created a finite bubble about 20 Billion light years old and expanding. We cannot see out of it, it is located in a particular place in existing space and time, in a locality in space with a complex immensity of geography that most Mormons can rehearse for any interested party. DAY TWO started about 16 billion years ago. The duration of the activity to prepare the earth lasted about 6 billion years, for the most part we only have limited data for the early part of this day.   

(2) "The early years were a time of intense heat, pressure, and radiation… All of space was bathed in the primordial light of highly ionized atoms and subatomic particles interacting, colliding, decaying,  and recombining at temperatures of millions of degrees… referred to as the radiation era. By the time the universe was 10,000 years   old…expansion …and decay of particles…cooled the cosmos to “only” 12,000 degrees K. … Still, for hundreds of thousands of years longer, the universe was essentially  just an opaque, dense, high energy soup… as expansion…cooling continued,  radiation continued to decrease… about 400,000 years the temperature had dropped to only a few thousand kelvins …low enough to allow electrons to be captured (deionized) into stable  hydrogen atoms…to form the universe’s first molecules.…[there could be no stars until after this period] …. this period is known as the recombination era. The universe grew colder and darker over the next few hundred million years, a timel… cosmologists dubbed this “the dark ages,”…The residual 3-kelvin glow of the early universe … freed radiation energy. The Cosmic Microwave Background, can still be detected today.” (Bell p. 20) It is the inside “wall” of the   bubble. It all was deliberate. Nothing was left to chance. (Abraham 4:18)

THE GALAXY AND THE HABITABLE ZONE

Stars began to form out of the clouds of hydrogen. “The first stars in the Milky Way likely began forming within 200 million years after the Big Bang. …Collisions with other galaxies …  8 billion to 10 billion years ago, before our 4.6 billion year old solar system began to form.“ (Kliesman p. 720) A lot of detail is buried in  these summaries.

“It is fairly certain that our Galaxy formed about 12-14 billion years ago, from a collapsing cloud of hydrogen… the age of the universe is probably 13-20 billion years… Between 80 and 90 percent of this gas (hydrogen) condensed into the first generation of stars within a few… hundred million years.” (Mitton p. 305) Observers are looking for evidence of the first star clusters and galaxies that started to form soon after the first stars. Our galaxy has old stars [in part of it] that are more than 13.2 billion years. Our galaxy is a fairly large one, some 100,000 light years in radius, (Bell p. 10) It would have developed a habitable zone about 8500 parsecs [one parsec is 3.26 light years] from the center of the galaxy, (Bok pp. 24-25) as it merged with small galaxies and clusters, where the sun, moon, and earth could be put together in the Solar System, on the third Day. ”One of the oldest known stars  in the universe is hiding out in the Milky Way, some 2,000 light years from earth…the 13.5 billion year old red dwarf is just one seventh the  mass of the Sun and contains barely any heavy elements…As some of the first stars exploded  as supernova they spewed the metals [any element heavier than helium] created  in their cores into space, helping form the next batch of slightly more metal rich stars….this  puny size of the old, metal- poor star, named 2 MASS J18082002-5104378-0 is intriguing ….this star is [unique] as  it had but only one ancestor separating it and the beginning of everything.” (J.P.(A) p. 12) As scientists began to “study and categorize galaxies, they discovered four main types, with one of them—spiral—divided into two subgroups…some 46 % are barred [which is what our galaxy is] and another 24 % are normal spirals; the lenticular type are 15 %, the elliptical 10 % and the irregular type is 5 % …Scientists now think that the universe contains 2 trillion galaxies.” (M.E.B. p. 16) If there is but one world in each galaxy, we can easily say of God ‘How Great Thou Art.’  The present search for other planets is a serious one.

DAY TWO

DAY ONE started at the BIG BANG and had about a 4 billion year duration. DAY TWO started 16 billion years ago and it had about a 6 billion year duration, ending about 10 billion years ago.  DAY THREE started 10 billion years ago and it had a 7.25 billion year duration, ending about 2.25 billion years ago. By the end of the Second day, the earth will have some of its crust organized which went through many cycles of mountain and continental building.  By end of the duration of DAY TWO water will cover 71 % of the earth surface, the rest will be dry land. “Liquid water accounts for only about 0.12 % of earth’s total volume. Our planet …is actually pretty desiccated. Ice accounts for less than 2 percent of earth’s total water.” (J.P. p. 10) At least seven continents will be created. They will constitute the seven plates that will persist throi ugh time. They will be  modified until they begin to look like the configuration reached at the present.  DAY THREE activities will persist in general outline until the present. Carefully monitored by the Gods.      

In the Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar, next to an Egyptian symbol there is the notation: “Zub Zool eh-In, In the beginning of the earth or creation” (Smith p. 21) and  Zub Zool-oan-eh  in the beginning of the earth. (Smith p. 22)  The ancients  had the details.

SUNLIGHT 

“The chemical composition of the Sun and bright nebulae is revealed by  analysis of their light, using spectroscopy. Taken as a whole they  prepared the so-called “present cosmic abundances,” (Ridpath p. 67) so they can make comparisons. (Mitton p. 121-123) “Although the Earth, Moon, and meteorites lack the light gases, hydrogen and helium predominant elsewhere in space, the abundance of their other heavier elements is remarkably similar to that in the Sun and other young stars. The oldest stars in our Galaxy are, however, deficient in element heavier than helium. These stars often have a thousandth the heavy elements that the sun has, and also slightly less helium. Since the surface layers of a star retain the cosmic abundance of the time at which it formed it seems that the Milky Way originally condensed from a cloud of only hydrogen and helium.  All other heavier elements and some additional hydrogen have been produced by nuclear-fusion in stars and have been scattered throughout interstellar space by Nova and Supernova explosions. Subsequent generations of stars condensing from this gas are therefore progressively more enriched in the Heavy elements.” (Ridpath pp 67-68)

CREATION OF HELIUM

“The helium present when the Milky Way formed (about 80 percent of the amount now observed) was produced from hydrogen in the very hot and dense early universe, only 100 seconds after the Big Bang in which the Universe originated. Deuterium (heavy hydrogen) can only have been formed in the Big Bang, since it reacts to form helium during formation of stars. Lithium, beryllium, and boron are also destroyed in stars, and so are very rare in space. These three elements seem to be formed when carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen nuclei are broken up by very fast Cosmic Ray particles. (a process called Spallation).” (Ridpath pp. 68, 192) The most abundant gas in our atmosphere is Nitrogen.

DRY LAND APPEARS and THE WATERS ARE WITHDRAWN

29 percent of the surface of the surface of the earth emerged from the waters as dry land.  Then vast mountain ranges are formed, large rivers and small streams carve away at the land. For nearly four billion years the earth goes through cycles of great uplifts, tectonic extremes and the earth is fractured into the plates that divided the land into essentially its present configurations. Horrendous erosion occur; So far on the present surface of the earth remnant sediments and accumulations of rock debris from this early period of time have not been found. Five thousand feet below the surface in the  Grand Canyon some sediments 400 million years old have exposed rocks less than 2 billion years old were included in the processes of land modifications about when the solar system and complex atmosphere were formed; that included the moon, tides, chemical and other forms of erosion;  redeposition, and uplift, are found in Australia, Africa, Canada, Scotland where mountain building around the world, persisted;  a process known as orogenesis, first recognized in Scotland. (Luhr p. 156) But they are all less than 2 billion years old. Of special interest,  however are the ”hydrocarbon residues in metamorphosed sedimentary rocks in Greenland which date from about 3.8 Billion years ago.” (Luhr p. 27) Which will be discussed in DAY THREE of the Creation. 

GONDWANA-OROGENESIS    

The Earth’s continents are constantly reconfigured by movements of crustal plates, with new oceans opening and the subduction of the old ocean floor. During the Paleozoic, most continents were joined to form the supercontinent called Gondwana. Over time, this drifted north from the southern hemisphere to form the even larger supercontinent of Pangaea, in which by the end of the Paleozoic stretched from pole to pole. (Lurh p. 28) 6

“Mountains and rock masses  have been elevated….mostly by the Earth’s plate-tectonic processes…boundaries of plates may be divergent [such as  the Atlantic Ridge] or convergent …[such as  India Plates thrust up over the China Plate to create mountain ranges  30,000 feet  high],  continental, oceanic, or of differing types,  {and then further modified by] forces of weathering and erosion.” (Luhr p. 154) “The earth’s crust can be subject to large-scale movements without extensive deformation and folding trends are referred to as epeirogenic movement. These events can be either upward or downward to form  domes or plateaus. These events tend to be gradual and usually affect large regions such as the Colorado Plateau…an area of 15,500 square miles …cut off from the Great Plains  by the Rocky Mountains….stable for for at least 500 million years, [it took more than  4 million years to cut a mile deep canyon into the rocks of the Plateau; and then things became quiet, in the past one million years the river has only cut 50 feet]. …plate movements have produced innumerable episodes of mountain building around the world, a process known as orogenesis. The resulting linear arrays of mountains are called orogenic belts.“  (Luhe p. 156)

THE LITHOSPHERE                            

“The “outer rock layer of the Earth is called the lithosphere…broken into seven large, continent-sized tectonic plates and about a dozen                                          much smaller plates [that] fit together like a jigsaw puzzle and cover the entire surface of the earth.…shuffled around, oceans have opened and closed, and mountains and volcanoes have formed. Seven …plates, which are up to 60 miles …thick, cover 29 % of the Earth….were once part of ancient Pangaea. The Pacific Plate is by far the largest at 12  million square miles. Is followed in size by the African plate; the Eurasian Plate, which includes  Europe and Asia, the Australian Plate; the North American Plate, Antarctica  and the South American Plate. The remaining surface areas are accounted for by about a dozen much smaller plates…. Plate size is constantly changing [by] processes occurring at the plate boundaries; Including, volcanoes, subduction, mountain building; earthquakes and erosion” (Luhr pp.106-110) The seven plates occupy 94 % of the land   ”They are known to be in constant motion shifting by up to 6 inches each year….Radio telescope arrays are helping to provide data about the movement of tectonic plates that is accurate to a fraction of an inch.”(Luhr p. 107)  The plates are important for the reason, in part,  they outline the cultural and ethnic divisions of the earth. (TC)

Although the mantle is solid. It is not completely rigid. The outermost layer, the lithosphere is between 70 and 100 km thick and has considerable strength, but below this is a weaker lawyer called the asthenosphere, which extends to a depth of a few hundred kilometers. Geophysicists believe that the material of this layer can flow (because of the temperature and pressure) and that there are convection currents which carry some of the outward flow to the Earth’s heat.... The mantle below the Asthenosphere, the Mesosphere, is thought to have appreciable strength, like the lithosphere neither of these layers exhibits convection…Sometime in the past there was a single continent called Pangaea, which split into two parts, Laurasia and Gondwanaland. These drifted apart and subsequently broke themselves up to have the present day northern and southern continents respectively. This whole process is called continental drift.  Permanent magnetism of the rocks which show that in many places there has been a substantial change in latitude since the rocks were laid down. There is also the existence of coal deposits, which form in tropical areas, in the now frozen wastes of Antarctica.…In other places the subduction zone is under the ocean and a string of volcanic islands is formed such as the Aleutian, Kurile, Japanese and Marianas islands in the Northwest Pacific.” (Mitton pp. 175-181) “Well defined zones of seismic and volcanic activity are distributed along the current plate boundaries.” (Luhr p. 108) The plates have had a great, continuing influence on the happenings on the earth since they were formed in the duration of the second day.

The earth deforming activity continues to the present.  There are more  than forty mountain ranges today  with that many or more  great mountains. (Luhr pp. 154-171)  At least 60 major volcanoes dot the earth, (Luhr pp. 172-193) along with 115 igneous dike and sill features,  (Luhr pp. 194-200) and sixteen major fault systems,  (Luhr pp. 142-153; 201-209) putting twenty five of the world’s great cities at risk. There are also eighteen major geyser systems showing-off their linkage with hot convection areas of the underlying earth’s crust. (Luhr pp. 201-209) There are countless rivers, streams and lakes, and several deserts and dune areas. These features also serve to divide the ethnic and cultural diversity or peoples of the earth. Most of these features have been in place and with little change for the past 1.7 billion years.  

There are several other things required that DAY THREE will provide, including the addition of the moon with its varying influence, such as tides, and fine tuning the atmosphere to make sure we have a 21 % oxygen content. 

                                                 BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARNETT, David, Supernovae and Nucleosynthesis,  Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1996

BELL, Jim, The Space Book, Sterling, New York, 2013

BOK, Bart J., & Priscilla Bok. The Milky Way, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1981

J.P. (A) Ancient Star Found in Milky Way, Astronomy, March, 2019

J.P.  The Earth the Not so Watery World, Astronomy, April 2019

KLESMAN. Allson, Astronomy , April, 2019

SMITH, Joseph, Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar, Modern Microfilm Co., Salt Lake City., Utah, 1955

LUHR, James E., Earth, DK Press, Smithsonian Institution, 2003

M.E.B, Galaxy Percentages, Astronomy,  April, 2019  

MITTON, Simon, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1978

RIDPATH, Ian, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Space,  Thomas  Y. Crowell Co., New York, 1976