By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
The Earth is a very privileged planet. The specific conditions that allow for complex life to exist on Earth are extremely rare and finely tuned, arguing that it was designed to support life.
None of the other known planets meets any of the main conditions required for long-term life. Most do not meet even a single important requirement. The closest is Mars, but less than half of the atmospheric conditions required for life are met.
Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has the enormous amount of water required to sustain life for centuries.
For this reason, Earth is called “the water planet.” It is also the only planet in our solar system where large amounts of water can exist simultaneously as a solid, liquid, and gas.
The part of the atmosphere where most life on Earth exists, the troposphere, consists of 21% molecular oxygen (O2) and 78% molecular nitrogen (N2).
The remaining one percent consists of carbon dioxide, argon, water vapor, and trace amounts of helium, methane, radon, nitrous oxide, and neon.
An atmosphere of pure oxygen could not support plants or other life forms that require carbon dioxide (CO2). Plants and other life-forms produce oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis.
Therefore, the insects and animals that depend on plants and the oxygen they produce could not exist. Ice core analysis of the O2 and CO2 ratios has been consistent for close to 6,000 years.
The ratio has recently changed only slightly due to the Industrial Revolution, which has resulted in the release of enormous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. This change was judged by climatology scientists as potentially having catastrophic long-term effects.
Even minor changes in the oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide concentrations will have catastrophic effects on life on Earth.
A higher oxygen level would result in both far more common and more intense fires. The higher the oxygen level, the hotter the fire.
Fires can be produced that are so hot that they can melt steel. A higher oxygen level would also kill living organisms that rely on nitrogen and carbon dioxide for metabolic processes.
Conversely, if a slightly lower amount of free oxygen existed on Earth, fire would not be possible. Earth is the only known planet where fire can occur.
Fire is necessary to heat homes, cook food, liquify glass and steel, burn gasoline to power automobiles and jet aircraft, and cause many of the chemical reactions used in industry.
Earth’s atmosphere is a multi-layered cake. To support life, the atmosphere must consist of several layers, each of which has a critical function required to support life.
The first layer is the troposphere, the ground-hugging layer we live in where weather phenomena like clouds, rain, and snow occur. It has the densest layer of gases and contains most of the atmosphere’s mass and water vapor.
The next layer, the stratosphere, contains ozone (O3), which is required for life. The ozone layer protects life on Earth by absorbing a large portion of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation, particularly UVB.
UVB causes sunburns, skin cancer, eye cataracts, damages crops, and kills microorganisms. It also affects both our ecosystems and food chain.
Sunlight also plays a key role in ozone formation. Oxygen accumulates in the atmosphere, and a portion is converted into ozone by the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation.
The next layer, the mesosphere, is where most meteors burn up, creating the streaks of light we see in the night sky called “shooting stars.”
If this layer did not exist, Earth would be bombarded with thousands of meteors, creating a cratered surface like that on the Moon.
The Moon’s many surface craters are a result of the fact that the Moon lacks an atmosphere, particularly the mesosphere.
Above the mesosphere is the thermosphere, where the aurorae (the northern and southern lights) occur. The next layer of the atmosphere is the ionosphere, which is not a distinct layer but a region.
Without this layer, high-frequency radio communications, including AM radio, shortwave radio, and certain satellite communications, would be severely disrupted, or not even possible.
The last layer, the exosphere, is where satellites orbit. This layer contains very few particles, a condition critical to satellite placement. It gradually thins out as we move farther into outer space.
Another system crossing parts of the atmosphere is the lines of Earth’s magnetic field called the magnetosphere. Without this protection system, life could not exist on Earth.
Earth has the strongest magnetosphere of all the rocky planets, achieving the greatest protection level. Earth’s magnetosphere is a vast, comet-shaped bubble that produces the solar wind that deflects dangerous cosmic rays traveling at one million miles per hour.
Because all five layers of the atmosphere must exist for Earth to sustain life, it is reasonable to conclude that Earth was originally created as a functional system designed to support life.
To live, Adam must have been created as a fully functioning adult. He could not have been created a few parts at a time, which are then assembled into a man. Likewise, as Adam, the Earth could not have evolved; instead, it was created to be inhabited.
Isaiah 45:18 says, “Thus says the Lord God; He created the Earth to be inhabited.” And, as atmospheric science has now conclusively shown, the Earth is the only planet in our solar system, and as far as we know elsewhere, that can be inhabited by life.
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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,800 publications in 12 languages and 60 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,500 college libraries in 27 countries. All 60 of Bergman’s books are on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other bookstores.