CELESTIAL INTERVIEWS

WITH
NITESH PANDEY
interview no. 2: Mother earth
Nitesh: Dear Earth, thank you so much for coming. You are
the first lady whom we have selected for this celestial
celebrity interview series.

Earth: I am honoured Nitesh. I am really grateful for this

gesture of yours. It is so good to see that you are not biased
towards men when it comes to Science. I am sure you know
that during the first Solvay conference it was only Albert
Einstein who talked to Marie Curie and rest of them just
ignored her because they thought a woman has no place in
serious science. There are many other stories of the
injustice done to women scientists and especially the most
notable ones are of Rosalind Franklin, Lisa Meitner and
Hilde Mangold.

Nitesh: I completely agree with your point on the Scientific

Community being gender biased earlier. I think that now we
do not have that issue anymore as our society now believes
in giving equal opportunity to everyone who deserves
irrespective of their gender.
Earth: Yeah I do see some improvement there Nitesh.

Nitesh: By they way Earth, How are you doing? Is

everything fine with you? And I must tell you that you are
very beautiful.

Earth: Thanks for the complement Nitesh. I am beautiful

indeed.

As far as my well-being is concerned then I would say that

my oceans are getting too acidified and my entire aquatic
ecosystem is endangered. I am very rapidly losing my
Ozone layer, my Carbon dioxide levels have sky-rocketed
and last but not the least several of my species are getting
extinct since last 100 years. I am sure this is not really a
good thing.

And the worst part is that you guys just don’t care as I heard
recently that Donald Trump denied participating in the
upcoming Climate change meeting in Paris. This is just
ridiculous Nitesh.
Nitesh: I am really embarrassed Earth. I sincerely
apologise on behalf of my species. Regarding Donald
Trump, I would say that the Universe is made up of
Electrons, Protons, Neutrons, and Morons. Mr Trump
belongs to the last category.

Earth: Hahahaha….that's good one Nitesh.

Nitesh: Earth, I am curious about your Birth. I also

wanted to know your exact age as it is very much
related to the origin of life and its subsequent evolution
to Humans.

Earth: Nitesh, I guess you know it is not appropriate to

ask ladies about their age. Anyways, I am just 3.65
billion years old.
Nitesh: Holy shit….I can’t believe that you also acting like
typical women. I have read research papers and I am sure
that you are at least 4.54 Billion years old. Siddha Sidha ek
billion year kam kar diya.

Earth: Faltu me Popat ho gaya. I should have known that it

is no more a stone age and any info is just a google away.
Scew arry and Lergei. Kuch bhi chhupana muskil hai inke
Google ki wajah se.

Nitesh: Earth, Sarry aur Lergei nahi they are Larry Page
and Sergei Brin. Koi bat nahi Galti ho jaati hai. Now can you
please tell me about how exactly you were born? I mean ke
normal delivery thi ya cesarian tha ?

Earth: Very funny Nitesh. Aesa Kuch bhi nahi tha. Mere
birth ki story is quite relevant to the story of Bhaijaan.

Nitesh: He Bhagwaan kahi ap bhi Salman Khan ki fan to

nahi. Agar aesa hai to ye interview abhi ke abhi band karna
padega.
Earth: Are Bhaijaan matlab Bajrangi bhaijaan nahi kutreya.
Mera matlab sun se tha. We all hate Salman khan. Dobara
naam mat lena uska verna jaan se mar dungi. Yanna
Rascala, Mind it.

Me: Matlab ke ap Rajni sir ki fan ho. Kya bat hai. I am also a
huge fan of him.

Earth: Maine aur Venus ne Sivaji the Boss seven times

dekhi hai. Robot 2. to pura solar system ek sath dekhne
wala hai. Ooooo….I can’t wait for his movie.

Nitesh: The movie has Akshay Kumar too and yes I am also
eagerly waiting for the movie. Now let us come to the point
of your birth. I would love to know about the process of
your formation. In detail obviously.

Earth: Oh yes…accha hua yaad dilaya. Me actually Rajni ke

sir ke sath blackhole wale hotel me date imagine kar rahi
thi. Thik hai. As far as the story about my birth is
concerned then I would say it is still not clear. What we
have is some models that exlpain my formation.
First, by the best estimates it occurred over 4 billion years
ago before any life appeared. So there are no eyewitness
accounts and other pieces of evidence. The best we can do
is look at the geologic record and the stars to get our
answers. While we may not have the entire picture we
have a good idea and it all starts with how stars are born.

Just like my own formation and other planets stars take a

long time to be born. Stars are essentially formed from
clouds of gas in space. We know these as nebulas. You can
basically consider them to be star forges. Over time gravity
causes the atoms of gases and space dust to start coming
together. Over time this gather of gases gains more mass
and with it also gains stronger gravity. This is a process that
can take millions of years. In time the gravity causes the
gases, mainly hydrogen to fuse in a nuclear reaction and a
star is formed.

I was mainly formed from the leftover of material that

formed Sun. We are almost a Stellar Kachra. The Sun like
a bhukkad Khumbhakaran ate up more than 99% of the
nebula material.
The remnant dust and gas leftover after the formation of
Sun formed rocks under the influence of gravity. Many of
such rocks were constantly colliding during that violent
phase of our solar system. In some collisions, rocks would
just turn into pieces but in certain collisions, the rocks
might just stick and form a bigger one. This process of two
rocks sticking to form a bigger one is called as Accretion.
With more such collisions this rocks would grow bigger
and form planetesimals. Planetesimals were very common
those days and were also the building blocks of our solar
system. When many such planetesimals combine or stick
together under the influence of gravity, they would form a
protoplanet. Once a protoplanet reaches a critical mass it
would start attracting other rocks rapidly from its
surrounding to form a mature planet. To ye thi mere janma
ki kahaani Nitesh. We are still not sure if this what exactly
happened but this is something best we know so far.

Nitesh: That is kind of really interesting. I guess this is

called the Core Accretion Model and this model does not
explain the formation of giant planets like Jupiter.
Earth: Nitesh, You need not show off by using technical
jargon. I am not using this words so that even the kids can
enjoy this interview. Hoshiyaari marna band karo. Tum
Scientist hoge apne ghar pe.
Yes this model does not clearly explains the formation of
giant planet as it seems it would have taken much longer
time to gather mass from the surrounding gases for Jupiter
and Saturn to become as big as they seem today. We have
one model called as Disk Instability model which kinds
addresses some of the issues with Core Accretion model.

Nitesh: Now this was kind of superb information. I just

loved it. Disk Instability Model. Accha hai.....

Earth: I would like to add one very important point here.

One of the reasons that I could support life today is
because of that specific region where I was formed in Solar
system. A bit nearer to Sun or a bit farther from it would
have lead to a very different version of mine. I can
definitely tell you that I would not have been able to
support life in that case.
Nitesh: You mean the exact region where you were formed
from the planetesimals is very unique. I would like to know
more. Can you please go into exact details? I would be
really grateful and so will be my readers.

Earth: I will tell you for sure but you will also have to fulfill
one wish of mine.

Nitesh: Why not? Please tell me.

Earth: Anyhow fix my date with Rajni sir.

Nitesh: Hmmmmm….. thik hai. I will do that. Now will you

please go into the intricate details of your birth.

Earth: Here you go…. The accretion process accumulated

solids from the nebula, but the composition of solid dust,
rocks, and planetesimals in the nebula differ with distance
from the sun. At Earth’s distance from the center of the
solar nebula, the temperature was too high for abundant
carbon, nitrogen, or water to be bound in solid materials
that could combine to form planetesimals and planets.
Ice and carbon/nitrogen-rich solids were too volatile and
had no means of efficiently forming solids in the warm
inner regions of the nebula. Thus Earth has only trace
amounts of these volatile components, compared to bodies
that formed farther from the sun. An excellent example is
the case of the carbonaceous meteorites, thought to be
samples of typical asteroids formed between Mars and
Jupiter. These bodies contain up to 20% water (in hydrous
minerals similar to talc) and up to 4% carbon. The bulk of
Earth, by comparison, is only 0.1% water and 0.05% carbon.
Had Earth formed from materials similar those in the
asteroid belt, farther from the Sun, its ocean could have
been hundreds of kilometers deep, and its carbon content
would have been higher by many orders of magnitude.
Both of these aspects would have resulted in a planet
totally covered by water and with vast amounts of CO2 in
its atmosphere. The resulting greenhouse heating would
have produced Venus-like surface temperatures of
hundreds of degrees Celsius, and the surface would have
been too hot for the complex organic molecules used by
living organisms to survive.
Such a planet could have developed more Earth-like
conditions only if cataclysmic changes had resulted in the
loss to space of most of its oceans and most of its carbon
dioxide, and this seems highly unlikely. With even twice as
much water, Earth would have ended up as an abyssal
planet entirely covered with deep blue water—a true
“water world”—and very few nutrients would have been
available in the energy rich surface waters of the ocean.

Nitesh: I guess you are referring to the rare Earth

hypothesis here.

Earth: Kya bat hai. You know about the rare Earth
hypothesis. That’s so wonderful. I am sure then you know
the origin of life and its evolution to intelligent life forms is
result of so many rare events. This is the very reason I feel
that you Humans must take very good care of mine. You
guys are so selfish and careless.

Nitesh: to ap sara dosh mujhpar kyo daal rahe ho.

erations.
Earth: Kyu ki tum hi ho mere saamne tum hi ho. Humanity
ke representative ab tum hi ho. Are bhai mere samne tum
ho to tumko hi bolungi na. Ab chhota bheem aur doremon
ko thodi bolungi ye sab.

Nitesh: You are right Earthy. Now, would you please

enlighten us with the details of the rare Earth hypothesis.

Earth: Ab itna gidgida rahe ho to kya karu. See whenever

we look for life beyond Earth we look for water. This is
speculated from whether the planet is in it’s Goldilock
zone or not. The goldilocks can certainly tell us if there will
be any water on the surface of the planet. As far as the
possibilities of life on any new planet are concerned we
must also know about its atmoshpheric composition as
well as a strong energy source required to sustain life. This
will still improve the chances of that planet to harbour
microscopic life but when it comes to speculations about
advance civilisations we must take numerous factors into
considerations. Here are those factors.
1. Right distance from star
Habitat for complex life. Liquid water near surface. Far
enough to avoid tidal lock.

2. Right planetary mass

Retain atmosphere and ocean. Enough heat for plate
tectonics. Solid/molten core.

3. Plate tectonics
CO2–silicate thermostat. Build up land mass. Enhance
biotic diversity. Enable magnetic field.

4. Right mass of star

Long enough lifetime. Not too much ultraviolet.

5. Jupiter-like neighbor
Clear out comets and asteroids. Not too close, not too far.

6. Ocean
Not too much. Not too little.
7. Stable planetary orbits
Giant planets do not create orbital chaos.

8. A Mars like neighbour

Small neighbor as possible life source to seed Earth-like
planet, if needed.

9. Large Moon
Right distance. Stabilizes tilt.

Itne sare factors jab ek saath sahi baithe tab jaake I am able
to support advance life forms. I am sure that now it is clear
to you that it is not only Goldilock zone but numerous
factors which must me in place for microscopic life to
evolve into a modern civilization.

Nitesh: That was eye opening Earth. I had no idea that there
are so many rare events and factors playing role behind
the origin and sustenance of life. But can you please
elaborate on each of these points.
Earth: Ek jhaapad khich ke marungi na to mundi niche gir
ke ghumegi. Kitna Elaborate karu. Jaake book padh lena.
This awesome book is written by Peter Ward and Donald
Brownlee. Padh ke tumhara dil garden garden ho jayega.

Nitesh: Chalo aap keh rahe ho to acchi hi hogi.

I also wanted to know about the formation of various layers
of yours. I guess they are very important part of your
identity.

Earth: Ok…So you want to know about my geological

anatomy.

Nitesh: That is a good word. As far as I know, you were very

hot during the initial years of your life and formation and
that was an important factor in the making you what you
are today.
Earth: Yes, Me paida hi hot hui thi

Nitesh: Don’t tell me, Aapne “Humpti Sharma ki

Dulhaniya” Dekhi hai.

Earth: Oh yes, kitni bar. Me aur Venus aju baju me hi hai

isliye hamne sath me bht baar dekhi hai. We just love
Varun Dhawan.

Nitesh: I am a fan of Varun Dhawan too. I love his role in

Badlapur.

Earth: Yes..that was a good movie and the role was certainly
challenging for Protostar like Varun.

Nitesh: Protostar?

Earth: I mean he is not a mature or rather superstar like

SRK. I think protostar is a perfect term from celestial
dictionary to describe a newcomer like Varun
Nitesh: Would you like to share something more about
yourself Earth.

Earth: Sure Nitesh. As I told you earlier that I was formed

from collision and later sticking or accretion of rocks. After
the formation of protoplanet phase, the heavy metals rush
to the core because of gravity. Elements like Iron and
Nickel deposited in the centre to form solid core. The same
elements form the outer molten core which exists in liquid
state.

Nitesh: For the outer core to exist in the molten state there
must be source of such intense heat. How do you get such
hot?

Earth: During my formation lot of rocks that I engulfed

contained Radioactive elements like Uranium. The
radioactive decay of these elements produce significant
amount of heat within the core.

Nitesh: Ohk…Now it get it.

This means that Radioactive elements were one crucial
component for the formation of various layers of yours.

Earth: Above the liquid outer core I have a layer called

Mantle. The interior of Earth, similar to the other
terrestrial planets, is divided into layers of different
composition. The mantle is a layer between the crust and
the outer core. Earth's mantle is a silicate rocky shell with
an average thickness of 2,886 kilometres (1,793 mi). The
mantle makes up about 84% of Earth's volume.[14] It is
predominantly solid but in geological time it behaves as a
very viscous fluid. The mantle encloses the hot core rich in
iron and nickel, which makes up about 15% of Earth's
volume.

Nitesh: I guess you have discussed all the layers that you
are composed of.

Earth: I am yet to talk about my uppermost layer called as

Crust lekin I am getting late for something very important.
Nitesh: Kyu kya hua

Earth: Pluto ko dekhne ke liye dusre Galaxy se ladkiwaale

aa rahe hai. Bichare ko jabse planet ki category se nikala
hai uska bhaav gir gaya hai.

Nitesh: Matlab ke arrange marriage hai. Rista kiske

reference se aaya hai.

Earth: are Jupiter ka moon hai na Europa. To Europa ki girl

friend ke mama ke bête ke dost ki bahen hai.

Nitesh: Ohkk… ab pata chala dusre galaxy se rista kaise aa

raha hai.

Earth: Tum jyada interest mat lo tumhari ho chuki hai.

Chalo milte hai. Ao kabhi haweli par.
Nitesh: Haan pakka aunga Haweli par lekin jab tak aap
mjhe origin of life ke baare me kuch nahi batate I am not
gonna allow you to leave this interview.

Earth: Nitesh, Please try to understand that I am going for

some really important work. I have to go.

Nitesh: No, I just cannot let you go. Please tell me

something about origin of life. Please, Please, Please

Earth: No

Nitesh: Aapko Rajni sir ki kasam.

Earth: Ok...Ok. Tell me what do you exactly want to know

about origin of life.

Nitesh: Wow....ab aayi Earth pahad ke niche. I always had

this question ke what is the exact difference between a
matter that is living and one that is non-living.
Earth: Ok...I am gonna give you that answer with an excerpt
from an article published in Quanta Magazine. Here it is:

Why does life exist?

Popular hypotheses credit a primordial soup, a bolt of

lightning and a colossal stroke of luck. But if a provocative
new theory is correct, luck may have little to do with it.
Instead, according to the physicist proposing the idea, the
origin and subsequent evolution of life follow from the
fundamental laws of nature and “should be as
unsurprising as rocks rolling downhill.”

From the standpoint of physics, there is one essential

difference between living things and inanimate clumps of
carbon atoms: The former tend to be much better at
capturing energy from their environment and dissipating
that energy as heat. Jeremy England, a 31-year-old assistant
professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
has derived a mathematical formula that he believes
explains this capacity.
The formula, based on established physics, indicates that when
a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like
the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like
the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure
itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could
mean that under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires
the key physical attribute associated with life.

“You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light
on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get
a plant,” England said.

England’s theory is meant to underlie, rather than replace,

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, which
provides a powerful description of life at the level of genes and
populations. “I am certainly not saying that Darwinian ideas are
wrong,” he explained. “On the contrary, I am just saying that
from the perspective of the physics, you might call Darwinian
evolution a special case of a more general phenomenon.”
His idea, detailed in a recent paper and further elaborated in a
talk he is delivering at universities around the world, has
sparked controversy among his colleagues, who see it as either
tenuous or a potential breakthrough, or both.

England has taken “a very brave and very important step,” said
Alexander Grosberg, a professor of physics at New York
University who has followed England’s work since its early
stages. The “big hope” is that he has identified the underlying
physical principle driving the origin and evolution of life,
Grosberg said.

“Jeremy is just about the brightest young scientist I ever came

across,” said Attila Szabo, a biophysicist in the Laboratory of
Chemical Physics at the National Institutes of Health who
corresponded with England about his theory after meeting him
at a conference. “I was struck by the originality of the ideas.”
Others, such as Eugene Shakhnovich, a professor of chemistry,
chemical biology and biophysics at Harvard University, are not
convinced. “Jeremy’s ideas are interesting and potentially
promising, but at this point are extremely speculative,
especially as applied to life phenomena,” Shakhnovich said.
England’s theoretical results are generally considered valid.
It is his interpretation — that his formula represents the
driving force behind a class of phenomena in nature that
includes life — that remains unproven. But already, there are
ideas about how to test that interpretation in the lab.

“He’s trying something radically different,” said Mara

Prentiss, a professor of physics at Harvard who is
contemplating such an experiment after learning about
England’s work. “As an organizing lens, I think he has a
fabulous idea. Right or wrong, it’s going to be very much
worth the investigation.”

At the heart of England’s idea is the second law of

thermodynamics, also known as the law of increasing
entropy or the “arrow of time.” Hot things cool down, gas
diffuses through air, eggs scramble but never spontaneously
unscramble; in short, energy tends to disperse or spread out
as time progresses.
Entropy is a measure of this tendency, quantifying how
dispersed the energy is among the particles in a system, and
how diffuse those particles are throughout space. It increases
as a simple matter of probability: There are more ways for
energy to be spread out than for it to be concentrated. Thus,
as particles in a system move around and interact, they will,
through sheer chance, tend to adopt configurations in which
the energy is spread out. Eventually, the system arrives at a
state of maximum entropy called “thermodynamic
equilibrium,” in which energy is uniformly distributed. A cup
of coffee and the room it sits in become the same
temperature, for example. As long as the cup and the room
are left alone, this process is irreversible. The coffee never
spontaneously heats up again because the odds are
overwhelmingly stacked against so much of the room’s
energy randomly concentrating in its atoms.
Although entropy must increase over time in an isolated or
“closed” system, an “open” system can keep its entropy low
— that is, divide energy unevenly among its atoms — by
greatly increasing the entropy of its surroundings. In his
influential 1944 monograph “What Is Life?” the eminent
quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger argued that this is
what living things must do. A plant, for example, absorbs
extremely energetic sunlight, uses it to build sugars, and
ejects infrared light, a much less concentrated form of
energy. The overall entropy of the universe increases during
photosynthesis as the sunlight dissipates, even as the plant
prevents itself from decaying by maintaining an orderly
internal structure.

Life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, but

until recently, physicists were unable to use
thermodynamics to explain why it should arise in the first
place. In Schrödinger’s day, they could solve the equations of
thermodynamics only for closed systems in equilibrium.
In the 1960s, the Belgian physicist Ilya Prigogine made
progress on predicting the behavior of open systems weakly
driven by external energy sources (for which he won the 1977
Nobel Prize in chemistry). But the behavior of systems that
are far from equilibrium, which are connected to the outside
environment and strongly driven by external sources of
energy, could not be predicted.

The complete article can be read at:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-physics-
theory-of-life/

Some important links for you to know more about Earth: