Oct 30 2008
A Bare Planet
The above pic is of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s Moons.
While traveling the desert regions of the Southwestern U.S., I first realized that my view of planet Earth was superficial. Yes, there is a complex and fascinating fabric of growth carpeting much of it. But scrape away the scraggly growth and you are left with a naked planet, a huge lump of minerals, solid at the surface, molten down below.
Biological life is but a veneer on Earth, sometimes distracting us from the truth of rock. What is our planet? A rock plus a little bit of a lot of other stuff.
Third rock from the sun, indeed. Actually, make that third rock from a sun. One sun among billions and billions.
[photo thanks to Astronomy Picture of the Day]
