Posted: Jul 31, 2010 9:01 pm
AMR wrote:tytalus: I really hope you continue this, it's really quite amusing to chronicle this ongoing defense of a simple mistake. So now we've gone from one giant impact that led to the formation of our one big moon to a bombardment. And the 'entirely molten' part has been shot down repeatedly now by the evidence of liquid water, oceans of it.
Earth today is mostly molten beneath a relatively thin crust.
Oh, we've gone from entirely to mostly! Is this like the difference between mostly dead and all dead? You are Miracle Max, aren't you? That's great, I missed having a relationship with a fictional character...
See, if you're going to characterize the earth's surface as 'entirely molten' and then equate this with 'mostly' and then equate that with the state of the earth now, then you've equated our current environment with...liquid hot magma. Man, that explains some things about creationist drek let me tell you!
Oceans can exist over a molten surface via superheating of a pressurized body of water as is the case above deep sea volcanism. And certainly the impact of a near-Mars size object would reduce most if not all of the proto-Earth's surface to a molten or semi-molten state. A surfeit of water from the oceans and the atmosphere were probably ejected into space allowing land to emerge from the depths.
Perhaps, but for a billion years? No, seriously, don't stop. This is great.
As one smaller-than-Mars impact is transmuted into a bombardment.
tytalus check out the graphic End of the Late Heavy Bombardment ca. 4 billion years ago (and note Circa "from Latin, meaning 'around'; often abbreviated c., ca., ca or cca. and sometimes italicized, means 'approximately';from the free Merriam-Webster dictionary" via wikipedia). All these dates are assumed to be understood as not spot-on precise which is how I use them myself, and your line of argumentation is tedious concerning an issue (stellar-lifetimes) which was itself a rather tangential argument by Stenger.
Bombardment!
I see more than one!