# The Privileged Planet: Designed for Discovery with Jay Richards - Part 4

An episode of [Bible Answer Man Podcast with Hank Hanegraaff](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/569236334), 9 Jul 2026, 28 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72840256/bam20260709.mp3

On today’s Bible Answer Man broadcast (07/09/26), we pick up where we ended on our previous broadcast and present more of an episode of the Hank Unplugged podcast. Hank is talking with Dr. Jay Richards, co-author of the 20th Anniversary Updated and Revised edition of The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery. Hank and Dr. Richards discuss the importance of our atmosphere and water, whether we should all be driving electric cars, how the earth compares to the thousands of other planets that have been discovered thus far, the role other planets play in our survival, if the sun is mediocre like some famous scientists claim, and how important our place is in the Milky Way galaxy.

## Transcript

[0:07] Speaker 1: From the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. This
[0:11] Speaker 1: is the Bible answer Man Broadcast with Hank Canigraph. We're
[0:15] Speaker 1: on the air because truth matters, Life matters. More on
[0:20] Speaker 1: today's special edition of The Bible answer Man. We pick
[0:23] Speaker 1: up where we ended on our previous broadcast and present
[0:27] Speaker 1: more of an episode of the Hank Unplugged podcast. Hank
[0:30] Speaker 1: is talking with philosopher Jay Richards, co author of the
[0:34] Speaker 1: twentieth anniversary updated and revised edition of The Privileged Planet.
[0:40] Speaker 1: How our place in the cosmos is designed for discovery.
[0:44] Speaker 1: Let's now join Hank Canagraph and Jay Richards in their conversation.
[0:49] Speaker 2: Our atmosphere, which is another kind of feature of the
[0:52] Speaker 2: same life, is going to need a nitrogen and auctionen
[0:55] Speaker 2: rich atmosphere. There's lots of choices, they're not all like that.
[0:58] Speaker 2: That's of course, what we have. Nitrogen and auction rich
[1:02] Speaker 2: atmosphere is what's needed chemically for this these lifeforms. It
[1:06] Speaker 2: also happens to be transparent to the visible part of
[1:09] Speaker 2: the electromagnetic spectrum, so that that part of the spectrum
[1:13] Speaker 2: that's needed for life gets through the atmosphere to the surface.
[1:17] Speaker 2: But the atmosphere is not transparent to other parts of
[1:20] Speaker 2: the spectrum. And because of the magnetic field we have
[1:23] Speaker 2: around the Earth, a lot of the kind of deadly
[1:24] Speaker 2: stuff that we might otherwise encounter is blocked. Now that's
[1:29] Speaker 2: interesting because you can ask this other question. So if
[1:33] Speaker 2: you were to look at the electromagnetic spectrum, you've got
[1:35] Speaker 2: the short wavelenks or gammin x ray on one end,
[1:38] Speaker 2: and then you get radio waves on the other, and
[1:40] Speaker 2: it just means the wave links are really really large.
[1:42] Speaker 2: And then think of the visible light as that light
[1:45] Speaker 2: that's you know, we think I was when we put
[1:48] Speaker 2: it through a prism, is in a rainbow. That is
[1:50] Speaker 2: a really really tiny slice of the range of the
[1:54] Speaker 2: electromagnetic spectrum in the universe. Now ask yourself the question,
[1:58] Speaker 2: if you had access to only like a little sliver
[2:00] Speaker 2: of that for discovering the universe, which liver would you
[2:04] Speaker 2: want have access to. Well, it turns out kind of
[2:06] Speaker 2: the most information rich part of the stuff that you
[2:08] Speaker 2: want is in the visible part of the spectrum. So
[2:12] Speaker 2: for life, you need an atmosphere that has the right
[2:15] Speaker 2: kind of chemical elements, that constituents of chemical elements allows
[2:20] Speaker 2: the right kind of energy to come from your host
[2:23] Speaker 2: star and that's the same little part of the spectrum
[2:26] Speaker 2: that's the most informative for doing science. That's just crazy,
[2:30] Speaker 2: I mean, And so the numbers are sort of mind
[2:32] Speaker 2: boggling that when you realize this, you think, well, this
[2:35] Speaker 2: is either the eeriest thing I've ever seen or there's
[2:37] Speaker 2: some kind of trick, but it really is just absolutely wild.
[2:42] Speaker 2: And one final thing on this hank because you might say, okay, yeah,
[2:45] Speaker 2: but okay, if that's really useful, then of course you're
[2:47] Speaker 2: gonna want to be able to see as well as
[2:50] Speaker 2: you can. But of course we get clouds in our atmosphere.
[2:53] Speaker 2: So sometimes you live in Seattle probably never seen the
[2:55] Speaker 2: Aurora borealis, for instance, because it's cloudy. Well remember we
[2:59] Speaker 2: were talking about the constrained optimization a few minutes ago.
[3:02] Speaker 2: As it happens, Yeah, you want to have a clear
[3:05] Speaker 2: atmosphere for seeing the planets around the Sun and to
[3:08] Speaker 2: be able to look at the Moon and to see
[3:09] Speaker 2: the distant galaxies with a telescope, and so you need
[3:12] Speaker 2: a clear atmosphere. But you don't want a perfectly clear
[3:16] Speaker 2: atmosphere in the sense that it's totally dry, because there's
[3:19] Speaker 2: a whole other set of things that you need to
[3:21] Speaker 2: discover that require a hydrological cycle there car water in
[3:25] Speaker 2: the atmosphere. One of those things is rainbows. You only
[3:29] Speaker 2: get a rainbow if you have water that has water droplets.
[3:33] Speaker 2: It just the right size to be able to refract
[3:35] Speaker 2: the visible light into the rainbow, which was actually crucial
[3:39] Speaker 2: for scientific discovery. And so really what you want is
[3:42] Speaker 2: a partly cloudy atmosphere for doing all of these things.
[3:47] Speaker 2: And so, you know, that's sort of counterintuitive because people think, well, yeah,
[3:50] Speaker 2: what about clouds. Actually those are really useful. So even
[3:53] Speaker 2: though it can be frustrating if you've got a you know,
[3:55] Speaker 2: a sky viewing night and it gets cloudy, overall, for science,
[3:59] Speaker 2: this is exactly what you would want.
[4:02] Speaker 3: You know. You mentioned some things in this discussion so
[4:05] Speaker 3: far that I think are either elements that are underappreciated
[4:14] Speaker 3: or elements that get a bad rap. For example, you
[4:16] Speaker 3: just mentioned water underappreciated. Carbon dioxide I think gets a
[4:22] Speaker 3: bad rap.
[4:23] Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely it does. I mean water is crazy. It's
[4:27] Speaker 2: got all these weird and almost properties. So for instance,
[4:30] Speaker 2: it's lighter when it's frozen, so in its solid state
[4:33] Speaker 2: is lighter than in its liquid state. Almost every other
[4:37] Speaker 2: thing that you can think of every compound and every element.
[4:40] Speaker 2: That's not how it works. But this is why water
[4:43] Speaker 2: is so uniquely suited for life. And so one example
[4:47] Speaker 2: of this, so you get freezing, you get the oceans
[4:50] Speaker 2: that freeze on the poles. Well, if ice didn't float,
[4:54] Speaker 2: if it sunk, that ice would freeze up. It would
[4:56] Speaker 2: sink to the bottom of the ocean and be out
[4:58] Speaker 2: of access to the side the energy from the sun,
[5:01] Speaker 2: and so more would freeze and it would keep sinking,
[5:03] Speaker 2: and you'd end up with this kind of almost entirely
[5:05] Speaker 2: frozen ocean. As it is, the surface freezes and it
[5:10] Speaker 2: insulates the water underneath it. So that's true. The kind
[5:14] Speaker 2: of fact that ice floats ends up being imported at
[5:17] Speaker 2: the planetary level for other reasons. It's important for plant
[5:20] Speaker 2: life and cellular life. And so water is this even
[5:23] Speaker 2: though it's just you know, a couple of atoms of
[5:26] Speaker 2: hydrogen and an atom of oxygen, it's crazy when it
[5:29] Speaker 2: comes to its fitness for life. And the carbon dioxide also,
[5:34] Speaker 2: I mean, we treat it as if it's a pollutant. Well,
[5:36] Speaker 2: guess what. Plants take carbon dioxide and they use it, right,
[5:40] Speaker 2: it's a part of their life cycle and then they
[5:42] Speaker 2: give us the oxygen. So it's really wild that this trace,
[5:49] Speaker 2: this trace compound, this trace molecule that's in our atmosphere
[5:52] Speaker 2: that is the result both of respiration of animal life
[5:56] Speaker 2: but also plant food and the result of industrial activity,
[6:00] Speaker 2: but somehow be treated as if it's an environmental toxin,
[6:03] Speaker 2: which it just absolutely is not.
[6:05] Speaker 3: This is off the wall. But should we all be
[6:07] Speaker 3: driving electric cars?
[6:10] Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, like if you were in it's funny
[6:14] Speaker 2: you say this, Hank, because I actually really wanted to
[6:16] Speaker 2: get a Teslag, not a new car, but a slightly
[6:19] Speaker 2: used car, but every ten years. And in DC, the
[6:22] Speaker 2: Tesla is ideal because it's like a thirty mile commute.
[6:26] Speaker 2: They don't go anywhere else and you get all sorts
[6:29] Speaker 2: of benefits. In fact, my neighborhood has a free hook
[6:31] Speaker 2: up out here. I could get free power. The problem
[6:34] Speaker 2: is is that if everybody were doing that, we don't
[6:37] Speaker 2: have enough copper wire. We simply don't have the capacity
[6:40] Speaker 2: and the grid for everybody to be able to do that.
[6:42] Speaker 2: So even if you thought for various reasons, yeah, it
[6:45] Speaker 2: makes sense to have electric cars. So we're not hauling
[6:47] Speaker 2: heavy fuel around with us. We don't have the capacity
[6:50] Speaker 2: to do this. In order to do it, to build
[6:53] Speaker 2: these batteries, we are relying on rare earth minerals from
[6:56] Speaker 2: places like China, which have terrible environmental records. And for me,
[7:01] Speaker 2: if anyone is really serious about converting from internal combustion
[7:06] Speaker 2: engines to electric cars, the only way that's ever at
[7:10] Speaker 2: all realistic or that we're even going to increase the
[7:13] Speaker 2: kind of percentage of electric cars is to increase the
[7:16] Speaker 2: power of the grid, And the only way to do
[7:18] Speaker 2: that without increasing the use of fossil fuel for the
[7:21] Speaker 2: power plants would be nuclear power. And yet a lot
[7:24] Speaker 2: of the same people don't want to do that, So
[7:25] Speaker 2: I think it's I don't know what they imagine that
[7:28] Speaker 2: compost and some windmills and some solar power is somehow
[7:33] Speaker 2: going to do this. There's just basic physics preventing that.
[7:37] Speaker 2: So yeah, I suspect we could be one or two
[7:41] Speaker 2: battery innovations away from making set more sense to use
[7:46] Speaker 2: battery powered cars, but we want to follow market dynamics
[7:51] Speaker 2: on that. The reason almost everyone's still driving the internal
[7:53] Speaker 2: combustion engines is because at the moment it's the most abundant,
[7:58] Speaker 2: least expensive fuel for those purposes for most people. That's
[8:02] Speaker 2: the reason. It's not because people hate the Earth. It's
[8:04] Speaker 2: because it's still all things being equal, to look at
[8:07] Speaker 2: the best fuel to use.
[8:09] Speaker 3: I always say contrast is the conduit to clarity. And
[8:12] Speaker 3: in chapter five of your book you talk about the
[8:14] Speaker 3: pale blue dot. So here's my question, how does Earth
[8:18] Speaker 3: and our Solar system compare with the thus discovered the
[8:24] Speaker 3: planets and the exoplanets that we have discovered thus far.
[8:29] Speaker 2: That's right. So when we first wrote the book in
[8:31] Speaker 2: two thousand and four, they were about one hundred exo
[8:33] Speaker 2: planets that we had detected. It's now I think over
[8:37] Speaker 2: five thousand.
[8:38] Speaker 3: Say that one more time. Twenty years ago we knew
[8:41] Speaker 3: about one hundred one hundred, now five thousand or more.
[8:45] Speaker 2: Five thousand, that's right, And so we're getting better and better.
[8:48] Speaker 2: We still can't quite detect Earth's size planets because they
[8:52] Speaker 2: perturbed their stars so little. So the first ones we
[8:54] Speaker 2: detected because we're really seeing the planets themselves. What we're
[8:58] Speaker 2: seeing is the effect of the planet on the sort
[9:01] Speaker 2: of the gravitational interactions of the planets or the transit
[9:07] Speaker 2: of the planet in front of the star. Along our
[9:10] Speaker 2: line of sight, so you can detect either kind of
[9:12] Speaker 2: a slight dip in the light, or we can we
[9:15] Speaker 2: have instruments to be able to detect slight wobbles in
[9:17] Speaker 2: the star, and then you can sort of infer the
[9:20] Speaker 2: orbit in the size of the planet basically, And so
[9:24] Speaker 2: we now know, yeah, there's lots of planets around other stars.
[9:27] Speaker 2: When the book first came out, I can tell you
[9:29] Speaker 2: think every NASA press release would talk about it extra
[9:32] Speaker 2: solar planet, the most earthlike planet ever discovered. And we'd
[9:35] Speaker 2: look at it and it would be something like Jupiter,
[9:38] Speaker 2: except it would be in this wildly elliptical orbit, mostly
[9:42] Speaker 2: half spending most of its life inside the orbit of
[9:45] Speaker 2: Mercury right so hot Jupiter completely useless to life, and
[9:49] Speaker 2: if there were an earth like planet in that system,
[9:52] Speaker 2: it would have gotten destroyed by that planet. And so
[9:55] Speaker 2: we had this happen so much that I finally started
[9:58] Speaker 2: telling reporters, look, call us when you find an earth
[10:01] Speaker 2: like planet that is as earthlike as Mars, because Mars
[10:05] Speaker 2: is the most earth like planet yet known other than Earth.
[10:09] Speaker 2: It is around the star, so we know it's an
[10:11] Speaker 2: in habitable system. It's roughly the same kind of size
[10:14] Speaker 2: and mass as the Earth. It has some of the
[10:16] Speaker 2: same elements, it's only slightly outside the orbit of the Earth.
[10:21] Speaker 2: It can even exchange material with the Earth. And yet
[10:24] Speaker 2: it's utterly lifeless. And so that tells you basically, Venus
[10:28] Speaker 2: just on the inside of our orbit and Mars on
[10:30] Speaker 2: the outside tells you how narrow the conditions are for
[10:35] Speaker 2: an Earth like planet, even in an otherwise habitable system.
[10:38] Speaker 2: They're totally lifeless. And then of course nobody expects to
[10:41] Speaker 2: find life around you know, in saying Jupiter or Saturn,
[10:43] Speaker 2: which are gas giants so they don't have stable surfaces,
[10:46] Speaker 2: or the outer ice giants. What we're doing now is
[10:48] Speaker 2: we're looking at some of the moons.
[10:51] Speaker 1: Don't go away. In just a few moments we'll rejoin
[10:54] Speaker 1: Hank Hatigraphs conversation with doctor J.
[10:57] Speaker 2: Richards.
[10:58] Speaker 1: Only an Intelligent Design accounts for the rare and finely
[11:02] Speaker 1: tuned deray of factors that make Earth suitable for complex
[11:07] Speaker 1: life and for scientific discovery. You'll find the remarkable case
[11:11] Speaker 1: set forth in detail by astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez and philosopher J.
[11:16] Speaker 1: Richards and the twentieth anniversary revised an updated edition of
[11:21] Speaker 1: The Privileged Planet how our place in the Cosmos is
[11:24] Speaker 1: designed for discovery. To receive the twentieth anniversary revised and
[11:29] Speaker 1: updated edition of the Privileged Planet, How our Place in
[11:33] Speaker 1: the Cosmos is designed for discovery. For your gift to
[11:36] Speaker 1: the ongoing work of the Christian Research Institute, call eight
[11:40] Speaker 1: eight eight seven thousand CRII.
[11:44] Speaker 2: That's eight eight eight.
[11:45] Speaker 1: Seven thousand CRII, or go online to equip dot org.
[11:51] Speaker 1: That's equip dot org.
[12:01] Speaker 4: Truth Matters, Life Matters More by Hank Hannigraph is essentially
[12:05] Speaker 4: two books in one because Truth Matters Part one equips
[12:09] Speaker 4: Christians to defend the essential truth of the historic Christian faith.
[12:13] Speaker 4: In part two, Hank explains why life matters more and
[12:17] Speaker 4: how we can experience the height of human existence union
[12:21] Speaker 4: with God in Christ. Simply put, the map is not
[12:24] Speaker 4: the territory. The menu is not the meal. We cheat
[12:28] Speaker 4: ourselves of authentic union with Christ when we elevate the
[12:31] Speaker 4: message above the Messiah. Truth Matters, Life Matters More is
[12:36] Speaker 4: a modern classic and the magnum opus of one of
[12:38] Speaker 4: the great theological minds of our time. To receive Truth Matters,
[12:43] Speaker 4: Life Matters More, simply call eight eight eight seven thousand
[12:46] Speaker 4: CRI and make a gift in support of the life
[12:49] Speaker 4: changing work of the Christian Research Institute. That's eight eight
[12:53] Speaker 4: eight seven thousand CRI or go online to equip dot org.
[13:00] Speaker 1: The Complete Bible answer Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensive
[13:04] Speaker 1: collection of the most often asked questions Hank Hannigraph has
[13:08] Speaker 1: received throughout his four decades as host of the Bible
[13:11] Speaker 1: answer Man broadcast. With more than half a million copies
[13:15] Speaker 1: already in print, this newly revised and expanded Collector's Edition
[13:19] Speaker 1: helped seekers and skeptics alike sort through the truth on
[13:23] Speaker 1: topics such as reliability of the Bible, religions and cults,
[13:27] Speaker 1: the resurrection and afterlife, and many more issues vital to
[13:31] Speaker 1: a better understanding of God in Christ and our relationship
[13:35] Speaker 1: to Him. To receive your copy of the Complete Bible
[13:39] Speaker 1: answer Book Collector's Edition, Revised and Expanded, call eight eight
[13:43] Speaker 1: eight seven thousand CROI and make a gift to support
[13:47] Speaker 1: the Christian Research Institute's life changing outreaches eight eight eight
[13:52] Speaker 1: seven thousand CROI or visit us at equip dot org.
[14:00] Speaker 1: The Complete Bible answer Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensive
[14:04] Speaker 1: collection of the most often asked questions Hank Hannigraph has
[14:08] Speaker 1: received throughout his four decades as host of the Bible
[14:11] Speaker 1: answer Man broadcast. With more than half a million copies
[14:15] Speaker 1: already in print, this newly revised and expanded Collector's Edition
[14:19] Speaker 1: helped seekers and skeptics alike sort through the truth on
[14:23] Speaker 1: topics such as reliability of the Bible, religions and cults,
[14:27] Speaker 1: the resurrection and afterlife, and many more issues vital to
[14:31] Speaker 1: a better understanding of God in Christ and our relationship
[14:35] Speaker 1: to Him. To receive your copy of the Complete Bible
[14:38] Speaker 1: answer Book Collector's Edition, Revised and Expanded, call eight eight
[14:43] Speaker 1: eight seven thousand CRII and make a gift to support
[14:47] Speaker 1: the Christian Research Institute's life changing outreaches eight eight eight
[14:52] Speaker 1: seven thousand CRII or visit us at equip dot org.
[15:07] Speaker 1: Let's rejoin Bible answer Man host Hank Canagraph and his
[15:10] Speaker 1: guest philosopher Jay Richards in their conversation.
[15:14] Speaker 2: And then, of course nobody expects to find life around,
[15:17] Speaker 2: you know, in saying Jupiter or Saturn, which are gas giants,
[15:19] Speaker 2: so they don't have stable surfaces, or the outer ice giants.
[15:23] Speaker 2: What we're doing now is we're looking at some of
[15:25] Speaker 2: the moon's NASA has just sent a mission. It's just
[15:28] Speaker 2: taken off to look at Europa, which is a moon
[15:31] Speaker 2: around Jupiter. It's a very interesting moon. We spend a
[15:34] Speaker 2: bunch of time talking about Europa in the book, and
[15:37] Speaker 2: so what's interesting about it is that has this solid
[15:40] Speaker 2: ice surface, and so as we said, ice floats, so
[15:43] Speaker 2: maybe there's a liquid ocean just underneath it, and maybe
[15:46] Speaker 2: there's life inside there. Well that's basically saying, Okay, we
[15:50] Speaker 2: know water is important for life, so any place we
[15:52] Speaker 2: can find water, we'll have life. Well, we're getting ready
[15:55] Speaker 2: to test that by going to Europa, and we think, sorry,
[15:58] Speaker 2: you need a heck of a lot more. But in
[16:00] Speaker 2: some ways like that shows you how much we've downgraded
[16:02] Speaker 2: things in the twentieth century. In the thirties, Americans panicked
[16:06] Speaker 2: over orson Well's radio program War in the Worlds because
[16:09] Speaker 2: they mistook it for an actual newscast about Martians invading Earth. Well,
[16:16] Speaker 2: no one would fall for that. Now we know that
[16:18] Speaker 2: there are no martians because we've actually been there and
[16:21] Speaker 2: can see it. And so now what we're doing is
[16:23] Speaker 2: we're looking for evidence of liquid water in the distant
[16:26] Speaker 2: past on Mars and we're sending billion dollar probes to
[16:29] Speaker 2: Europa in a moon around Jupiter. So that, in many ways,
[16:34] Speaker 2: that's the trend line that we've seen from imagining everything
[16:37] Speaker 2: we see from the Moon to Mars has life on it,
[16:40] Speaker 2: to realizing, okay, well let's at least try to see
[16:43] Speaker 2: if there's water somewhere. The reality is five thousand extra
[16:47] Speaker 2: solar planets. Not one of those is even as earthlike
[16:50] Speaker 2: as Mars, and so not one of them is likely
[16:52] Speaker 2: to have life on it.
[16:54] Speaker 3: Your book is titled Privileged Planet, and I want to
[16:56] Speaker 3: focus on that word planet for just a moment, because
[16:59] Speaker 3: planet play an incredible role in our existence and survival.
[17:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, they do. I mean, of course astrologers. This was
[17:08] Speaker 2: the astrological claim, is that the sort of location of
[17:11] Speaker 2: planet planet, by the way, is based on where that
[17:14] Speaker 2: she means wanderers. So they people that are accustomed to
[17:16] Speaker 2: seeing the night sky like the ancients would have been,
[17:19] Speaker 2: would notice that this background of stars that stays more
[17:22] Speaker 2: or less the same the pattern, and then you get
[17:24] Speaker 2: these wanderers in the foreground, which we call they called
[17:27] Speaker 2: the planets. And astrologers would say, well, if you were
[17:30] Speaker 2: born under Jupiter, and Jupiter is in a particular constellation
[17:34] Speaker 2: that supposedly sort of said something about your destiny, and
[17:37] Speaker 2: I don't think there's really anything to that at all. Nevertheless,
[17:40] Speaker 2: the planets do play a role in our existence, and
[17:43] Speaker 2: you can think of it as Jupiter and Saturn are
[17:47] Speaker 2: like giant guardians of the inner part of the Solar System.
[17:50] Speaker 2: Because our Solar system is not just the Sun and
[17:53] Speaker 2: eight or nine moons or planets if you count nine,
[17:57] Speaker 2: if you count Pluto, it's also populated by billions or
[18:02] Speaker 2: trillions of comets in the outer part of the Solar
[18:04] Speaker 2: System that spend most of their time way out in
[18:06] Speaker 2: the outer reaches, but every so often they're still gravitationally
[18:10] Speaker 2: connected to the Sun, and so they will eventually come
[18:13] Speaker 2: into the interpolar Solar System to our neighborhood. Well, now, commets,
[18:18] Speaker 2: if you encounter a large comet and you're a planet
[18:22] Speaker 2: with life on it, that's a negative encounter. They can
[18:25] Speaker 2: sterilize life. But because we have these giant plants in
[18:29] Speaker 2: our part of the Solar system, they end up taking
[18:31] Speaker 2: a lot of hits for us. So they actually protect
[18:34] Speaker 2: the inner part of the Solar System and make it
[18:36] Speaker 2: much more habitable. So we think you need more than
[18:40] Speaker 2: just the right kind of sun and the right kind
[18:42] Speaker 2: of planet by itself. You probably need a system very
[18:46] Speaker 2: much like the one that we have now the moment,
[18:48] Speaker 2: we're fairly confident that Jupiter and Saturn play a role
[18:51] Speaker 2: in our existence. We like to, you know, find evidence
[18:56] Speaker 2: that in fact, the other planets also play a role.
[18:58] Speaker 2: But at the moment, you know, it's like we focus
[19:01] Speaker 2: on the things that we know at this point, and
[19:04] Speaker 2: so you know, I can't say one way or the
[19:06] Speaker 2: other what roles, say, Mercury would play. But we do
[19:10] Speaker 2: know that at least the large planets in the outer
[19:12] Speaker 2: part of the Solar System make the inner part of
[19:15] Speaker 2: the Solar System, where we are much more habitable.
[19:18] Speaker 3: What happens to you to your temperature level when you
[19:23] Speaker 3: hear someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about the Sun.
[19:27] Speaker 3: You just mentioned the Sun and say the sun. He
[19:30] Speaker 3: appends the word mediocre to sun. Yeah, so the Sun
[19:34] Speaker 3: is just mediocre. What happens to your temperature when you
[19:37] Speaker 3: hear that.
[19:38] Speaker 2: I'm trying to work on my temperature actually, so that
[19:41] Speaker 2: I just say, well, what is mediocre exactly? And so
[19:45] Speaker 2: presumably mediocre just means some average or something like that,
[19:48] Speaker 2: And so I guess maybe he's saying in terms of
[19:52] Speaker 2: size maybe or something. It's sort of it's not a
[19:54] Speaker 2: tiny star like an Endorf, but it's not a blue
[19:57] Speaker 2: super giant or something. I don't know, because you'd say, okay, well,
[20:01] Speaker 2: if we're gonna grade stars with respect to mediocrity and grandiosity,
[20:09] Speaker 2: how are you going to grade them? Well, it's not
[20:11] Speaker 2: gonna be size, is it, or something like that. It's
[20:14] Speaker 2: gonna be like, Okay, which ones are most conducive to
[20:16] Speaker 2: life in a planetary environment? That is, which ones are
[20:18] Speaker 2: the best host in a planetary system for a life
[20:22] Speaker 2: giving planet. Well, it's ours. It's precisely, its yellow dwarf
[20:27] Speaker 2: like the one that we have. It's very stable. All
[20:30] Speaker 2: stars are slightly variable, but what you don't want is
[20:34] Speaker 2: a star that's just constantly varying its output of energy.
[20:38] Speaker 2: You need stability so that if you have a planet
[20:41] Speaker 2: around a fairly circular orbit, you know it's gonna get
[20:44] Speaker 2: roughly the same amount of energy over long periods of time,
[20:47] Speaker 2: and it's actually to be just the right size. So
[20:50] Speaker 2: if it's too small, like a red giant, which is
[20:52] Speaker 2: really what that's those are the mediocre stars that are
[20:55] Speaker 2: that are just all over the place. To be in
[20:57] Speaker 2: the Goldilocks zone around a red or if you have
[21:00] Speaker 2: to be, the planet has to be much much much closer,
[21:03] Speaker 2: And because of the inverse square love of gravity, the
[21:06] Speaker 2: closer you get, the more kind of intense that the
[21:08] Speaker 2: gravitational attraction is. So you get in the Goldilocks zone
[21:12] Speaker 2: around the red dwarf. What's going to happen over time
[21:15] Speaker 2: is that your planet's not going to be able to
[21:16] Speaker 2: orbit on its axis like ours does. It's going to
[21:20] Speaker 2: get locked in. It's golled tidally locked where the same
[21:23] Speaker 2: part of one face surface of the planet faces the
[21:27] Speaker 2: Sun during its entire year, and so you're going to
[21:31] Speaker 2: get it one hot side and one side that's frozen solid,
[21:34] Speaker 2: and so it's going to be almost certainly lifeless or
[21:37] Speaker 2: at least hostile to life. If the star is too large,
[21:39] Speaker 2: it's going to give off all sorts of sterilizing radiation. Also,
[21:43] Speaker 2: if you're too close around the red dwarf, you're going
[21:46] Speaker 2: to get solar flares are going to affect your planet.
[21:48] Speaker 2: So there's just so many details to go into, but
[21:51] Speaker 2: the gist of it is that you need a lot
[21:53] Speaker 2: of stuff to go right in terms of the composition
[21:57] Speaker 2: and the size and the status of the star where
[21:59] Speaker 2: it is is it by itself? And once you add
[22:02] Speaker 2: all those things up, if we say, okay, the most
[22:07] Speaker 2: significant star is going to be the one, the one
[22:09] Speaker 2: that's most the best hostess for life, that's our son,
[22:15] Speaker 2: it's going to be small yellow doors that are by
[22:17] Speaker 2: themselves in the right neighborhood within a galaxy. And so
[22:21] Speaker 2: it's very hard to justify the claim that our son
[22:26] Speaker 2: is mediocre unless you're just sort of I don't know,
[22:28] Speaker 2: adding them up by sort of lining them up by
[22:31] Speaker 2: size or something and then saying, well, the Sun is
[22:33] Speaker 2: kind of in the middle. I mean, that's it's like
[22:35] Speaker 2: the only sense I can even make of that claim.
[22:39] Speaker 3: You've already sort of talked about this, but I think
[22:41] Speaker 3: it bears emphasis. And that is our place in the
[22:44] Speaker 3: Milky Way galaxy. How significant is the precise placement of
[22:51] Speaker 3: the pale blue dot or Earth in the flat and
[22:54] Speaker 3: spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
[22:58] Speaker 2: It's really important. I mean, the first thing, you've got
[23:00] Speaker 2: to be the right kind of galaxy, so you could
[23:02] Speaker 2: be in a galaxy that doesn't have any lot heavy
[23:04] Speaker 2: elements in it, or that has very erratic and irregular orbits.
[23:09] Speaker 2: So you want a large spiral galaxy like we have.
[23:12] Speaker 2: But as I mentioned earlier in our conversation, the center
[23:17] Speaker 2: of the galaxy is hostile to life because of it's
[23:20] Speaker 2: much denser, with stars, black holes sterilizing radiation. So you
[23:25] Speaker 2: don't want to be anywhere near that. But you don't
[23:27] Speaker 2: want to be too far from the center of the
[23:28] Speaker 2: galaxy or you end up with basically a lot of
[23:31] Speaker 2: hydrogen and helium, and so you can't build rocky planets.
[23:35] Speaker 2: And then you don't want to be in the spiral arms,
[23:36] Speaker 2: and so you want to be basically midway out or
[23:39] Speaker 2: twenty seven thousand light years from the center to the
[23:42] Speaker 2: edge of the galaxy. So it's roughly the galaxy if
[23:45] Speaker 2: you think of it from edge to edge, is about
[23:47] Speaker 2: one hundred thousand light years across, and so that's exactly
[23:52] Speaker 2: where we are. It's like a dotted line around the galaxy,
[23:58] Speaker 2: not including the spiral arms. But now then the second
[24:01] Speaker 2: question would be, Okay, so if you only pick one
[24:02] Speaker 2: place for doing science, where would that be. Well, even
[24:06] Speaker 2: if you could exist in the center of the galaxy,
[24:08] Speaker 2: you would not want to be there, because if you're
[24:10] Speaker 2: in the center of the galaxy, you couldn't tell whether
[24:14] Speaker 2: a source of radiation wouldn't be obvious if it was
[24:18] Speaker 2: coming from nearby, from inside your galaxy or from another galaxy,
[24:21] Speaker 2: or from the background radiation, because they'd be the symmetrical
[24:25] Speaker 2: on your sky. So everywhere you pointed, you know, your
[24:28] Speaker 2: radio telescope, it would sort of look the same as
[24:31] Speaker 2: it is because we're we're you know, halfway out. The
[24:35] Speaker 2: galaxy appears asymmetrical across our sky. So if you know,
[24:40] Speaker 2: if you go up the Colorado Springs at night or
[24:43] Speaker 2: someplace up on a mountain, you'll see that milky way
[24:45] Speaker 2: band across the sky. You're looking edge on at the
[24:48] Speaker 2: thickness of the galaxy to the density of the stars. Well,
[24:51] Speaker 2: that's how it is in the radio part of the
[24:53] Speaker 2: spectrum too, You're going to notice that, and so you'd say, okay,
[24:57] Speaker 2: that's coming from the galaxy, so that's nearby. What's this
[25:00] Speaker 2: weird radiation that we're getting uniformly in every direction in
[25:05] Speaker 2: the microwave part of the spectrum. That's the cosmic background radiation.
[25:09] Speaker 2: So it actually been hard to detect that if we'd
[25:11] Speaker 2: been in the center of the galaxy, even if you
[25:13] Speaker 2: could have existed there. And of course, if you're in
[25:16] Speaker 2: a murky part of the galaxy, you might not even
[25:18] Speaker 2: be able to see the planets in your own system.
[25:21] Speaker 2: You certainly wouldn't be able to see stars, and you
[25:23] Speaker 2: certainly wouldn't be able to see galaxies outside the galaxy.
[25:26] Speaker 2: So long, in the short of it is, if you
[25:28] Speaker 2: could pick one place in the galaxy for doing science,
[25:31] Speaker 2: it's in the galactic capital zone. In other words, in
[25:34] Speaker 2: that part of the galaxy that's the best place for
[25:37] Speaker 2: life itself.
[25:38] Speaker 1: We'll have to stop here for today's special edition of
[25:41] Speaker 1: the Bible answer Man Broadcast. Join us again next time
[25:45] Speaker 1: when we'll continue Hank Hanagraf's conversation with philosopher Jay Richards.
[25:50] Speaker 1: Our firm commitment here at the Christian Research Institute is
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[27:01] Speaker 4: For decades, Hank hannigrafh has shared the truth of the
[27:04] Speaker 4: historic Christian faith by answering questions over the radio, defending
[27:09] Speaker 4: the faith through the written word, and preaching from pulpits
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[27:15] Speaker 4: life in Christ, as detailed in his most profoundly personal
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[27:27] Speaker 4: you to learn from his experiences as recounted in Truth Matters,
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[27:34] Speaker 4: life's greatest journey, the journey toward union with God in Christ.
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