The sun also rises... at the dawn of time

ONE of the most interesting books I have come across recently is Otherlands – A World in the Making, by Thomas Halliday, that goes down into deep time looking at what we now know from geology, genetics, cosmology, palaeontology and evolution.

It looks at particular areas of the world where rich evidence exists of prior life and geology and examines them in a series running backwards.

That series starts at 20,000 years ago, then four million, and then 13 other chapters back to 550 million years ago. The most interesting chapter for we humans is chapter six, looking at 66 million years ago when, after the asteroid hit Chicxulub, the placental mammals from which we are descended managed to survive and emerge to dominate most of the land.

The evidence totally contradicts creation mythology as given in the bible and other religious documents.

However, I have looked back into even deeper time and come across a strange anomaly in thinking that inclines people to pagan faiths.

There is something mystical that attracts people to Stonehenge and the stone circle at Avebury.

Science shows us that without the sun we would not exist so there appears to be something in sun worshipping related beliefs.

A longer time span though and a deeper understanding of why we are here can be found by even deeper consideration.

Our planet has a largely iron core, that provides us with protection from the sun, without which most life would frazzle.

The sun is not really benevolent. It might seem more sensible to attach mystical significance to the core of our planet because the magnetic field protects us from damaging solar rays.

Then even deeper back in time, we can ask, how has it occurred that we have an iron core?

That is there because in the very distant past, a star like our sun perhaps or like any other star, in its dying moments as its fuel ran out, collapsed in on itself and, under the intense pressure resulting lastly in a supernova that would light up the galaxy for a short time, formed new heavier elements, much heavier than the hydrogen and helium found in stars commonly, including the iron that forms the core of our planet and saves us from solar radiation.

So really a sun died to give us life in abundance, which sounds, in a superficial way, like the Christian claim that a son died that we may live.

Nicholas Hales Bath