Why are we seeing young phenomena in the planets if they are billions of years old? Some scientists are abandoning uniformitarian assumptions and admitting we are lucky to be witnessing them in “rare moments of glory.”
In Nature this week, Maggie McKee interviewed scientists who are struggling with short-lived phenomena in the solar system. The subtitle of her article, “Caught in the Act,” states, “We may be seeing some of the Solar System’s most striking objects during rare moments of glory.” Her first two paragraphs elaborate why this is unsettling for some:
Ever since Copernicus evicted Earth from its privileged spot at the centre of the Solar System, researchers have embraced the idea that there is nothing special about our time and place in the Universe. What observers see now, they presume, has been going on for billions of years — and will continue for eons to come.
