Evolution or Creation?
Earth's Fight Against Solar Attacks
In April 2002 it was announced that data gathered from a NASA spacecraft revealed that in the never-ending battle with space weather, Earth actively ejects part of its atmosphere in order to protect itself from oncoming space storms.[27]
"Earth is an active participant. ... Its not just flopping in the solar wind," Richard Foster of the Sun-Earth Connection office at NASA headquarters says, "This is a huge change in our thinking."[27]
Space weather originates at the sun, where a flood of charged particles called the solar wind traveling at an average speed of 250 miles per second, ejected into space. Earth's asymmetrical magnetic field intercepts these particles and channels them harmlessly around the planet. (Without such protection, the particle onslaught would gradually erode Earth's atmosphere away.)[27]
Occasionally, solar storms erupt and hurl extra material toward the Earth that can trigger intense geomagnetic storms.[27]
According to Stephen Fuselier of the Lockheed-Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California, when the solar wind begins to buffet Earth more heavily than usual the planet responds by ejecting a small part of its atmosphere. During a typical solar storm, 100 tons of upper atmosphere can be lost to outer space. Yet despite this, there is still plenty left for humans to breathe.[27]
That gas is shaped by Earth's magnetic field lines and ultimately is snapped back to encircle the planet.[27]
So how does the Earth "know" how to defend itself? The planet itself is not alive. Why this cause and effect to protect the life that thrives on it? Just another favorable coincidence or Intelligent Design?