Paper 57 Overview: The Origin of Urantia

This paper chronicles the astronomical and geological origins of Urantia (earth), beginning with the formation of the Andronover nebula nearly one trillion years ago and following the sequence of events that led to the creation of our solar system. It describes in detail how our sun formed as part of this enormous nebula, and how the planets of our solar system came into being approximately 4.5 billion years ago through the gravitational interaction between our sun and another passing star system named Angona.

The paper also explains Urantia's subsequent development through various stages of planetary evolution, including the formation of the earth's crust, the emergence of the first continent, the development of the primitive atmosphere, and the extensive volcanic activities that shaped the early planet. These geological processes prepared Urantia for the later implantation of life, culminating about 550 million years ago when the planet was registered as ready for life experiments.

When presenting excerpts from the archives of Jerusem concerning Urantia's origins and early history, time is calculated according to current usage—the present leap-year calendar of 365¼ days per year. Instead of providing exact years for ancient events, whole numbers are generally used as the preferred method for presenting these historical facts.

When referring to events millions or billions of years ago, the dates are counted backward from the early decades of the twentieth century of the Christian era. This method allows the narrative to present far-distant events in organized periods of thousands, millions, and billions of years, making the immense timeframes more comprehensible.

Urantia originated from our sun, which itself was one of many offspring of the Andronover nebula, a component of the physical matter of the local universe of Nebadon. This great nebula took its origin from the universal force-charge of space in the superuniverse of Orvonton countless ages ago, under the direction of the Primary Master Force Organizers of Paradise who had long controlled the space-energies that became the Andronover nebula.

About 987 billion years ago, inspector number 811,307 from the Orvonton series reported to the Ancients of Days that space conditions in a certain sector were favorable for materialization phenomena. Subsequently, 900 billion years ago, the Uversa Council issued a permit authorizing a force organizer and staff to organize a new material creation in the designated region. The recording of this permit signifies the departure of the force organizer from Uversa on the journey that would culminate in the emergence of the Andronover nebula about 875 billion years ago.

All evolutionary material creations begin as circular, gaseous nebulae. In their early gaseous existence, these primary nebulae are circular, often becoming spiral as they age. When their function of sun formation has run its course, they frequently end as clusters of stars or as enormous suns surrounded by planets, satellites, and smaller groups of matter similar to our own solar system.

By 800 billion years ago, the Andronover creation was firmly established as one of the magnificent primary nebulae of Orvonton, though astronomers in nearby universes saw little that attracted their attention. As time passed, the nebula grew to gigantic proportions, and by 600 billion years ago, it had reached its maximum mass. This was the early period when different mass formations began to occur and the nebula's revolutionary velocity started to vary, setting the stage for gravity and other influences to begin converting space gases into organized matter.

The enormous nebula gradually assumed the spiral form that astronomers of even distant universes could clearly observe. This transformation follows the natural history of most nebulae, which are typically observed as spiral phenomena before they begin to create suns and build universes.

When the nebula achieved its maximum mass, the gaseous content began to weaken under gravity control, entering the stage of gas escapement with two gigantic and distinct arms streaming forth from opposite sides of the mother mass. The rapid revolutions of the central core gave these projecting gas streams a spiral appearance, while cooling and condensation of portions of these arms produced their knotted appearance. As the rate of revolution increased, the outer gaseous regions began to escape from the nebula's embrace, and about 500 billion years ago, the first Andronover sun broke away from the mother gravity grasp to begin its independent journey through space.

The primary stage of a nebula is circular, the secondary spiral, the tertiary stage marks the first sun dispersion, and the quartan embraces the second and final cycle of sun dispersion. During these stages, the mother nucleus eventually ends either as a globular cluster or as a solitary sun at the center of a terminal solar system.

By 75 billion years ago, the Andronover nebula had reached the peak of its sun-family development, marking the apex of the first period of sun losses. Over time, this nebula completed its cycles of existence, giving birth to 876,926 sun systems during its tertiary phase. The quartan cycle began about 10 billion years ago when the maximum nuclear temperature was reached and condensation was approaching critical point. Approximately 6 billion years ago, the final nebular eruption gave birth to 136,702 suns, including our own sun, which was the fifty-sixth from the last of the Andronover second solar family.

Five billion years ago, our sun existed as a comparatively isolated blazing orb, having gathered to itself most of the nearby circulating matter of space. In its early days, the sun was a variable star with tremendous convulsions on its surface that caused it to pulsate with a cycle of varying brightness every three and a half days, making it highly responsive to certain outside influences that would soon be encountered.

The stage was set for the unique origin of Monmatia, the name of our planetary family, when the enormous Angona system approached our solitary sun about 4.5 billion years ago. As Angona drew closer, the sun's pulsations created flaming gas tongues that extended into space. Initially, these would fall back into the sun, but as Angona's gravity pull grew stronger, these gas tongues broke off at certain points. The closest approach of Angona, coupled with one of the sun's periodic internal convulsions, resulted in a partial disruption of the sun, with enormous volumes of matter being disgorged simultaneously from opposite sides, forming what would become the twelve planets of our solar system.

Following the birth of the solar system, the sun continued to discharge diminishing volumes of matter into surrounding space for another 500,000 years. During these early times of erratic orbits, when the surrounding bodies made their closest approach to the sun, the solar parent was able to recapture much of this meteoric material.

The planets closest to the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed by tidal friction, which also helped stabilize planetary orbits and slow planetary axial rotation. By 4 billion years ago, the Jupiter and Saturn systems were organized much as they are today, though their moons continued to grow for several billion years. About 3.5 billion years ago, the condensation nuclei of the other ten planets were well formed, and by 3 billion years ago, the solar system was functioning much as it does today, with its members continuing to grow in size as space meteors continued to pour in upon them at a prodigious rate.

During early times, the space regions of the solar system swarmed with small disruptive and condensation bodies. Without a protective atmosphere, these space bodies crashed directly onto Urantia's surface, keeping it heated and, together with the increasing action of gravity as the sphere grew larger, causing heavier elements like iron to settle toward the planet's center.

About 2 billion years ago, Urantia began to gain size over the moon and developed its primitive atmosphere through the internal elemental contest between the heated interior and cooling crust. Volcanic activity reached its peak about 1.5 billion years ago, when the earth was a fiery inferno resembling its earlier molten state. The primitive planetary atmosphere contained water vapor, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen chloride, but very little free nitrogen or oxygen. As the atmosphere cooled and settled, rain began to fall on the hot rocky surface, enveloping the planet in a continuous blanket of steam for thousands of years during which the sun never shone on earth's surface.

One billion years ago marks the actual beginning of Urantia's history, as the planet had attained approximately its present size and was placed on the physical registries of Nebadon with its name, Urantia. The atmosphere's moisture precipitation facilitated the cooling of the earth's crust, while volcanic action equalized internal heat pressure and crustal contraction, leading to the gradual decrease of earthquakes as this epoch progressed.

The real geologic history of Urantia begins with the cooling of the crust enough to form the first world-wide ocean, which covered the entire planet to an average depth of over one mile. Later, deeper and denser lava flows beneath the present Pacific Ocean caused this area to become depressed, and the first continental land mass emerged from the ocean as an adjustment to the equilibrium of the gradually thickening crust. By 650 million years ago, the continental land masses had separated sufficiently to extend the continental seas further inland, setting the stage for the sheltered tropic bays and lagoons that would soon serve as the cradle for the beginning of life approximately 550 million years ago.