Good morning.
“The expanding universe will fill that void, won’t it?”
Irrelevant. The amount of matter remains the same, and expansion in space (lower density) actually reduces the likelihood that “rocky” planets will form.
Actually, the “probabilities” don’t depend on numbers as much as specific and special circumstances*. The infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters do NOT produce the works of William Shakespeare.
Three books that I’d suggest - the authors have done the legwork and interviewed all the appropriate scientists and made things understandable to any reader with a modicum of physics understanding:
Rare Earth
Privileged Planet
The Case for a Creator
I suggest this order of reading.
*Example - our moon (size and distance) is absolutely REQUIRED for life as it exists here. It was formed by a mars sized body striking at the exact right angle at the right time of formation of the earth (still soft). This is in the books.
Good morning to you too, although I am in India, and it’s 7:30 PM here!
:)
I’m being the Devil’s Advocate, by saying that mass-energy conversions happen in both directions, and the number of times they occur is infinite. Local mass-energy exchanges allow a finite amount of mass to be converted to energy, reconverted to mass, and so forth, ad infinitum, each time providing the mass in question opportunities to form planets, moons and the like. So, there you have it, infinite probabilities.
Yes, the expanse of the void is infinite, the amount of matter may not be so. However, the amount is still astronomical enough to provide the opportunities for such (apparently) rare probabilities.
You said that the moon is critical for life to thrive. No argument from me here on that. However, I could also say that just because the Mars-sized object happened to crash into Earth, the lottery was struck and life followed. There is no way you can prove that such a lucky strike cannot happen elsewhere in the immensely vast universe.
Planets are formed and consumed all the time. Stars are born, stars collapse, stars explode, stars scatter mass all over, allowing for their re-gathering to form planets and sub-systems again.
Every element our bodies are made of, once started as mass particles in stars, and prior to that, bundles of energy.
PS: I may not be able to reply to the next message soon, since I am going away for the weekend.