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As a result, each month now represents 1 of 12 billion years of the Earth's life. According to this calendar, the first life appears in January, and the first animals first appeared in May, with the present day taking place on May 18. Even though the Sun won't destroy Earth until December 31, all animals will die out by the end of May.
Earth formed in this manner about 4.54 billion years ago (with an uncertainty of 1%) [25] [26] [4] and was largely completed within 10–20 million years. [27] In June 2023, scientists reported evidence that the planet Earth may have formed in just three million years, much faster than the 10−100 million years thought earlier.
In 1862, the physicist William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin published calculations that fixed the age of Earth at between 20 million and 400 million years. [19] [20] He assumed that Earth had formed as a completely molten object, and determined the amount of time it would take for the near-surface temperature gradient to decrease to its present value.
Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula, a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun, which also created the rest of the Solar System. Initially, Earth was molten due to extreme volcanism and frequent collisions with other bodies.
c. 4,450 Ma – 100 million years after the Moon formed, the first lunar crust, formed of lunar anorthosite, differentiates from lower magmas. The earliest Earth crust probably forms similarly out of similar material. On Earth the pluvial period starts, in which the Earth's crust cools enough to let oceans form.
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The findings challenge the existing theory that the planet was completely covered by ocean four billion years ago.
The Earth will be hit by a tiny asteroid today, astronomers have said. But the tiny asteroid – which is roughly one metre in size – will burn up in the atmosphere as it arrives. That means it ...