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Nüwa created humanity due to her loneliness, which grew more intense over time. She molded yellow earth or, in other versions, yellow clay into the shape of people. These individuals later became the wealthy nobles of society, because they had been created by Nüwa's own hands.
By the Warring States Period at the end of the Zhou (3rd century BC), the Chinese explained the Earth's axial tilt, the northwestern direction of celestial bodies, and the southeastern tendency of major Chinese rivers through a legend about a great water god or monster named Gonggong who damaged Mount Buzhou after losing a battle for leadership ...
Additionally, the oxidation state of Earth's mantle was likely different at early times, which changes the fluxes of chemical species delivered to the atmosphere from volcanic outgassing. [9] Environmental factors from elsewhere in the solar system also affected prebiotic Earth. The Sun was ~30% dimmer overall around the time the Earth formed. [5]
Before it split into the continents we know today, Earth was home to just a single landmass, or "supercontinent," called Pangea. Over tens of millions of years, as the familiar story goes, these ...
These form where hydrogen-rich fluids emerge from below the sea floor, as a result of serpentinization of ultra-mafic olivine with seawater and a pH interface with carbon dioxide-rich ocean water. The vents form a sustained chemical energy source derived from redox reactions, in which electron donors (molecular hydrogen) react with electron ...
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.
Theia, an ancient planet, collided with Earth to form the moon, scientists believe. A new study suggests Theia could have also formed mysterious blobs called large low-velocity provinces, or LLVPs.
Outgassing from crustal rocks gives Earth a reducing atmosphere of methane, nitrogen, hydrogen, ammonia, and water vapour, with lesser amounts of hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, then carbon dioxide. With further full outgassing over 1000–1500 K, nitrogen and ammonia become lesser constituents, and comparable amounts of methane, carbon ...