The History of Earth Timeline

  • 4600 BCE

    Birth of the Sun

    4.5 billion years ago, the solar system started as a gas cloud and then a star nearby exploded and sent a shockwave through it. It caused the gas to gravitationally collapse and that created the sun and a protoplanetary disc around it.
  • 4567 BCE

    Planetary Accretion

    The dust in the protoplanetary disc is colliding and creating clumps with each other. Larger rocks can now accrete and they begin to grow as more rocks are colliding and combining with it. This goes on for 10 million years.
  • 4500 BCE

    Formation of the Moon

    70 million years after the earth forms, scientist believe that an object the size of mars crashes into the earth. It knocks a large piece of hot molten debris off. That debris stays in the orbit of the earth. The debris cools and forms into the spherical shape we now know as the moon.
  • 4400 BCE

    Planetary Cooling

    Earth's crust cools and continents are now forming. Life can now live on the surface of the Earth.
  • 3800 BCE

    End of Heavy Bombardment

    Jupiter and Saturn migrated to the inner planets and cleared out a lot of the rocks. Their gravity ripples the asteroid belt and flings them towards the sun. The asteroids rain down on the inner planets. During this time asteroids containing water begin hitting the earth and eventually covering a large part of the earth’s surface with water.
  • 150 BCE

    Earth's Core Formation

    Confused on this one