Earth's Early History (The First Billion Years)

Planetary Accretion (4.6 Billion years ago)

4 BCE

Planetary bodies and asteroids orbiting the sun are formed when a cloud of dust, covering our solar system, began to shrink upon itself, causing it to undergo the fusion process. Lumps left behind by this process eventually formed the planets we know today.

The Earth Begins to Form (4.5 billion years ago)

4 BCE

Earth begins to condense and form into a spherical planetary body, while it's inner core becomes extremely hot and dense

The Moon Forms (4.5 billion years ago)

4 BCE

A giant object (roughly the size of mars) strikes the earth, partially absorbing into it. During this process, however, large clumps of debris were shot into space. Gravity began to pull them into orbit, eventually forming a larger object known as the moon.

The Begins to Cool (3.8 billion years ago)

3 BCE

Energy loss between the Earth and the moon began to cause the moon to pull away. This created weaker tides, this also meant that the molten rock was being stirred less and less. Causing it to solidify. This meant that the internal heat flow stopped dominating the planet, and the temperature at the surface began to drop.

The Late Heavy Bombardment (3.8-4 billion years ago)

3 BCE

A great period of comet and asteroid bombardment is thought to have caused many of the craters that pepper the moon, and other planets in our solar system. It is also believed that many of these water-rich objects contributed to the Earth's oceans.