How was planet earth created? The history of our planet
Planet Earth has gone through a series of important events and events that made it the only habitable planet that we know today. However, this process of creation was incredibly extensive (billions of years. In this article we will tell you all about how planet earth was created? And what is the history of our planet?
The Creation of the solar system, the home of our planet
It all started 4.6 billion years ago, when our solar system was part of a molecular cloud in the Orion arm. The molecular clouds are massive accumulations of gas and dust, also contain hydrogen and helium. It is really complex to imagine how huge a molecular cloud can get because its mass is millions of suns and its diameter are a hundred light years.
That molecular cloud was hit by what is presumed to be a supernova (the explosion of a star after its death). For this reason, the angular momentum of the molecular cloud was altered and it began to rotate uncontrollably. This change in its angular momentum caused a contraction in the center due to the gravity of the molecular cloud.
Two solar systems were formed from that nebula: Alpha Centauri and the Sun (yes, our sun). When our sun was in its initial stage, it traveled through the Orion arm, accumulating more mass, increasing its rotation and, of course, gaining more gravitational attraction power. Because of this, the young sun began to heat up to such a point that nuclear fusion began.
The Sun had become a star, one capable of fusing hydrogen atoms into helium atoms. However, all the initial protosolar mass was not absorbed by our sun, several proto-planetary disks formed around it. Those disks of dust and gas would become millions of years in our entire solar system.
The Creation of Earth
At a distance of 150.000.000 Km; one of those proto-planetary disks that revolved around the young sun began to accumulate rocky material for millions of years. Similar to what happened with the Sun, this young planet increased its gravitational power as it gained more material.
This creation process is quite hostile so the young planet was incessantly bombarded by rocky space material. This is how our planet earth began to take life; in the center it accumulated heavy elements and melted them with its heat to form the Earth’s nucleus. On the other hand, the lightest elements formed the Earth’s crust.
However, it would still take billions of years more for the process of creating the earth to end. Because the earth did not yet have an atmosphere, it was totally vulnerable to constant attacks from meteorites and asteroids. For this reason, volcanic activity was unimaginable; Earth seemed more like hell than a habitable planet.
The impact of Tea (Theia) and the creation of the moon
4527 million years ago, the earth already had a more stable earth crust. Because the infernal heat from the inner mantle continually melted the rocky material from the meteorites. This process continued until the earth got a crust thick enough to stabilize.
However, a protoplanet named Tea (Theia) would hit the young earth. The impact sent gigantic amounts of rocky material into outer space and brought significant consequences for Earth. The liquid mantle of the earth began to move abruptly due to the impact and with it the tectonic plates, the mountains and many volcanoes were formed.
For its part, the material from the Young Earth and the protoplanet Tea that was expelled abroad became our current satellite: The Moon. Back then the Moon was very close to our planet, enough for the Earth day to last only 6 hours. However, with the passing of the years it would go away and with it the hours of the Earth day would increase.
Water: the source of life that came from outer space
In the first hundreds of millions of years of our solar system’s existence, the population of asteroids and comets was vastly larger than it is today. For this reason, the earth was constantly bombarded not only by meteorites but also by asteroids and comets. It was precisely asteroids and comets that brought water to our planet.
This process continued for millions of years, to the point that the earth began to fill with water. It should be noted that, since the earth is in the stable zone of the sun, that is to say the one in which the water can remain in liquid form; the great oceans of water could become a reality.
However, the earth continued to be a planet with extremely high temperatures, so the water from asteroids and comets evaporated and ascended to the heavens. This water vapor mixed with carbon dioxide from volcanic eruptions and condensed into clouds thanks to the original atmosphere.
This condensation of water in the heavens covered the entire heavens of the young Earth. Finally, I unleash a never-before-seen flood that lasted millions of years. When the flood stopped 4000 billion years ago, the earth had been submerged, almost entirely (90%), by great oceans.
The origin of the first life forms on earth
The aquatic world of 4000 billion years ago continued to be quite hostile and life did not yet exist on the planet. For starters, the oceans were green due to the large amounts of iron in them. Secondly, the atmosphere had unimaginable amounts of carbon dioxide, so the sky was reddish, and the pressure it exerted was enough to easily crush a human.
This aquatic world, green, hostile, would last 500 million years. 3.5 billion years ago, basaltic rock from volcanoes would mix with Earth’s primeval oceans to give life to the first continents. These pro -continents were made of granite, and they were also strong enough to remain stable despite the hostility of that world.
It would take another 1000 billion years for that land dominated by the immense green seas to see its end. The earth was now made up of large land masses of granite, somewhat similar to our present continents.
Terrestrial single-celled life had begun its formation 3.5 billion years ago in the depths of the oceans. However, it would take a billion years to evolve enough to rise to the surface and develop on the shores of the oceans.
In this way, an indispensable organism appeared for the origin of the current earth: the stromatolite . Said primitive algae was capable of carrying out the photosynthesis process, a process that it continues to carry out today (yes, stromatolites still exist in the earth).
Stromatolite: the primitive algae that helped the origin of life
The vast population of stromatolites on earth generated millions and millions of tons of oxygen through photosynthesis. Said oxygen was able to fully oxidize the iron present in the primeval oceans. For this reason, the oceans abandoned their old green color and became blue, as we currently know them.
After the iron in the early oceans was completely oxidized, the oxygen produced by the stromatolites ascended into the atmosphere. The next task was stromatolite eliminate s immense s quantities of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere to give life to a new atmosphere
Rodinia and the Great Ice Age
Billion years ago, as a result of the movement of the mantle liquid d inside warm earth, formed a great and unique continent Rodinia. 300 million years later, this super continent disturbed the hot water currents of the oceans and lowered the global temperature. The earth began to freeze progressively until it was completely submerged by ice.
A thick layer of ice over a kilometer thick completely covered the earth. The ice reflected the sun’s rays entirely, so the temperatures fell to -40 ° C. All living organisms that had found a way to survive the earth before the ice age died.
The end of the ice age and the birth of complex life
650 million years ago, volcanic eruptions were responsible for ending the dominance of ice on planet earth. Over the next 100 million years, the heat produced by volcanic eruptions cracked Rodinia and, finally, the glaciation came to an end. When Rodinia and the ice age disappeared from the earth, large amounts of oxygen emerged from the oceans.
This increase in oxygen triggered the creation of an ozone layer and the atmosphere as we currently know it (78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen). Finally, more complex life forms were able to develop thanks to the protection provided by the ozone layer against ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.
Although the position of the continents was not the same as it is 550 million years ago, the conditions for more complex life forms were already possible. During the following millions of years the earth was dominated by immense creatures and life forms. Humans (Homo sapiens) appeared approximately 200,000 years ago; we have only been a blink in the life of the earth.