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Planet Earth

The Timeline Of Earth

The Blue Marble
In December 1972, Apollo 17 spacecraft took a photo of Earth from space, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles). This image, with the official NASA designation AS17-148-22727, became known as "The Blue Marble", one of the most iconic photos of Earth from space. In fact, it was not the first clear image of Earth taken from space - similar photos had already been taken as early as 1967. But, the 1970s were the scene of a big surge in environmental activism. For example, on April 22, 1970, the first "Earth Day" was organized by Gaylord Nelson, former senator of Wisconsin, and Denis Hayes, a Harvard graduate student. Millions of people gather in the United States for the event. So, in today's terms, image AS17-148-22727 went "viral" and became a symbol of the environmental movement, as a depiction of Earth's frailty, vulnerability, and isolation amid the vast expanse of space. According to NASA archivist Mike Gentry, it is among the most widely distributed images in human history.

We’ve evolved here on Earth, and for tens of thousands of years, we just thought the Earth is also the universe, or at least the most important and the biggest part of it. Our brains have been adapted to the basic survival needs.

So we can deal with the moderately sized objects which have moderate velocity, and we can conceptualize small numbers like 1, 2, 50. But when the numbers get bigger than that, the problem begins: our puny brains cannot conceptualize them anymore.

The larger a number grows, the harder it becomes to deal with.

Take the age of the Earth, which is almost 4.6 billion years. We don’t have an intuitive sense of what this number means. But, visualization can help: we can better understand things if we visualize them. Author Andy Bergmann just did that. He created a Timeline of Earth to get a better sense of how key events relate in time over our planet’s 4.6 billion year history. It’s hard to get a sense of how vast it is until you can see it laid out visually.

Hello World: the Timeline of the Earth
Author Andy Bergmann (Twitter: @dubly) created the Timeline of Earth to get a better sense of how key events relate in time over our planet’s 4.6 billion year history. It’s hard to get a sense of how vast it is until you can see it laid out visually. We may not be able to change our brain systems for grasping big numbers, but we can get better at dealing with them, with visualization. You can see the timeline of Earth on timelineofearth.com/
The largest flying animal ever lived - A Quetzalcoatlus reconstruction at JuraPark Bałtów

Related: What If Earth’s History Compressed Into The Year 2018

M. Özgür Nevres
Latest posts by M. Özgür Nevres (see all)
Özgür Nevres

By M. Özgür Nevres

I am a software developer and a science enthusiast. I was graduated from the Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Computer Engineering. In the past, I worked at the Istanbul Technical University Science Center as a science instructor. I write about the planet Earth and science on this website, ourplnt.com. I am also an animal lover! I take care of stray cats & dogs. This website's all income goes directly to our furry friends. Please consider supporting me on Patreon, so I can help more animals!

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