The History of Life on Earth

evolution · deep time · life origins · biodiversity

Earth's age. Our planet formed about 4.54 billion years ago, which is almost as old as the entire solar system. That's an almost impossibly long time to imagine.

Life's beginning. The first living things appeared at least 3.7 billion years ago, though scientists are still figuring out exactly how life started. These earliest organisms were probably simple, single-celled creatures.

One common ancestor. Every living thing on Earth today, from bacteria to blue whales to you, shares a distant common ancestor. All the amazing variety of life evolved from these early beginnings through the process of evolution.

Slow changes over time. Evolution works so slowly that you'd never notice it happening in a human lifetime. But over millions and billions of years, tiny changes add up to create entirely new species.

Extinct and alive. Dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, and countless other creatures have gone extinct over Earth's history. But their remains help scientists understand how life has changed over time.