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Cosmic Calendar

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A graphical view of the Cosmic Calendar, featuring the months of the year, days of December, and the final minute.

The Cosmic Calendar is a method to visualize the chronology of the universe, scaling its currently understood age of 13.8 billion years to a single year in order to help intuit it for pedagogical purposes in science education or popular science.

This graphic shows in a spiral a summary of notable events from the Big Bang to the present day. Every billion years (Ga) is represented in 90 degrees of rotation of the spiral.

In this visualization, the Big Bang took place at the beginning of January 1 at midnight, and the current moment maps onto the end of December 31 just before midnight.[1]

At this scale, there are 437.5 years per second, 1.575 million years per hour, and 37.8 million years per day.

The concept was popularized by Carl Sagan in his 1977 book The Dragons of Eden and on his 1980 television series Cosmos.[2] Sagan goes on to extend the comparison in terms of surface area, explaining that if the Cosmic Calendar is scaled to the size of a football field, then "all of human history would occupy an area the size of [his] hand".[3]

A similar analogy used to visualize the geologic time scale and the history of life on Earth is the Geologic Calendar

Cosmology

Date Gya (billion years ago) Event
1 Jan 13.8 Big Bang, as seen through cosmic background radiation
14 Jan 13.1 Oldest known Gamma Ray Burst
22 Jan 12.85 First galaxies form[4]
16 Mar 11 Milky Way Galaxy formed
12 May 8.8 Milky Way Galaxy disk formed
2 Sep 4.57 Formation of the Solar System
6 Sep 4.4 Oldest rocks known on Earth

Date in year calculated from formula

T(days) = 365 days * 0.100/13.797 ( 1- T_Gya/13.797 )

Evolution of life on Earth

Date Gya (billion years ago) Event
14 Sep 4.1 First known remains of biotic life (discovered in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia).[5][6]
21 Sep 3.8 First Life (Prokaryotes)[7][8][9]
30 Sep 3.4 Photosynthesis
29 Oct 2.4 Oxygenation of atmosphere
9 Nov 2 Complex cells (Eukaryotes)
5 Dec 0.8 First multicellular life[10]
7 Dec 0.67 Simple animals
14 Dec 0.55 Arthropods (ancestors of insects, arachnids)
17 Dec 0.5 Fish and Proto-amphibians
20 Dec 0.45 Land plants; Ordovician–Silurian extinction events
21 Dec 0.4 Insects and seeds
22 Dec 0.36 Amphibians; Late Devonian extinction
23 Dec 0.3 Reptiles
24 Dec 0.25 Permian–Triassic extinction event; 57% of all biological families and 83% of all genera die
25 Dec 0.23 Dinosaurs
26 Dec 0.2 Mammals; Triassic–Jurassic extinction event
27 Dec 0.15 Birds (avian dinosaurs)
28 Dec 0.13 Flowers
30 Dec, 06:24 0.065 Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, non-avian dinosaurs die out[11]

Human evolution

Date / time Mya (million years ago) Event
30 Dec 65 Primates
31 Dec, 06:05 15 Apes
31 Dec, 14:24 12.3 Hominids
31 Dec, 22:24 2.5 Primitive humans and stone tools
31 Dec, 23:44 0.4 Domestication of fire
31 Dec, 23:52 0.2 Anatomically modern humans
31 Dec, 23:55 0.11 Beginning of most recent Glacial Period
31 Dec, 23:58 0.035 Sculpture and painting
31 Dec, 23:59:32 0.012 Agriculture

History begins

Date / time kya (thousand years ago) Event
31 Dec, 23:59:33 12.0 End of the last Ice Age
31 Dec, 23:59:41 8.3 Flooding of Doggerland
31 Dec, 23:59:46 6.0 Chalcolithic
31 Dec, 23:59:47 5.5 Early Bronze Age; Proto-writing; Building of Stonehenge Cursus
31 Dec, 23:59:48 5.0 First Dynasty of Egypt, Early Dynastic period in Sumer, beginning of Indus Valley Civilisation
31 Dec, 23:59:49 4.5 Alphabet, Akkadian Empire, wheel
31 Dec, 23:59:51 4.0 Code of Hammurabi, Middle Kingdom of Egypt
31 Dec, 23:59:52 3.5 Late Bronze Age to early Iron Age; Minoan eruption
31 Dec, 23:59:53 3.0 Iron Age; beginning of classical antiquity
31 Dec, 23:59:54 2.5 Buddha, Mahavira, Zoroaster, Confucius, Achaemenid Empire, Qin Dynasty, Classical Greece, Ashokan Empire, Vedas Completed, Euclidean geometry, Archimedean Physics, Roman Republic
31 Dec, 23:59:55 2.0 Ptolemaic astronomy, Roman Empire, Christ, invention of numeral 0, Gupta Empire
31 Dec, 23:59:56 1.5 Muhammad, Maya civilization, Song Dynasty, rise of Byzantine Empire
31 Dec, 23:59:58 1.0 Mongol Empire, Maratha Empire, Crusades, Christopher Columbus voyages to the Americas, Renaissance in Europe, Classical music to the time of Johann Sebastian Bach
31 Dec, 23:59:59 0.5 Modern History; the last 437.5 years before present.

Future

Future of the Earth and the Solar System ("Year 2")

Date / time kyr(Thousand years), myr (Million years), and Byr (billion years) Event
1 Jan, 00:00:01 0.5 Kyr Anthropocene Epoch
1 Jan, 00:00:23 10.0 Kyr Antares explodes into a supernova
1 Jan, 00:00:50 20.0 Kyr Chernobyl becomes safe
1 Jan, 00:00:57 20.0 Kyr The Arecibo message reaches the M13 cluster
1 Jan, 00:01:54 50.0 Kyr Niagara Falls erodes away
1 Jan, 00:03:48 100.0 Kyr Proper motion makes all constellations unrecognizable
1 Jan, 00:11:24 300.0 Kyr WR 104 explodes
1 Jan, 00:19:02 500.0 Kyr Earth likely hit by 1 km asteroid
1 Jan, 00:38:05 1.0 Myr Pyramids of Giza erode away
1 Jan, 04:34:17 7.2 Myr Mount Rushmore erodes away
1 Jan, 16:30 20.00 Myr Eastern Africa splits apart
2 Jan 50.00 Myr Mediterranean Sea closes up due to Europe and Africa colliding
3 Jan 100.00 Myr Saturn loses its rings
5 Jan 180.00 Myr Earth's day becomes one hour longer
7 Jan 240.00 Myr Solar System completes one galactic year
8 Jan 450.00 Byr Formation of possible new supercontinent
16 Jan 600.00 Myr Solar eclipses no longer possible
17 Jan 700.00 Myr Atmospheric CO2 levels too low for photosynthesis, all complex life die
8 Feb 1.0 Byr Earth's oceans evaporate away
1 Mar 2.0 Byr All life on Earth dies
18 Mar 3.0 Byr Milky Way-Andromeda collision
9 Apr 4.0 Byr Sun expands into a red giant
16 Apr 4.0 Byr Global surface temperatures reach 1330 deg C, hot enough to melt lead
28 Jul 7.9 Byr Sun destroys the Earth
12 Aug 8.0 Byr Sun becomes a white dwarf
31 Dec 12.0 Byr Solar System ceases to exist

Future of the Universe ("Year 3" and beyond) (Fixed)

Date / time Byr (billion years) and above Event
Year 3, 21 Mar 100.0 Byr Galaxies disappear beyond light horizon
Year 4, 13 Dec 100 trillion Star formation ends
Year 5, 11 Jul 1 quadrillion Sun cools down to -268 deg C
Year 7, 31 Dec 3×1043 Black Hole Era
Year 4.54×1098 1.7×1098 Last black holes evaporate
Year 10100 Dark Era begins, Heat death of the universe
Year 101500 Iron Stars form, assuming protons do not decay
Year 101050 Possible Boltzmann brain appears
Year 101076 Last black holes evaporate
Year 1010120 Final entropy state, (Dark Era begins, Heat death of the universe)
Year 10101056 Possible new Big Bang occurs

See also

References

  1. ^ Therese Puyau Blanchard (1995). "The Universe At Your Fingertips Activity: Cosmic Calendar". Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Archived from the original on 2007-12-16. Retrieved 2007-12-15.
  2. ^ Cosmos, episode 1 (1980)
  3. ^ Episode 1: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean (Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Carl Sagan)
  4. ^ "First Galaxies Born Sooner After Big Bang Than Thought". Space.com. Retrieved 2015-11-07.
  5. ^ Borenstein, Seth (19 October 2015). "Hints of life on what was thought to be desolate early Earth". Excite. Yonkers, NY: Mindspark Interactive Network. Associated Press. Retrieved 2015-10-20.
  6. ^ Bell, Elizabeth A.; Boehnike, Patrick; Harrison, T. Mark; et al. (19 October 2015). "Potentially biogenic carbon preserved in a 4.1 billion-year-old zircon" (PDF). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112 (47): 14518–21. Bibcode:2015PNAS..11214518B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1517557112. ISSN 1091-6490. PMC 4664351. PMID 26483481. Retrieved 2015-10-20. Early edition, published online before print.
  7. ^ Yoko Ohtomo; Takeshi Kakegawa; Akizumi Ishida; Toshiro Nagase; Minik T. Rosing (8 December 2013). "Evidence for biogenic graphite in early Archaean Isua metasedimentary rocks". Nature Geoscience. 7: 25–28. Bibcode:2014NatGe...7...25O. doi:10.1038/ngeo2025.
  8. ^ Borenstein, Seth (13 November 2013). "Oldest fossil found: Meet your microbial mom". AP News. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
  9. ^ Noffke, Nora; Christian, Daniel; Wacey, David; Hazen, Robert M. (8 November 2013). "Microbially Induced Sedimentary Structures Recording an Ancient Ecosystem in the ca. 3.48 Billion-Year-Old Dresser Formation, Pilbara, Western Australia". Astrobiology. 13 (12): 1103–24. Bibcode:2013AsBio..13.1103N. doi:10.1089/ast.2013.1030. PMC 3870916. PMID 24205812.
  10. ^ Erwin, Douglas H. (9 November 2015). "Early metazoan life: divergence, environment and ecology". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 370 (20150036): 20150036. doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0036. PMC 4650120. PMID 26554036.
  11. ^ "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (@35min)". Archived from the original on 2014-03-11. Retrieved 2014-03-11.
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: General Astronomy/Short History of the Universe
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: High School Earth Science
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