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Earth and the Moon will be most likely be destroyed by falling into the Sun, just before the Sun reaches the largest of its red giant phase when it will be 256 times larger than it is now. Before the final collision, the Moon possibly spirals below Earth's Roche limit, breaking into a ring of debris, most of which falls to Earth's surface. [211 ...
The first eon in Earth's history, the Hadean, begins with the Earth's formation and is followed by the Archean eon at 3.8 Ga. [2]: 145 The oldest rocks found on Earth date to about 4.0 Ga, and the oldest detrital zircon crystals in rocks to about 4.4 Ga, [34] [35] [36] soon after the formation of the Earth's crust and the Earth itself.
To compensate, either a leap second will have to be added to the end of a day multiple times during each month, or one or more consecutive leap seconds will have to be added at the end of some or all months. [12] 1,100 As Earth's poles precess, Gamma Cephei replaces Polaris as the northern pole star. [13] 10,000
If Earth is not ejected during a stellar encounter, then its orbit will decay via gravitational radiation until it collides with the Sun in 10 20 (100 quintillion) years. [109] If proton decay can occur and Earth is ejected to intergalactic space, then it will last around 10 38 (100 undecillion) years before evaporating into radiation. [110]
End of the Early Bombardment Phase. Basin Groups Era begins on Earth. c. 4,450 Ma – 100 million years after the Moon formed, the first lunar crust, formed of lunar anorthosite, differentiates from lower magmas. The earliest Earth crust probably forms similarly out of similar material.
Earth is rounded into an ellipsoid with a circumference of about 40,000 km. It is the densest planet in the Solar System. Of the four rocky planets, it is the largest and most massive. Earth is about eight light-minutes away from the Sun and orbits it, taking a year (about 365.25 days) to complete one revolution.
The present pattern of ice ages began about , then intensified at the end of the Pliocene. The polar regions have since undergone repeated cycles of glaciation and thawing, repeating every 40,000–100,000 years.
The end of the Eocene and beginning of the Oligocene is marked with the massive expansion of area of the Antarctic ice sheet that was a major step into the icehouse climate. [106] Multiple proxies, such as oxygen isotopes and alkenones , indicate that at the Eocene–Oligocene transition, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration had ...