What would happen if we squeezed down the entire 13.8 billion years of cosmic history into a single calendar year? Where would humans lie on this 365-day-long cosmic timeline? At what time would our planet and the solar system be formed? Let’s dive into the shocking details of this cosmic calendar.
Here, one second is equal to 437.6 years.
January 1st, 12:00 AM
It’s 12:00 midnight, and the universe has just formed with a bang. It’s very hot and dense and is expanding faster than the speed of light. In the span of a few seconds, it starts to cool down, and electrons and quarks start to form. These quarks will form the protons and Neutrons.
After 14 minutes and 28 seconds of the Big Bang, the universe cools down enough to allow electrons to be caught in orbit around the atomic nuclei. This forms the first atom in the universe known to be Hydrogen, and later Helium is also formed.
While this happens, the first light is emitted in the universe, which will be known as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. At this point, there are no stars, just a faint orange glow that would last for the next 3 million years before shifting into non-visible wavelengths, making the universe completely dark. This is known as the Dark Age of the universe.
January 8th
Gravity comes into play. Dust and gas particles combine to form protostars and ultimately the stars. These stars are the first type of stars. They are not composed of heavy elements. They are roughly 75% Hydrogen and around 25% Helium. These stars are 10 to 100 times the size of our sun and will last for a million years.
It’s January 19th, around 12:30 PM, and the universe is filled with stars and light. The first galaxies are forming, and over time, larger galaxies will form. A few days later, our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is formed. At this point, we are just 6% into the present-day age of the universe, and our home galaxy is formed, and also the structure of the universe, called the Cosmic web, similar to the neurons, begins to form.
It’s April 11th, 12:10 PM, the first ever stars like our sun are being formed, filled with heavy elements like Iron and Carbon.
September 1st, 8:00 AM
The Sun and other gas giant stars in our solar system formed. The Sun sets alight for the first time, fusing hydrogen into Helium and beginning its journey that would last for the next 10 billion years.
Just 2 days later, rocky planets in our solar system, including Earth, Mars, Mercury, Venus, and supposedly Theia, are formed. (Theia was an earlier Mars-sized protoplanet that is believed to have hit Earth and form moon in what is known as the Great Collision.)
For the next 22 days in the cosmic calendar, Earth undergoes a phase of growth including volcanic eruptions, ice ages, and seismic activities that made Earth habitable.
September 25th, 3:10 AM
At this time in the cosmic calendar, something unimaginable and strange happens. Life emerges in the ocean near volcanic vents. This is possibly the first time any life has emerged in this universe. It is just a single-celled simple life with no complete nucleus, known as a prokaryote.
On October 3rd, around 9:00 AM, the first photosynthetic bacteria begin emerging. Although this is the first mode of photosynthesis where organisms utilize Ultraviolet light instead of visible light and exhale Sulphur instead of Oxygen.
It’s October 21st, 1:30 AM, cyanobacteria start using sunlight and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and exhale oxygen. Oxygen starts filling the oceans and atmosphere. This is known as the Great Oxidation Event.
On November 17th, 12:30 AM, multicellular life emerges in the ocean.
On December 17th, 11:30 PM, one week until cosmic Christmas, fish finally start growing in an ocean with skull and vertebrae.
On December 20th, 2:15 AM, the first ever shark was swimming in the ocean. Life becomes complex. Interestingly, just 19 cosmic hours later, the first ever tree emerges on the planet. Yes, you heard it right. Trees on Earth emerged nearly 30 million years after sharks.
December 22nd, 9:00 AM
An important day in the developement of terrestial life. This is the time, when a fish dares to leave oceans and move towards the the land. Sarcastically speaking, it is actually a bold move that later will later shape the future of human civilization.
On December 26th, around 11:30 AM, dinosaurs and mammals are born, and they roam on the planet. Around the same time, the ancient supercontinent Pangea split apart, and the first signs of continents appeared.
It’s December 30th, 6:30 AM, another big day. A dinosaur-killing asteroid hits the Gulf of modern-day Mexico at the speed of 20 km/s with a force equivalent to 10 billion atomic bombs similar to those used in World War II. Its impact creates a 170 km wide crater. Scorching heat, tsunamis, earthquakes, and a thick layer of dust and debris that would block the sun would cause the extinction of nearly 75% of the species on the planet.
Six hours later, around 12:59 PM, the ape ancestor appears.
Last day of the cosmic calendar
- 10:15 PM: Human Genus appears in Africa
- 11:37 PM: First human Sapien is born
- 11:59:31 PM: Humans invent agriculture. This shifted their mode of living from hunting to farming.
- 11:59:46 PM: Humans invented the wheel and writing in Mesopotamia.
- 11:59:48 PM: Egyptian pyramids have just been built.
- 11:59:53 PM: Ancient Greek philosophers like Archimedes and Plato are alive.
- 11:59:57 PM: Nicolaus Copernicus has only just discovered that Earth is not the centre of the Universe.
Final Second of the Cosmic Calendar (11:59:59 PM)
The final second of the cosmic calendar carries the 437 years of human history, and what humanity has achieved in this last second is beyond imagination.
In this second, Galileo invented the first ever telescope and told the world about heliocentrism, Newton proposed his laws of motion, the law of gravitational force, and calculus, the theory of evolution was proposed by Darwin, the special theory of relativity and the general theory of relativity were explained by Einstein, changing the perspective of people, the first ever plane was invented by the Wright brothers, America was established, humanity fought two great wars known as WWI and WWII, Hitler killed Jews, the atomic bomb was invented and used in WWII, the first ever human landed on the Moon, the structure of DNA was discovered, Pluto was discovered, Voyager 1 and 2 were launched for interstellar voyage, the first ever successful heart transplant was done by Dr. Christian Barnard, some of the finest novels and books were written, the Berlin Wall fell, the Cold War occurred, humans suffered pandemics like the Black Death and the coronavirus that killed millions of people, the first ever photograph was taken, the first ever video was recorded, the first ever radio, telephone, and smartphone were invented for communication, computers were invented, cinema flourished and some of the great movies were made, Google was made, social media apps like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, and many others were made, the first ever video was posted on YouTube by its co-founder, 9/11 happened, Osama Bin Laden was assassinated, AI chatbots were made, robots were made, Neuralink was made, this great site (Sciencegoats) was made, and many unimaginable discoveries and inventions were made.
This scale of time gives us a reality check that humans have just evolved and developed on this planet. If we don’t extinct ourselves by Nuclear attacks or by destroying the climate, we are going to make it to the far-off galaxies.