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The Cosmic Calendar

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The Cosmic Calendar The Cosmic Calendar Astronomers believe that the Cosmos in which the Solar System and Earth resides is about 16 billion years old. We believe the Earth is about 4.6 billion years old and base this on carbon dating of rocks both from Earth and the Moon. However, billions of years is a very hard thing to grasp! Fortunately there is a creative way to get a grasp on this kind of time and that is with the "cosmic calendar" which Carl Sagan created and popularized. We set the Big Bang on January 1st and divided the events into one year, with now being the first day of the next new year. Before you read further, take a guess at which month humans enter into the calendar! The first stars and galaxies did not begin to form until the universe had cooled and expanded. Our Milky Way galaxy comes into existence on May 1st of our calendar. Our Solar System forms September 9th and the Earth on September 14th. The "infant" Earth was a hot, molten and toxic place, nothing like the paradise we know today. As Earth cooled, the first rocks solidified on October 2nd. The oldest known fossils, nothing more complex than bacteria and blue­green algae, appear October 9th on our cosmic calendar. These early life forms reproduced by splitting cells. Sexes did not begin as a means of reproduction until about November first. The most basic plants which used photosynthesis to get energy, appear on November 12th. The first cells with nuclei, eukaryotes, appear on November 15th, and begin to flourish immediately. December is a busy time on our calendar, so busy that we will break this month into days, as life evolves. The event which made things speed up on Earth, was the significant build up of oxygen in the atmosphere, which takes place December 1st. With oxygen in the atmosphere, life evolved at a fast pace on. The first worms appear December 16th. The Paleozoic Era and Cambrian period begin December 17th. The first invertebrates also appear on this date. On the 18th, plankton forms in the oceans and trilobites take over as the most abundant life form. The Ordovician period began December 19th, this was the age of fish. This was also when the first vertebrate, creatures with skeletal structures, appeared on Earth. On December 20th, plants began to colonize land. These plants were vascular, more highly evolved than the earlier plants. Animals began to colonize land the next day, December 21st. .Amphibians and winged insects appear December 22nd. December 23rd marks the first trees and reptiles. The very first dinosaurs appear on December 24th,, but their reign on our calendar is short. Mammals appear two days later, and the first birds appear December 27th. The first flowers and the extinction of the Dinosaurs happen on December 28th. Primates appear on December 29th. We must take the last day of our calendar, December 31st, and look at that day in hours, minutes and seconds. About 1:30 pm, Proconsul and Ramapithecus, the first probable ancestors of apes and men appear. It is 10:30 pm, when the first human walks on Earth. Stone tools are used about 11:00 pm with Peking man first using fire at 11:46pm. 11:59pm sees the first cave painting in Europe.. At 11:59:20 pm, man begins to domesticate plants to use for food and shelter. The earliest cities appear 11:59:35 pm. The Bronze age, the Trojan war and the invention of the compass take place on December 31st, 11:59:53 pm. Ptolemy, Euclidian geometry, the Roman Empire and the birth of Christ take place at 11:59:56 pm. Rome falls only one moment later at 11:59:57 pm. The Renaissance in Europe; voyages of discovery from Europe take place at 11:59:59 pm. And it is the first second of the New Year day that there has been widespread development of science and technology, the emergence of global culture, as well as the acquisition of the means of self­destruction of the human species. All of the world as we know it, all of recorded human history takes place on the last day of our calendar. Now is the time to think about where we will go from here and whether we will make another year in the cosmic calendar. http://starryskies.com/Artshtml/dln/1­02/cosmic.cal.html .
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