In 1913, geologist Arthur Holmes published “the Age of the Earth,” the first major effort to date the planet using radiometric dating. “It is perhaps a little indelicate to ask of our Mother Earth her age,” he wrote in his introduction — then proceeded to reveal that she was roughly 1.6 billion years old.

How do we know the Earths age?

4.543 billion years Earth/Age

What was Earth like 4.5 billion years ago?

A little more than 4.5 billion years ago, roughly 70 million years after Earth formed, planetary bodies were being pummeled by asteroids and planetoids of all kinds. Earth was struck by a Mars-sized asteroid (Figure below). An artists depiction of the impact that produced the Moon.

What did the Earth look like before life?

The early Earth had no ozone layer and was probably very hot. The early Earth also had no free oxygen. Eventually the atmosphere became like it is today and rich in oxygen. The first complex organisms on Earth first developed about 2 billion years ago.

How did the world look in the beginning?

The universe grew and cooled and eventually stars and galaxies formed. The Earth was formed about 4.6 billion years ago, thats 4,600,000,000 years ago. It was formed by collisions of particles in a large cloud of material. Slowly gravity gathered together all these particles of dust and gas and formed larger clumps.