A Timeline of the Early Building Blocks of Earth

The Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago Universe was probably smaller than an atom but had all the matter/energy necessary for building.

Within the 1st second Plasma Universe Protons and electrons; four basic forms of energy; plasma mixture of energy and charged particles

380,000 years The First Atoms Universe cooled enough for protons and electrons to merge (electrically neutral); detected today in CBR (cosmic background radiation)

Clouds of Hydrogen and Helium The next almost 200 million years Clouds of Hydrogen and Helium Universe was lit only by the glow of huge amounts of energy pouring in to it

200 million years after The Big Bang The First Stars Clouds of H and He are fused through gravity when temps get extremely hot; energy now resists the force of gravity

Galaxies Stars collect in to galaxies like our “Milky Way”, and then in to clusters but gravity is too weak to counteract the expanding Universe

New Elements Millions of years after stars are created they run out of hydrogen and their centers collapse; helium atoms fuse to form new and more complex elements (up to iron that has 26 protons)

About a billion years after the Big Bang   Supernova The collapse of large stars have temps so hot that the more complex elements of chemistry are created, necessary for Earth

The Next Step… All of the complex elements floating in the Universe through the birth and death of stars gradually combine to create planets