1. EARLY EARTH
Our planet is born

2. Early Earth was very different from the Earth today.
The Earth was formed by something called accretion.
Accretion is the word for a lot of matter growing into a bigger piece of matter. In this case, it was a lot of stuff banging together and sticking. An example of something we see in daily life that is similar to accretion is bits of dust sticking together.
Many of the elements that formed the Earth came from a supernova explosion.

3. The reason we can’t test rocks from early Earth is because the hot environment of the early Earth melted them. You could say the rocky material was recycled.
In order to know how old the Earth is scientists tested meteors for their radioactivity/half life/radioactive decay.
They have never found a meteorite that is older than 4.5/4.6 billion years old.

4. The reason we can’t test rocks from the early Earth is because the hot environment of the early Earth melted them. You could say that the rocky material was recycled.
In order to know how old the Earth is scientists tested meteors for their radioactivity/half life/radioactive decay.
They have never found a meteorite that is older than 4.5 billion years old.
That is why they date the formation of the Solar System to 4.5/4.6 billion years old.

5. The large amount of matter bombarding the Earth provided the early Earth with a great deal of heat.
At one point the Earth was made of pure magma.
During this period the denser/heavier elements such as iron and nickel sunk to the center of our planet.
When that happened the hot liquid iron core developed.

6. Structure & Composition of Earth

7. Structure & Composition of Earth

8. Structure & Composition of Earth

9. Structure & Composition of Earth

10. Structure & Composition of Earth

11. Volcanoes spewed forth poisonous gases such as Nitrogen and Carbon Dioxide.
We could never have lived in this environment.
The lack of free oxygen wouldn’t have allowed us to breathe.
Because there is no atmosphere yet the ultraviolet radiation would have burnt all life to a crisp.

12. About 150 million years after the earth formed the hot molten early Earth began to cool enough for a crust to form.
Because a hard surface now existed water could begin to collect on the Earth’s surface.
One theory is that water came from volcanic steam that was allowed to condense into rain as the Earth cooled.

13. Another theory is that water came from icy comets that collided with the Earth. Imagine a dirty snowball the size of a mountain that would have melted into storm clouds when they hit the Earth.
These rainstorms lasted millions of years in order to create the oceans.
Somewhere along the way, the atmosphere was “burped out” as the lighter gases were expelled from the center of the earth.