1. A Timeline of the Early Building Blocks of Earth

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

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

4. 380,000 years
The First Atoms
Universe cooled enough for protons and electrons to merge (electrically neutral); detected today in CBR (cosmic background radiation)

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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)

10. 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

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