Okay -- Wakey wakey, Bright Sider!
We have a long day ahead of us.
My name’s Flash, and I’m about to take you on a quick 24-hour trip through the history
of our planet.
That’s right – 4.5 billion years in just 1 day!
Here we go…
At around 12:00am, the young Earth collides with another planet called Theia.
Will you look at that – the moon is born!
You might be wondering why this compass is going berzerk.
Well, in real time, the magnetic poles switch places every 250,000 years.
(Yep, North becomes South, and South is the new North – magnetically, at least!)
But right now, on this 1-day-old planet, they’re changing 12 times a second!
Also, the continents move about 1 inch per year to form a supercontinent.
That happens every 400 million years.
But today, they’re merging and breaking up every 2 hours!
From 12 to 4:30am, not much interesting happens – just the planet and atmosphere morphing…and
the sound of our yawns!
At 5:30am, we see the first single-celled organisms starting their life in the ocean.
The planet is filled with methane, and these little guys are feasting on it.
It’s 8am.
Instead of rush hour traffic filling the streets, we have the first viruses emerging… and
no coffee yet.
Not even a single coffee tree around…
By 11am, photosynthesizing bacteria have managed to take in enough sun for the past 6 “hours”
(aka, a billion years) to fill the atmosphere with the byproduct they let out: oxygen!
Get ready – this is gonna kick-start the development of life on this planet!
At 11:35, it starts to get chilly.
A mere second later, it’s freezing cold, and we have the first snowball on Earth.
Even the oceans turn to ice.
Don’t worry, everything will melt by lunchtime.
At around 1pm, we have special cells with internal organs coming to life, but they’re
taking their sweet time.
3 hours later, they’ll start to divide into 3 groups that will eventually become fungi
(that’s mushrooms and stuff), the lovely plants that’ll color this Earth, and, of
course, animals!
But not for a while…
Let’s fast-forward while these cells are taking forever to go from simple to complex
and all that evolutionary jazz…
At 7:20pm, we FINALLY have something familiar: sponges!
Took long enough…
It’s 7:45, and we have another creature being born.
It’s called a placozoa.
You’ll need a microscope to see it because it’s only 1 millimeter long.
But keep an eye on him because he’s the last common ancestor of all animals combined.
It’s 7:55, and the Earth freezes over again.
Time for a 2-minute ski sesh before everything melts.
8pm, and look in the ocean, we have the first comb jellies appearing!
Those beautiful transparent creatures with rainbow reflections on them.
They’re supposedly the first animals to appear.
Finally, things are starting to move!
At around 8:30, we can remove our sun-protecting gear because now the Ozone layer appears.
A little late, buddy – it’s already past sunset.
In just 2 minutes, the ocean is filling with plants!
By 8:45, life is flourishing in the sea.
We now have jellyfish swimming around corals.
We don’t have full-on starfish yet (to my disappointment…I’ve been waiting!).
But, hey, they’re on their way!
At 8:52, we can see trails on the ocean floor.
That means little creatures have begun to crawl.
4 minutes later, animals are beginning to develop little backbones.
Not the regular kind you and I have, though, the ancient incomplete ones.
We don’t see the first official backbone until another 4 minutes.
Seems pretty quick, but it took 15 million years!
It’s 9:10pm, the moon is up, the sea creatures are getting a little stir-crazy, so they decide
to explore the land.
30 seconds later, we finally get some diversity!
Different animals and plants emerge.
Look, they’re spreading everywhere faster than the speed of sound!
9:41, and do you know what’s been missing?
Dinosaurs!
No, not yet, but they’re coming, just hang tight!
For now, it’s the first insects.
Land plants and trees also shoot up from the ground!
By 9:45, we have the first 4-legged animals appearing in shallow waters.
At 10:10pm, those 4-legged creatures (known as tetrapods) are splitting into sauropsids
and synapsids.
The sauropsids are the ones we’ve been waiting for – they’ll soon become reptiles, birds,
and…dinosaurs!
The synapsids are important too, though!
They’re also like reptiles but later evolve into mammals.
(Like, you and me!)
In just 2 minutes, those mammals are taking over the land.
The most famous one is called the Dimetrodon.
It’s a massive reptile with a sail on its back.
It’s 10:25, and another species called therapsids appear while our friend “what’s his sail”
slowly fades away.
By 10:30, everything vanishes, we can hardly see any animals.
A mass extinction takes place.
Only 5% of the species survive.
I’m not sure what caused it.
Either a huge asteroid or an enormous volcanic eruption.
10:34, and the moment is here.
The dinosaurs are finally making an appearance.
The first one was the Nyasasaurus, but we’re not sure if he was the real deal or a relative
turning into a dino.
Just 2 minutes have passed, and – HEY!
Look at the ground!
We have bird-like footprints.
Are the dinosaurs turning into birds?
10:45 marks another mass extinction.
Boy, it’s the second one in an hour.
But thankfully, our dinosaur friends make it.
So, they take the opportunity to spread all around the world.
Uh-oh, we gotta find some place to hide, and fast!
In 5 minutes, the tyrannosaurus will appear, and it’ll start eating everything in its
path!
By 11:00pm, we have the first birds appearing in Europe.
Woah, look at that thing!
It has the face of a dinosaur and round wings.
He seems to be around 1 foot long and get this – much later (after we humans show
up!), scientists will find out that this guy is connecting birds and dinosaurs!
It’s 11:03, and we have the first kangaroo ancestors.
These are the first animals that carry their babies in a pouch.
They mostly appeared in Southeast Asia, but since the continents are traveling at supersonic
speeds, they get to North America and Australia in less than half an hour.
A minute later, plants are starting to flower for the first time ever.
It’s 11:15, and mammals are splitting into 4 new groups.
One will become hoofed mammals, whales, and bats.
(Yes, whales and giraffes share an ancestor!)
Another will become monkeys, apes, and their relatives.
Then, we have elephants, manatees, and the like.
And the 4th group will become anteaters and armadillos.
It’s about time they showed up!
The ants have been around for 5 minutes, and they’re crawling all over us!
By 11:17, dinosaurs are reaching their full size.
It’s like Jurassic Park around here!
Look at the Argentinosaurus.
This guy was the largest animal that ever existed.
He could get over 100 feet long – that’s almost as much as 3 school buses lined up!
And he was tall enough to peek into a 7th-floor window!
If only they had 7th floor windows back then.
It’s 11:26.
Can you hear that?
LOOK UP!
A giant asteroid coming right our way!
It smashes into the Earth, and dust flies everywhere.
A few seconds later, everything clears up, but the dinosaurs have disappeared.
Only a few mammals are around.
With the dinosaurs gone, these hairy milk-lovers take over…
At 11:30, the primates separate into 2 groups, and one of those will become apes, gorillas,
and, sometime later, humans!
11:45 – those hooved animals I mentioned earlier – they split off into 2 groups.
One has an even number of toes: goats, camels, pigs, deer.
And the other has an odd number, like rhinos and tapirs.
(There’s a face only a mother could love!)
It’s 11:58pm, and still no signs of people.
But the chimpanzees and bonobos appear suddenly!
15 seconds later, the hominin species begin to walk on 2 legs, just like we did when we
were babies.
It’s 11:59 and 23 seconds, and we FINALLY have full-blown humans over in Africa!
A second later, they start migrating all over the world.
They don’t have a language, and they can’t use or create tools.
That happens at 11:59 and 58 seconds – 2 seconds before the day ends, and 100,000 years
ago!
So, out of an entire 24-hour day, our species only showed up right at the last minute.
Hey, I like the think we were fashionably late.
Plus, didn’t take us long to become top of the food chain, now, did it?
Wait, is that a bear over there?
Nevermind, gotta gooooo!!!
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