The atlas · Back through time
Origins
How the Earth and the Moon began.
1 written · 8 in outline · 2 sections
The Solar System
- How the Solar System formed
How the Sun and planets formed from a cloud of gas and dust.
- Building the Earth
How dust grew into a planet, and how its iron sank to make the core.
- How the Moon formed
The leading idea for how the Moon formed, and the evidence for and against it.
The early Earth
- The first billion years
A disc of dust, a world of molten rock, a collision that made the Moon, and then the first oceans and the first life.
- The first oceans
When the first oceans formed, and what the oldest crystals say about it.
- The oldest rocks
The oldest rocks and crystals on Earth, where they are and how old.
- Where the water came from
Whether the Earth’s water was there from the start or arrived later from space, a question still argued over.
- The faint young Sun
Why the early Earth was not frozen solid when the young Sun shone more weakly, an open puzzle.
- Was there a storm of impacts?
Whether the early Earth and Moon were hit by a late burst of impacts, a question still open.