Dates & sources
Big Bang · ≈13.8 billion years ago
The beginning of the observable universe’s expansion. Everything you know comes after this point.
Earth forms · ≈4.54 billion years ago
Our planet forms when the universe is already about 9.26 billion years old.
Early life · At least ≈3.5 billion years ago
Microorganisms leave evidence of life. We do not know when the first cell arose; it may have been earlier.
Homo sapiens · ≈300,000 years ago
Our species appears. There is no single date for the emergence of consciousness.
Writing · ≈3200 BCE
We begin keeping words outside memory. This tiny band holds all of recorded history.
AI as a field · 1956
Dartmouth brings together AI pioneers in 1956. Five years later, Gagarin reaches space. All of this, in a few decades.
We reach space · 1961
Yuri Gagarin makes the first human spaceflight. Only about 5,160 years have passed since early writing.
You are here. · 2026 · The human instant
A planet, life, memory, space, artificial intelligence. Our history occupies an almost invisible fraction. Come closer.
What about 400,000 years from now? · +400,000 years · An open question
Longer than our species has existed. A cosmic instant, a human future we cannot predict.
The Sun will change. · In ≈5 billion years
The Sun will become a red giant, before ending as a white dwarf. This is not a short interval: it is 36% of the universe’s current age.