Big Era One

Humans in the Universe

13 Billion – 200,000 Years Ago

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Welcome, fellow time travelers!
Me llamo “Mundo!” Nice to
make your acquaintance. I don’t
know how you found me, but I
think you’ll be glad you did.
Since you’re here and so am I,
let’s take a little trip, huh?

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 I’m glad you’re here!
People have been kind of
ignoring me lately, so I’ve
been thinking a lot and
wanted to share this story
I’ve been writing. It’s about
me, of course (it’s my story,
right?), but it’s about you,
too...

Let me start with a couple

of questions I’ve been
thinking about...

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 How did
the universe
come to be?

Where did
our Earth
come from?

How & when

did we humans
appear on Earth?

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 Deep questions, huh?

Yeah, but I’m not the only

one asking them...

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All peoples have explanations of our origins.

The Maidu people, native to California, say

that Earth Starter made the world from
some green slime Turtle brought up from
deep underwater. He made humans from
red earth mixed with water.

… And the Chinese used to

say that Phan Ku – no
thing, not yet born – burst
from a hen’s egg and
became the Great Creator.

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Scientists offer a different explanation, based on
evidence gathered from sources on earth and in space.
Here’s what they might say:
Long ago, there was no time...
There was no space...
But 13 billion years ago...

things changed.

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BANG! 8
Where there had been
nothing, now there was
everything. The whole
universe – tiny, and
fantastically hot.

For an instant, it
expanded faster than the
speed of light. Then it
slowed down but kept
expanding, as it still is.

9
 As the universe cooled down,
clouds of hydrogen and
helium gas began to gather
together, their centers
getting hotter and hotter.
Bang

Eras
2-9
Big

Big
Big Era 1
13 bil yrs ago

10
And when they
were hot enough, the
hydrogen atoms began
to fuse together with
the power of millions of
hydrogen bombs.

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STARS
WERE BORN!

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They clustered together
in vast galaxies, each
containing billions of
these new stars.

I can’t
see us
yet...

Eras
Stars &
Bang

2-9
Big
Big

Galaxies

Big Era 1

12 bil yrs ago

13 bil yrs ago

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 Four and a half billion years
ago – when the universe
was already two-thirds as
old as it is today – a star
was born near the edge of a
galaxy we call the Milky
Way:

OUR SUN!
Galaxies
Stars &

Eras
2-9
Bang

Big
Our Sun &
Big

Planets

Big Era 1

4.6 bil yrs ago

13 bil yrs
ago

ago
12 bil yrs

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Around the sun, wisps of matter were drawn together by the
forces of gravity to create the planets of our solar system…

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…Including the third
rock from the sun:

OUR EARTH!

What a
cute baby,
huh?

16
 The early earth was
incredibly HOT.

Heavier metals melted

and sank to the center,
lighter metals rose to
the surface, and gases
bubbled up to make the
earth’s first
atmosphere.

Anybody got
something for
a stomach
ache?

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By four billion years
ago, the earth had
cooled enough for
water to condense into
oceans. And so the
earth turned blue.

The surface hardened

into thin “plates”
floating on the molten
materials underneath.
Those “plates” float on
the surface to this day,
constantly changing the
landscapes and weather
patterns on the earth’s
surface.

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Where the plates collided, great
mountains were formed...

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...and where they tore
apart, melted rock
poured out from under
the surface.

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 Deep within the newly
formed oceans,
complex chemicals
were created using
volcanic heat for
energy.

Some of these
chemicals became so
highly organized that
they formed cells – the
first LIFE ON EARTH!

& Planets
Galaxies

Our Sun
Stars &

Eras
2-9
Big
First
Bang
Big

Life

Big Era 1

3.8 bil
13 bil yrs ago

12 bil yrs ago

4.6 bil yrs ago

yrs ago

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Living organisms changed
the atmosphere, adding
oxygen. Cells developed
that could “breathe”
oxygen...

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 ...and, about 600 million
years ago, the first multi-
cellular organisms arose
in the earth’s oceans.

& Planets
Galaxies

First Life
Our Sun
Stars &
Bang

Multi-Celled
Big

Organisms
Big
Big Era 1 Eras
2-9
600m
4.6 bil yrs

3.8 bil yrs

13 bil yrs ago

ago

ago
12 bil yrs ago

yrs ago

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The first animals appeared
not too long after!

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 After a while, some
animals moved out of the
oceans and onto the land.

Multi-Celled
Organisms
First Life

Eras
2-9
Big
First Life
on Land

Scale of Life on Earth

400m

Today
600m yrs ago

250k yrs ago

3.8 bil yrs ago

yrs ago

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Dinosaurs were the most
successful of the early
land animals...
First Life
on Land

Eras
2-9
Big
First
Dinosaurs

Scale of Life on Land

220m yrs ago

Today
250k yrs ago
400m yrs ago

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 ...but about 65 million
years ago, a giant
meteor came crashing
down to earth...

...and the dinosaurs

were no more!
First Life

Dinosaurs
on Land

Eras
2-9
Big
First

Dinosaurs Disappear

Scale of Life on Land

67m yrs ago

Today
250k yrs ago
400m yrs ago

220m yrs ago

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This left a new class of animals dominant on the land.

MAMMALS!

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Over time, a particular
group of mammals
emerged that lived in
trees.
To survive in that
environment, these
mammals needed 3D
vision and large brains to
process visual
information. They also
needed hands that could
grip with precision.
(Imagine living in a tree
without any of these.
You’d fall out!)
These mammals were the
first PRIMATES.

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Then, about 7 million years ago in Africa, a
branch of those primates became the first to
stand upright.

These were the first HOMINIDS. Different

hominids lived on earth over the next 7 million
years, some at the same time as others, but only
one survives to this day...

US!!!
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The earliest hominids
lived in small, family-
sized groups. They
gathered plants, insects,
and small animals, and
they occasionally
scavenged the meat of
larger animals killed by
predators.
Disappear
Dinosaurs

Eras
2-9
Big
First
Hominids

Scale of Life after the Dinosaurs

7m yrs

250k yrs ago

Today
67m yrs ago

ago

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The first hominids had
brains about the size of
a modern chimp’s. Over
time, new species
developed ever-larger
brains, and they began
to make more and more
complex tools. The
Australopithecines
likely used sharp sticks
to dig for food...
Hominids

Eras
2-9
Australopithecines

Big
First

4 – 1.5m yrs ago

Today
250k yrs ago
7m yrs ago

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 ...while Homo habilis
hominids, a later
species, were able to
make stone tools. They
chipped ‘flakes’ of
stone from large rocks
and used those flakes
as knives. They also
used the leftover ‘core’
to scrape out hides and
do other jobs.

Eras
2-9
Big
Homo habilis

Australopithecines

2.4 – 1.6m yrs ago

250k yrs ago

Today
4m yrs ago

1.5m yrs ago

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Homo erectus hominids,
which lived on Earth for
almost two million
years, were probably
the first ones who could
control and use fire.
They were also
the first to leave Africa.
Their fossils have been
found as far away as
China and Java (in
modern Indonesia).

Eras
2-9
Big
Homo erectus

Homo habilis
Australopithecines

1.8m – 27k yrs ago

Today
250k yrs ago
2.4m yrs ago
4m yrs ago

1.6m yrs ago

1.5m yrs ago

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 Social relationships
among our ancestors
were complex. Like
modern chimpanzees,
early hominids must
have been quite clever,
with a great deal of
social cooperation and
group politics. They
cared for each other,
especially their children.

WOW! These
early ancestors
of ours sound a

lot like us!

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Well, in some ways
that’s true – but this
species was different in
many other respects
from our species. We
have no evidence, for
example, that they had
art, religion, or
language.

ART RELIGION LANGUAGE

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So, what’s so
special about
us? What
makes us
HUMAN, and
how did we
BECOME
human?

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 Well, you’ll just
have to wait for
BIG ERA TWO to
get the answer to
those questions!

End of Big Era One

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