Timeline of the universe

This is a time scale that attempts to show the best scientific estimates of the age of past events and predictions of the approximate timing of hypothetical future events with cosmological significance. In this context, billion means 10⁹.

This is a stub article: please add more dates here for past events, and for predictions of dates for future events.

• 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years ago: Universe created in Big Bang event
  • Note: Big Bang is dated according to NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data
  • for details of what is believed to have happened immediately after the Big Bang, see timeline of the Big Bang
  • 300,000 years after the Big Bang, hydrogen nuclei capture electrons, forming the first atoms
  • 600 million years after the Big Bang: creation of first galaxies, see Galaxy formation and evolution
• 5 billion years ago: formation of the Sun
• 3.8 billion years ago: formation of the Earth -- start of geologic timescale
• 2.5 billion years ago: first signs of life on Earth
• 2 to 2.5 million years ago: evolution of Homo sapiens
• now: present day
• 5 billion years from now: the Sun leaves the main sequence (i.e., starts to "die").