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Letโs imagine that Earth is a woman with an average life expectancy1; today Earth would be 38 years old2.
One year of her life equates to 117 million years.
One day of her life equates to 321,000 years.
One hour of her life equates to 13,400 years.
For Earth, the dinosaur extinction occurred 7 months ago.
The agricultural revolution occurred 1 hour ago.
The industrial revolution began just 1 minute ago.
For Earth, the average human life1 spans 22 seconds; for Earth, your life starts and ends in less time than it took for you to read this text. Think about that. Your entire life, relative to the age of Earth, is shorter than the epic guitar solo in Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain.
For more reference on how minuscule (and simultaneously massive) we are, watch this short-film masterpiece.
1 2019 data from the CDC finds average life expectancy to be 81 years for a woman in the U.S.
2 According to current estimates, planet Earth is around 4.5 billion years old. Projecting into the future, current estimates for our Sun’s remaining life are around 5 billion years from now. Combined, these estimates give planet Earth a theoretical lifespan of 9.5 billion years.