Formation of the Earth

This artist's rendering pictures the surface of the Earth in the Hadean eon, soon after the formation of the Moon, possibly by a collision and re-collision between two bodies, both larger than Mars, about 4.4 billion years ago (most recent and least problematic theory).   Illustration by Tim Bertelink distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v4.0 International.

Cradle of Life

This artist's rendering pictures the surface of the Earth in the Archean eon, when things had cooled down a bit. LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor of life on Earth) came to be during the Eo Archean, about 3.7 billion years ago. It was not the first life form on Earth, but from it are descended all the life forms we can identify, living or extinct.   Illustration by Tim Bertelink distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v4.0 International.