Just answer this question, we are unlikely to ever be able to.It has long been interested in the human question: "How old is the Earth?".Answers to this question came to us in the form of myths, legends.From the scientific point of scientists began to look for an answer a little more than four years ago, when there was strengthened and became heliocentric theory of the solar system.To find out how old the Earth, it was necessary to first answer the question: "How was formed the solar system, one element of which is considered to be our planet Earth?".It is the third planet from the sun.Currently, the most famous are two hypotheses appearance of the sun and planets that can tell us how old the Earth .
The first, called the nebular hypothesis, argues that before the formation of the solar system in space existed gigantic cloud of hot gases that is reduced in size, throwing huge clumps of gas.The gas cloud, decreasing in size, has turned into the sun, and huge clumps of gas, focusing, turned to the world, one of which became our Earth.
Another theory, which also tried to clear up the question of how old the Earth is called planetesimal.According to this theory before the sun and the earth in space, there was a huge cluster of relatively small size relative to solids, which scientists call planetesimals, and the sun was in the middle of the mass.When close to this cluster of bodies flew big star of this weight came off under the action of gravity of a massive star.Parts of these, in turn, began to attract small planetesimals.This is similar to how the winter snow sticks to the big snowball.So according to this theory there were planets and our earth among them.
Which of these two theories more correct, we do not know, but regardless of this, astronomers, answering the question of how old the Earth calculated that it roughly five and a half billion years.But in science so it is accepted that, in order to hold the attention of true, you need confirmation from other sources.More precise information was obtained by the method of radiometry.According to these data the age of the Earth was established as 4.54 billion years ± 1%.As a result of the technological revolution and the development of methods of radiometry found out that some samples of minerals on Earth age more than one billion years old.In Australia, zircon crystals found whose age was determined by this method and it was found to be about 4 billion m 404 million years!Based on these facts, and given the mass and luminosity of the sun and other stars, scientists came to the conclusion that the age of the solar system and, therefore, the Earth can not be much longer than the age of the crystals.
meteorites found in nodules with a high content of calcium and aluminum.This is the most ancient known to science samples formed in the solar system.Their age, scientists define as 4.567 billion years.This will be the upper limit of the age of the Earth, which will help us answer the question of how many Earth years.
Scientists suggest that in about ten million years after the planet Earth, she has got its own satellite - the Moon, which began to revolve around the Earth, and thus influence the ebb and flow of the seas and oceans, the speed of rotation of the planet.This became a constant axial tilt of the Earth.
relief of the Earth for billions of years of its existence has changed considerably, including by reason of the fall of meteorites, the largest of which could affect the global climate change, lead to the formation of lakes, islands and seas.
