Inquiry Project: Astronomy

Question: How was the Earth Created and How do we Know for Sure?

It all started as a big solar nebula, which is a cloud of dust and debris. As it started spinning, some of the debris created the Sun. With gravity, the particles started clumping together, creating smaller planets such as Earth. After the core was formed, it started building on more, such as the mantle and the tectonic plates, and then finally the crust. Shortly after (considering how long it has been around now), the Earth was formed, and life started appearing.

But, how do we know this for sure? Scientists use what is known as radiometric dating. They take pieces of rock and look at the level of radioactivity, indicating generally how old it is. They found a piece of Acasta Gneisses near Slave Lake, dating back to around 4 billion years ago. They also found zircon in Australia from just over 4.5 billion years ago. Samples from missions Apollo and Luna to the moon confirm the age of 4.5 billion.

Works Cited
EarthSky. “How Do Scientists Figure out Earth’s Age?” EarthSky, 12 Mar. 2010, earthsky.org/earth/how-old-is-the-earth.
GeoWriter. “Radiometric Dating.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 May 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating.
Kaye, Tim. “How Long Did It Take the Earth to Form, Scientifically Speaking?” Quora.com, 14 Apr. 2016, www.quora.com/How-long-did-it-take-the-Earth-to-form-scientifically-speaking.
Redd, Nola Taylor. “How Old Is Earth?” Space.com, Space.com, 21 Feb. 2014, www.space.com/24854-how-old-is-earth.html.
Redd, Nola Taylor. “How Was Earth Formed?” Space.com, 31 Oct. 2016, www.space.com/19175-how-was-earth-formed.html.
Schultz, Colin. “How Do We Know the Earth Is 4.6 Billion Years Old?” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 16 May 2014, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-do-we-know-earth-46-billion-years-old-180951483/.
 

2 thoughts on “Inquiry Project: Astronomy

  1. Theo Turner

    Your topic is very interesting. It’s a very important topic to be educated about and while I had a vague idea of what happened already it was useful to get a more detailed description.

    Theo Turner

    Reply
  2. noah

    Your blog post is very intriguing. This topic is a very big topic, but you have done a great job covering the basics of how the earth was created. I do suggest going into further detail and asking more questions to answer the inquiry question.

    Reply

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