Anybody know what's the real age of our lovely planet Earth?

Answer 1

4.6 billion years ....

Radioactive elements (such as uranium and strontium) are unstable and decay at a predictable and measurable rate. For example, Uranium 238 decays into lead 206. If we compare the ratio of uranium 238 to lead 206 we can tell how much time has passed since the sample was pure. Through this method we are able to date rocks, meteorites and fossils.

This method actually tells us the minimum age of the Earth, since the Earth was molten before it solidified into those rocks we date. For Earth rocks, the oldest are about 3.9 billion years old. We reach 4.6 billion years by estimating how long planetary formation and rock solidification takes. Our world is a very old world indeed!

Answer 2

Our planet is about 4.5 billion years old, give or take a few million.

The oldest rocks which have been found so far (on the Earth) date to about 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago (by several radiometric dating methods). Some of these rocks are sedimentary, and include minerals which are themselves as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. Rocks of this age are relatively rare, however rocks that are at least 3.5 billion years in age have been found on North America, Greenland, Australia, Africa, and Asia.

Answer 3

You can follow the chronology of Archbishop Ussher and believe that it was created at nightfall preceding Sunday October 23, 4004 BC (Bede and Scaliger came to fairly similar answers, differing by a few years) ...

Or you could be really radical and go with the scientific evidence of about 4.5 billion years.

Let me see, should I suggest a figure based on the myths of bronze-age goatherders or something that fits the present-day, objective evidence. Such a hard choice.

Answer 4

Earth prime? Yes about 4.5 B

Primordial earth? Who knows!

Many astronomers now believe that the Earth was formed from the collision of a Mars-sized protoplanet with the primordial Earth. Much of the protoplanet's core merged with the Earth's own, while the lighter materials of the collision reformed as the Moon. The gravitational interaction of the Earth with its Moon slows the Earth's rotation by about two milliseconds per century, so that about 900 million years ago, Earth's "year" was comprised of 481 "days" that lasted only 18 hours long.

http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=moon_making_010815_02.jpg&cap=24+Hours+of+Chaos%3A+Click+to+see+how+the+Moon+was+made.

Answer 5

Nobody is certain. Somewhere between 5 and 10 billion years.


Unless your a fundamentalist christian, in which case the earth is just over 4 thousand years old

Answer 6

<>"The generally accepted age for the Earth and the rest of the solar system is about 4.55 billion years (plus or minus about 1%). The most direct means for calculating the Earth's age is a Pb/Pb isochron age, derived from samples of the Earth and meteorites."

Answer 7

The accepted value is around 4,500 million years - although it wasn't exactlly lovely for the first 2,000 million years. Life, as we know it, could not have survived until the earth had cooled and primitive micro-organisms started to produce an Oxygen rich atmosphere.

Answer 8

I'm not sure exactly but I know it's yonks old. Apparently if we can manage to cut the earth in half we could count the rings and that would give us it's age - a bit like you would for a tree.

Answer 9

wel the universe is 15 billion n the solar system 4.55 billion n since the earth also came wid the solar system therefore the age of the earth is 4.55 billion years

Answer 10

about 4-5 billion years