The Origin of Earth
How planet Earth, our sweet home, came into being!
Our planet Earth is one of the eight planets of our solar system, which lies in the Milky Way Galaxy. Just a simple sneak-peek into Wikipedia of the Milky Way says that “it is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars and at least that number of planets.” Coupled with the knowledge that there are billions of galaxies out there in the Milky Way in the universe, we can skip the math on the possible total number of planets out there in the universe.
And yet, the only planet to have life — or at least the one that we know of — is our planet Earth. Therefore, in that light, Earth seems to be both stupendously insignificant and remarkably significant at the same time.
Just like the origin of the Universe, the origin of the Earth is also a fascinating tale. But before we dive into that, it is essential to have a slight understanding of how our solar system came to be.
It is estimated that our solar system was formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a dense cloud of gas and dust in the universe. When this cloud collapsed — possibly due to the shockwaves of the nearby exploding star (which is known as a supernova) — a solar nebula was formed, which is basically a swirling disk of material.
