Earth formed about 4.54–4.6 billion years ago, early in the history of the solar system.

Quick Scoop: When was Earth formed?

Scientists estimate that Earth formed roughly 4.54 billion years ago, with an uncertainty of about 1%. This puts our planet at about one‑third the age of the universe, which is around 13.8 billion years old.

How did Earth form?

  • Earth grew inside a rotating disk of gas and dust (the “solar nebula”) around the young Sun about 4.6 billion years ago.
  • Tiny dust grains stuck together, building up to rocks, then to larger bodies called planetesimals, and finally to a proto‑Earth through countless collisions.
  • A final giant impact with a Mars‑sized object (often called Theia) likely blasted material into orbit that later clumped together to form the Moon.

Why 4.54 billion years?

  • Direct rocks from Earth’s very beginning are mostly gone, destroyed or altered by billions of years of geology.
  • Scientists instead date very old meteorites (leftover building blocks of the solar system) and ancient terrestrial and lunar rocks using radioactive isotopes to infer Earth’s age.
  • Multiple independent measurements converge on an age of about 4.54 billion years, making this figure widely accepted in modern geology and planetary science.

TL;DR: Earth was formed around 4.54–4.6 billion years ago from a disk of gas and dust around the young Sun, growing through collisions of smaller bodies and a final giant impact that also produced the Moon.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.