let's take a trip through cosmic time.

let's pretend that our own calendar--the one that runs from January through December--is representative of *the Universe*.

imagine that it's midnight on January 1.

all of a sudden, our Universe expands.

at the stroke of midnight, 12am, the Universe expands from *extreme* high densities and temperatures. and it expands rapidly - so rapidly that the timescale wouldn't make sense to write.

this is the Big Bang.

for the first 10^-41 seconds of January 1st -- that's 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000043-- the four fundamental forces rea unified as one.

electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and gravity. all together as one.

shortly afterwards (what does shortly even mean at this timescale?) gravity separates from the 3 other forces and the Universe rapidly cools as it expands

at this point, the Universe is nothing but energy. pure, HOT energy.

remember, one second hasn't even passed in our new year. we're still in the first second of January 1.

and the Universe is already unfolding with some incredible physics.

within this 1st second, the Universe begins to grow exponentially. the nuclear force separates from the other 2 unified forces, particle-antiparticle pairs pop into and out of existence, protons & neutrons form, and FINALLY...

elements begin to form.

in the first half hour of January 1st, atoms form.

the Universe is overwhelmingly filled with hydrogen and a glowing radiation-- the radiation of the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background.

over the next couple of weeks, the Universe expands and cools, and on January 22, the first ever galaxies form.

a couple of months later, our home galaxy-- the Milky Way-- is born.

over time, our galaxy fills with hundreds of billions of planets and stars. in between the stars and planets are cosmic pools of gas and dust, sprinkled between one hundred million black holes and anchored by a trillion solar masses of dark matter.

by September 2, the Milky Way forms our home system -- the Solar System.

it contains eight (!) planets, their moons, two asteroid belts, and one home star -- our Sun.

now, you might be asking, when does life form on Earth?

the first signs of life (prokaryotes) are on September 21st, and on THIS DAY, November 9, complex cells (eukaryotes) form.

we're nearing the end of the year, and the first animals haven't yet roamed the Earth.

the Universe is ancient.

by December 25, dinosaurs are born.

at 6:24am on December 30, they become extinct.

the story of human evolution begins on December 30th.

on December 30, primates are born. a day later, on December 31st at 2:24pm, the first hominids walk the Earth.

at 11:44pm, humans learn how to domesticate fire. at 11:58pm, we learn how to sculpt and paint.

on December 31st at 11:59:31pm, we learn agriculture.

at 11:59:33, the Ice Age ends.

at 11:59:51, the Code of Hammurabi is created.

11:59:54, Buddha lives, Euclidean geometry invented, and the Roman Republic rises/falls.

it is now 11:59:59pm.

this is our millisecond in cosmic time. this is the present, and next year is the future. the future of our Solar System, our galaxy, our Universe.

we are but a blip in cosmic time.