Fact 1. Earth's atoms are 4.5 billion years old.

4,500,000,000 years ago Earth congealed from atomic elements of a star that exploded.

It was highly radioactive and extremely hot. The atmosphere of gasses had no free oxygen and there was no water on its surface. The atoms of the new planet moved randomly and very fast.

There was no life on Earth for an estimated 1,000,000,000 years.

The same atomic elements that formed the Earth 4 billion years ago are still here. But now they are cooler and have been re-arranged into different patterns. The atmosphere has a different mixture of gasses, the hydrogen and oxygen atoms are joined to form water that in turn is distributed as clouds, oceans, lakes and rivers. The carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen now join in special ways to form life.

The atoms creating you, and every other living being, and the oceans and atmosphere are the same atoms that were here all along and they are all 4.5 billion years old.

To focus on this fact, look around you and think about everything you see today while reflecting on the fact that you are looking at the same atomic elements, the same carbon atoms, hydrogen atoms, oxygen atoms, nitrogen atoms, that were around you before you sat down to read this.

The atoms have not changed, not in five minutes, not in 4.5 billion years.

The atoms are in constant motion and are now moving in different patterns than they were a few minutes ago or billions of years ago, but they are the same atoms.

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