2.4 billion years ago · approximate date

Oxygen changes everything

Photosynthesis floods the air with oxygen and remakes the planet.

Microbes that made their energy from sunlight released oxygen as waste. It built up over hundreds of millions of years, rusting iron out of the oceans and changing the atmosphere for good. This is the Great Oxidation Event.

Period
Proterozoic
Earth's history already passed
47.1366 percent
4.54 kilometres
2.4 kilometres from the end
One day
11:18:45
One year
June 22, 01:09
Source: Smithsonian Institution · Source to be verified