In Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity is treated as a phenomenon resulting from the curvature of spacetime. This curvature is caused by the presence of mass. Generally, the more mass tha ...
Main articles: Conservation biology, Global warming and Human impact on the environmentHumans now play a key role in the biosphere, with the large human population dominating many of Earth's ecosystem ...
Both marine and continental faunas were essentially modern and many animals, specifically, mammals were much larger than their modern relatives .Pleistocene of Northern Spain showing woolly mammoth, c ...
The Pleistocene has been dated from 2.588 million (±5,000) to 11,700 years before present (BP), with the end date expressed in radiocarbon years as 10,000 carbon-14 years BP. It covers most of the la ...
The forming of supercontinents and their breaking up appears to have been cyclical through Earth's history. There may have been many others before Pangaea. The fourth-last supercontinent, called Colum ...
About 750 million years ago (750 Ma), the previous supercontinent Rodinia rifted apart into three continents: Proto-Laurasia (which broke apart and eventually re-formed as Laurasia), the continental c ...
The idea that a supercontinent existed in the early Neoproterozoic arose in the 1970s, when geologists determined that orogens of this age exist on virtually all cratons. Examples are the Grenville or ...
Myr is in common use where the term is often written, such as in the Earth sciences and cosmology. Myr is seen with mya, "million years ago". Together they make a reference system, one to a quantity, ...
There are two contrasting models for supercontinent evolution through geological time. The first model theorizes that at least two separate supercontinents existed comprising Vaalbara (from ~3600 to 2 ...
Origin of an EPR signal Every electron has a magnetic moment and spin quantum number s = \tfrac{1}{2} , with magnetic components m_\mathrm{s} = + \tfrac{1}{2} and m_\mathrm{s} = - \tfrac{1}{2} . In th ...
Examples of phase transitions include:The transitions between the solid, liquid, and gaseous phases of a single component, due to the effects of temperature and/or pressure:Pfeil SO.svgToSolid Liquid ...
The solar luminosity is related to the solar irradiance (the solar constant) measured at the Earth or by satellites in Earth orbit. The solar irradiance is responsible for the orbital forcing which ca ...
Early in the Earth's history, the Sun's output would have been only 70% as intense as it is during the modern epoch. In the then current environmental conditions, this solar output would have been ins ...
Approximately once a decade, a comet becomes bright enough to be noticed by a casual observer, leading such comets to be designated as Great Comets.Woodcut of the Great Comet of 1577Predicting whether ...
Main article: Oort cloudThe Oort cloud is thought to occupy a vast space from somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 AU (0.03 and 0.08 ly) to as far as 50,000 AU (0.79 ly) from the Sun. Some estimates plac ...