32 billion years = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 seconds
Go back to one second
1018 SECONDS: 32 BILLION YEARS
13.8 BILLION YEARS
The entire universe has
been around this long.
13.6 BILLION YEARS
Stars have existed for
this long.
13.4 BILLION YEARS
Galaxies have existed
for this long.
10 BILLION YEARS
Age of the
Milky Way.
4.5 BILLION YEARS
Time since the Sun, Moon,
Earth and solar system formed.
1017 SECONDS: 3.2 BILLION YEARS
2.4 BILLION YEARS
How long oxygen has existed in
Earth's atmosphere.
400 MILLION YEARS
How long we've had a
breathable atmosphere.
470 MILLION YEARS
How long plants have existed
on land.
1016 SECONDS: 320 MILLION YEARS
175 MILLION YEARS
The amount of time the continents
have been drifting apart.
170 MILLION YEARS
Mammals have been on Earth
for this long.
130 MILLION YEARS
Flowering plants have been on Earth
for this long.
1015 SECONDS: 32 MILLION YEARS
30 MILLION YEARS
The length of time the San Andreas Fault
has been evolving.
11 MILLION YEARS
Cats (felines) have existed on Earth for
this long.
3.3 MILLION YEARS
Length of time since human ancestors
first used tools.
6 MILLION YEARS
How long the Colorado River has been carving out the Grand Canyon.
1014 SECONDS: 3.2 MILLION YEARS
2.8 MILLION YEARS
Length of time since the existence of
the earliest humans (Homo genus).
400,000 YEARS
Humans have been able to control fire
for this long.
1013 SECONDS: 320,000 YEARS
200,000 YEARS
The length of time that modern humans
(Homo sapiens) have existed on Earth.
100,000 YEARS
The amount of time it takes light to
cross the Milky Way.
1012 SECONDS: 32,000 YEARS
12,000 YEARS
How long humans have been
farming.
3,200 YEARS
The average amount of time water stays in the ocean before evaporating.
1011 SECONDS: 3,200 YEARS
2,800 YEARS
The length of the Ancient Egyptian
civilization.
1,000 YEARS
The total duration of Longplayer, an algorithmically-processed piece of music.
1010 SECONDS: 320 YEARS
71 YEARS
Average lifespan of a
human being.
248 YEARS
The amount of time it takes Pluto to orbit the Sun.
109 SECONDS: 32 YEARS
30 YEARS
Average duration of a generation
of human beings.
11 YEARS
The length of the
solar cycle.
108 SECONDS: 3 YEARS, 2 MONTHS
1 YEAR
The time it takes for the Earth to
orbit the Sun.
40 WEEKS
Gestation time of a
human baby.
6 MONTHS
The average stay of an astronaut
aboard the International Space Station.
107 SECONDS: 3 MONTHS, 24 DAYS
3 MONTHS
The length of a season.
21 DAYS
The average time it takes for
a chicken egg to hatch.
27 DAYS
The time it takes the Moon to orbit
the Earth.
106 SECONDS: 11 DAYS, 14 HOURS
7 DAYS
The length of one week
in the Gregorian calendar.
3 DAYS
The time it took the Apollo spacecraft
to arrive at the moon.
105 SECONDS: 1 DAY, 4 HOURS
1 DAY
The time it takes for the Earth
to complete one rotation.
18 HOURS
The time it takes a factory
to assemble a car.
6 HOURS, 48 MINUTES
The average amount of sleep
Americans get per night.
104 SECONDS: 2 HOURS, 46 MINUTES
68 MINUTES
The fastest recorded cross-country flight
by airplane.
120 MINUTES
The average length of
popular feature films.
24 MINUTES
The world record for holding one's
breath underwater.
103 SECONDS: 16 MINUTES, 47 SECONDS
3 MINUTES, 45 SECONDS
The average length
of a song.
8 MINUTES, 20 SECONDS
The amount of time it takes light
from the Sun to reach Earth.
102 SECONDS: 1 MINUTE, 40 SECONDS
1 MINUTE, 30 SECONDS
The time it takes a snail to travel
about one inch.
1 MINUTE
The time it takes for blood to circulate
through the human body.
20 SECONDS
The time spent in free fall
when skydiving from 8,000 feet.
101 SECONDS: 10 SECONDS
9.58 SECONDS
The fastest time a human has run
100 meters.
5 SECONDS
A common length for a
yellow light.
2.3 SECONDS
The shortest time a street-legal car has
taken to accelerate from 0-60 mph.
1 SECOND
The time it takes for a wave of light emitted by cesium atoms, which are used to precisely define the second, to rise and fall exactly 9,192,621,769 times.
350 MILLISECONDS
The time it takes for
a human to blink.
100 SECONDS: 1 SECOND
10-1 SECONDS: 100 MILLISECONDS
42 MILLISECONDS
The amount of time a single frame
of a movie appears on screen.
13 MILLISECONDS
The time it takes for the human brain to
process a visual image.
75 MILLISECONDS
The delay data experiences as it travels between points in a cellular network.
19 MILLISECONDS
The time it takes for a hummingbird
to flap its wings once.
10-2 SECONDS: 10 MILLISECONDS
8 MILLISECONDS
Considered the slowest camera shutter speed for reliably producing clear handheld photos.
7 MILLISECONDS
The time it takes for a housefly to
change direction.
3 MILLISECONDS
The time it takes a mantis shrimp
to strike its prey.
2.27 MILLISECONDS
The vibration period for A440, the most commonly-used pitch for tuning musical instruments.
900 MICROSECONDS
The time it takes sound to travel
one foot through air.
10-3 SECONDS: 1 MILLISECOND
125 MICROSECONDS
The sampling interval for
telephone audio.
10-4 SECONDS: 100 MICROSECONDS
18 MICROSECONDS
The average amount of time the day lengthens each year due to tidal acceleration.
38 MICROSECONDS
The discrepancy in GPS satellite time per day
due to relativity.
50 MICROSECONDS
The shortest vibration of air that can typically be sensed by a human ear as sound (20 kHz).
10-5 SECONDS: 10 MICROSECONDS
8 MICROSECONDS
The time it takes light to travel one mile
through a single-mode fiber optic cable.
0 feet
5,280 feet
5.4 MICROSECONDS
The time it takes light to travel one mile
through vacuum.
0 feet
5,280 feet
2.68 MICROSECONDS
Time subtracted from the day as a result of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
1 MICROSECOND
Length of an "air-gap" strobe flash used for high-speed photography.
590 NANOSECONDS
Time between each peak in sound waves for an AM radio tuned to 1700, the upper limit of most AM radios.
10-6 SECONDS: 1 MICROSECOND
10-7 SECONDS: 100 NANOSECONDS
100 NANOSECONDS
The time it takes to fetch information from a computer's main memory.
12 NANOSECONDS
The lifetime of a kaon.
10-8 SECONDS: 10 NANOSECONDS
10 NANOSECONDS
The time between each step in a nuclear chain reaction, a unit nuclear physicists refer to as a "shake."
6 NANOSECONDS
The time it takes to record a bit of information onto a magnetic hard drive.
1.017 NANOSECONDS
The time it takes light to travel
one foot through vacuum.
330 PICOSECONDS
The time it takes a 3.0 GHz computer CPU to add two integers.
109 PICOSECONDS
The time it takes for a wave of light emitted by cesium atoms, which are used to precisely define the second, to rise and fall a single time.
10-9 SECONDS: 1 NANOSECOND
10-10 SECONDS: 100 PICOSECONDS
30 PICOSECONDS
The time it takes a protein to stop vibrating after a break in one of its molecular bonds.
10-11 SECONDS: 10 PICOSECONDS
0 mm
1 mm
3.3 PICOSECONDS
The time it takes for light to travel
1 millimeter through vacuum.
1 PICOSECOND
The half-life of a
bottom quark.
10-12 SECONDS: 1 PICOSECOND
300 FEMTOSECONDS
How long a vibration lasts in the atoms of an iodine molecule.
150 FEMTOSECONDS
The time it takes a catalytic convertor to oxidize CO into CO2.
200 FEMTOSECONDS
Timescale of an average chemical reaction, such as the reaction of pigments in an eye to light.
10-13 SECONDS: 100 FEMTOSECONDS
30 FEMTOSECONDS
The time it takes to start
a chemical reaction.
100 FEMTOSECONDS
The time it takes for a molecule to explode when exposed to an X-ray laser.
10-14 SECONDS: 10 FEMTOSECONDS
5 FEMTOSECONDS
The time it takes a molecule to lose one of its electrons.
10-15 SECONDS: 1 FEMTOSECOND
320 ATTOSECONDS
The time it takes for electrons to transfer between atoms.
150 ATTOSECONDS
The orbital time for an electron in a hydrogen atom.
10-16 SECONDS: 100 ATTOSECONDS
24 ATTOSECONDS
The atomic unit
of time.
12 ATTOSECONDS
The shortest time interval measured
as of 2010.
10-17 SECONDS: 10 ATTOSECONDS
1 ATTOSECOND
The time it takes for light to travel the length of two hydrogen atoms.
10-18 SECONDS: 1 ATTOSECOND
1 attosecond = .0000000000000000001 second
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