Graphical timeline from Big Bang to Heat Death

This is the timeline of the Universe from Big Bang to Heat Death scenario. The different Eras of the Universe are shown.ImageSize = width:840 height:2000PlotArea = left:40 right:235 bottom:75 top:75

Colors = id:period1 value:rgb(1,1,0.7) # light yellow id:period2 value:rgb(0.7,0.7,1) # light blue id:events value:rgb(1,0.7,1) # light purple id:era1 Value:yellowgreen id:era2 value:lightorange id:time1 Value:coral id:time2 Value:lavender

DateFormat = yyyyPeriod = from:-171 till:300TimeAxis = format:yyyy orientation:vertical # order:reverse does not workScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:-170ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:-171

AlignBars = justify

BarData = bar:Clock bar:Dummy1 bar:Era bar:Dummy2 bar:Dummy3 bar:Periods bar:Dummy4 bar:Events

TextData = fontsize:M pos:(365,75) text:"Planck epoch"
# pos:(210,50) pos:(205,50) text:"Big Bang" pos:(20,50) text:"0: Linear time" pos:(10,1980) text:"Double-logaritmic time:" text:"100*log log year" pos:(200,1960) text:"Heat Death"

PlotData= textcolor:black fontsize:M

width:90 bar:Clock color:events align:right shift:(43,3) mark:(line,teal) at:-171 text:"10E-43 seconds"
# at:-141
# at:-135 at:-129 text:"One picosecond"
# at:-122 text:"One nanosecond" at:-113 text:"One microsecond"
# at:-102 shift:(43,-13) text:"One millisecond" at:-100 text:"10E-10 years" at:-88 text:"One second" at:-60 text:"One hour" at:0 text:"One year" at:48 text:"One thousand years" at:78 text:"One million years" at:95 text:"One billion years" at:100 text:"10E10 years" at:108 text:"One trillion years" at:118 text:"One quadrillion years"
# at:126
# at:132 at:200 text:"10E100 years"
# at:200 text:"10¹⁰⁰ years" at:300 shift:(43,-13) text:"10E1000 years"

width:55 bar:Dummy1

width:130 bar:Era mark:(line,white) align:center shift:(0,0) from:-171 till:78 color:era1 text:"The Primordial Era" from:78 till:115 color:era2 text:"The Stelliferous Era~ZOOM IN" from:115 till:160 color:era1 text:"The Degenerate Era" from:160 till:200 color:era2 text:"The Black Hole Era" from:200 till:300 color:era1 text:"The Dark Era"

width:55 bar:Dummy2 bar:Dummy3

width:165 bar:Periods align:center shift:(0,0) mark:(line,white) from:-171 till:-164 color:period1 text:Grand unification epoch # end at 10-37 seconds, not 10-33? from:-164 till:-129 color:period2 text:Electroweak epoch from:-129 till:-113 color:period1 text:Quark epoch from:-113 till:-88 shift:(-40,0) align:left color:period2 text:Hadron epoch Formation of hydrogen nuclei from:-88 till:-72 color:period1 shift:(0,0) text:Lepton epoch from:-72 till:75 color:period2 shift:(0,0) text:Photon epoch from:75 till:90 color:period1 text:"Dark Ages" from:90 till:93 color:period2 text:"Reionization" # 100-400 million years from:100 till:101 color:period1 text:"Life on Earth~ZOOM IN MORE"

width:55 bar:Dummy4

width:55 mark:(line,purple) textcolor:black fontsize:M bar:Events color:events align:left shift:(30,-2)

at:-171 shift:(30,-15) text:"Planck time, the smallest observable unit of time ~and the time before which science is unable to ~describe the universe. At this point, the force of ~gravity separated from the electronuclear force." at:-164 shift:(30,-10) text:"Separation of the strong force from the ~electronuclear force." from:-164 till:-160 align:left shift:(-55,-3) color:time1 text:"Inflationary epoch. The Universe expands exponentially" at:-160 shift:(30,20) text:"Reheating after inflation populates universe ~with quarks and anti-quarks." at:-129 text:"The weak force separates from the ~electromagnetic force resulting in the four ~separate forces we know today." at:-113 text:"Quarks become confined within hadrons." at:-88 text:"Neutrinos cease to interact with other particles." at:-72 shift:(30,-11) text:"Lepton/anti-lepton pairs annihilate." from:-72 till:-65 align:center shift:(0,0) color:time2 text:"Big Bang nucleosynthesis" at:-65 shift:(30,0) text:"3 to 20 minutes: Formation of helium nuclei" at: 69 shift:(30,-14) text:"" from:73 till:74 shift:(-65,-5) color:time1 mark:(line,white) text:"" at:75 shift:(30,35) text:"379,000 years: Hydrogen and helium nuclei ~capture electrons to form stable atoms. Photons ~are no longer able to interact strongly with atoms. ~Cosmic microwave background radiation streams ~freely." at:90 text:"100 million years. First star began to shine." at: 94 text:"600 million years. Formation of the first galaxy"
# at:98 text:"4 billion years. Earliest Population I stars" at:100 text:"9.1 billion years. Formation of the Sun" shift:(30,-10) at:101 mark:(line,magenta) text:"13.7 billion years: this present day"
# at:101 text:"19.1 billion years Sun becomes a red giant" at:115 text:"Formation of new stars ceases.~Stars cease to fuse." shift:(30,-7) at:118 text:"Solar systems no longer exists. Planets flung out~of orbit or consumed by larger bodies. Sun has~become a Black Dwarf." shift:(30,26) at:130 text:"Galaxies no longer exist. Stars flung out of orbit~or consumed by black holes." shift:(30,11) at:156 text:"Half of all protons have decayed." at:160 shift:(30,10) text:"All protons decay. The matter that stars and life~was built of no longer exists." at:182 text:"A black hole with the mass of the Sun~has evaporated." at:200 text:"A supermassive black hole with mass~10 billion solar masses has evaporated."

Usually the logarithmic scale is used for such timelines but it compresses the most interesting Stelliferous Era too much as this example shows. Therefore a double-logarithmic scale "s" ("s*100" in the graphics) is used instead. The minimum of it is unfortunately only 1, not 0 as needed, and the negative outputs for inputs smaller than 10 are useless. Therefore the time from 0.1 to 10 years is collapsed to a single point 0, but that doesn't matter in this case because nothing special happens in the history of the universe during that time.

:

The seconds in the timescale have been converted to years by $second\; /\; 31\; 557\; 600$ using the Julian year.

ee also

*Timeline of the Big Bang
*Graphical timeline of the Big Bang
*Heat death of the universe
*List of other end scenarios than Heat Death
*Timeline from Big Bang to the near cosmological future
*Graphical timeline of the Stelliferous Era
*Tiny Graphical timeline from Big Bang to Heat Death. This timeline uses the log scale for comparison with the double-logarithmic scale in this article.