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the first days |
The very early Earth was a red-hot ball of molten slag, shot through with veins of complex chemistry, churning violently. It fell together out of a rich stew of gases and dust, while the sun was still new.
The atmosphere was rich and highly active, at first. After a few million years it settled down, as reactive gases combined with the cooling surface. What was left? Carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water vapor, methane, other volatile hydrocarbons. Down there, under the new sky, somewhere in the new oceans, something incredible happened.
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