This is a timeline that attempts to show the best scientific estimates of the age of past events and predictions of the approximate timing of hypothetical future events with cosmological significance. Some locally significant events of interest to members of Homo sapiens are also included. See estimates of the date of Creation for alternative views based on religious tradition. (Note: in this context, billion means 1,000,000,000).

Table of contents
1 The distant past
2 The human era
3 The far future
4 Problems with estimating the age of the universe

The distant past

The human era

The far future

See also 1017 seconds for times further than 3 billion years into the future.

Problems with estimating the age of the universe

Since human observations cover a very short time interval and relatively short distance, making detailed predictions about the distant future or distant past is difficult. Humans can only observe a fraction of the total universe, and the observations cover a very short time interval. It is possible that our current understanding of physics contains errors that are only noticeable on a very large time scale or very large astronomical scale.

See also: