Paper 57 Overview: The Origin of Urantia

This paper tells the story of how Urantia (earth) began. It describes how our sun formed from a nebula nearly one trillion years ago and how the planets in our solar system were created about 4.5 billion years ago when another star system passed near our sun.

earth formed as one of the planets in our solar system and went through many changes before life could begin. The paper explains how earth's crust, atmosphere, and oceans formed, and how the planet was prepared for the start of life about 550 million years ago.

When talking about Urantia's history, time is counted using the current calendar of 365¼ days per year. The records will use whole numbers rather than exact years when describing events that happened millions or billions of years ago.

When referring to events from millions of years ago, the dates are counted backward from the early 1900s. This helps to organize the very long history of our planet into understandable time periods.

Urantia began with our sun, which came from the Andronover nebula in the Orvonton superuniverse. This huge nebula was created by the Master Force Organizers of Paradise who controlled the space-energies that formed it.

About 987 billion years ago, inspector number 811,307 from Uversa reported that space conditions were good for starting a new creation. Then, 900 billion years ago, the superuniverse government gave permission to send a force organizer to begin organizing the new material creation that would eventually include our sun and planet.

All material creations begin as circular gas clouds called nebulae. As they age, they usually become spiral-shaped, and when their job of making suns is done, they often end up as star clusters or enormous suns with planets.

About 800 billion years ago, the Andronover nebula was well established as one of the magnificent primary nebulae of Orvonton. During the next few hundred billion years, the nebula grew larger, gained more mass, and started to spin faster as it began to condense and contract.

The enormous nebula began to take on a spiral shape that astronomers from distant universes could see clearly. This is normal for nebulae before they start creating suns and building universes.

As the nebula reached its maximum mass, its gravity control began to weaken. Gas streamed out as two gigantic arms from opposite sides of the central mass. The rapid spinning of the central core gave these arms a spiral shape, and about 500 billion years ago, the first Andronover sun was born when a portion broke away.

The primary stage of a nebula is circular, the secondary is spiral, the tertiary stage begins when the first suns break away, and the quartan stage is the final period of sun creation. During these stages, the nebula forms thousands of star systems.

By 75 billion years ago, the Andronover nebula had reached the height of its sun-family stage. Over time, it created 1,013,628 suns and sun systems, including our own solar system sun, which was born about 6 billion years ago during the final eruption of the nebular nucleus.

About 5 billion years ago, our sun was a fairly isolated blazing orb that had gathered most of the nearby circulating space matter. It was unstable in its early days, with tremendous surface convulsions that caused it to pulse and vary in brightness.

About 4.5 billion years ago, a large system called Angona passed near our sun. As it approached, the sun's pulsations shot out huge gas tongues that were caught by Angona's gravity. One enormous column of solar gases broke away and eventually formed the twelve planets of our solar system, which is called Monmatia.

After the birth of our solar system, the sun continued to pour out material into space for another 500,000 years. The planets nearest the sun had their orbits and rotations slowed by tidal friction.

About 4 billion years ago, Jupiter and Saturn were organized much as they are today, though their moons continued to grow for billions of years. By 3.5 billion years ago, the cores of the other ten planets had formed, and by 3 billion years ago, the solar system was functioning much as it does today.

In early times, many space bodies crashed directly onto earth's surface because there was no protective atmosphere. These impacts kept the planet's surface heated, and heavier elements like iron began to settle toward the center of the planet.

About 2 billion years ago, earth began to gain size compared to the moon and developed a primitive atmosphere. Volcanic activity increased, and the planet's interior heat grew from the burial of radioactive elements from space meteors. By 1.5 billion years ago, earth had reached two-thirds of its present size.

About 1 billion years ago, Urantia's history truly began. The planet had reached approximately its present size and was placed on the physical registries of Nebadon with its name, Urantia.

The cooling of earth's crust allowed the first ocean to form from water vapor condensation. This world-wide ocean covered the entire planet to a depth of over one mile. Later, deeper and denser lava flows created the Pacific Ocean basin, and the first continental land mass emerged from the water. By 650 million years ago, the continental land masses had separated enough to extend the seas further inland, which would soon become the cradle for the beginning of life.