The light from this galaxy left it 10 million years ago, just now arriving at earth to be captured in this photograph. With this light we see 10 million years back in time.
There were no humans 10 million years ago. In fact the first creatures in the human lineage were just splitting off from gorillas in the evolutionary tree. Humans themselves would not appear for some 9.7 million more years.
Earth was cool and arid. Grasslands and savannas were massively expanding on land, kelp forests in the oceans. Parts of the Rockies were lifting again, exposing huge sheets of granite we now see today. The southern California mountains, the San Andreas fault, the great rift valley in Africa all first appeared. North and South America were separated taking another 6 million years to join at the isthmus of Panama. Dinosaurs had long since died off but mammals and especially apes thrived - some 200 different species of apes alone. Chocolate, owls, dogs, elephants, lions, even the ability to metabolize alcohol were just evolving into existence.
Across all of what would become North and South America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia, through dark forests, thousands upon thousands of miles of open grasslands, across towering mountains, all the oceans - not a single human being. All of human history yet to occur - so much yet to come. And you are there in this moment.
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