Things Younger Than Sharks

Things in the universe younger than sharks If you guys don't mind a random post- I have realized that when in doubt the best unit of time to describe how old things are in context is whether the thing is older or younger than sharks. You see, the first sharks appear to have evolved ~450 million years ago, which is frankly a pretty decent chunk of astronomical time, (or, in other words, for every year sharks have been around the Baby Shark video has been watched ~11 times, do do do do do do!). And big number on its own is hard to wrap your head around, so something Earth-bound is great context. So, with that, here is a list of things sharks are older than: • Saturn's rings (~100 million years old) • The Pleiades cluster (75-150 myo) • One galactic orbit of the sun (200-225 my, so sharks have actually done it twice) • A lot of exoplanets • The light travel time across the Bootes void, the largest known void between galaxies (~350 million light year diameter) • Fascinatingly, the North Star, aka Polaris, is estimated at ~70 million years old. I don't mean its role as our north star btw- that's less than a few thousand years- I mean literally the age of the star itself. Anyway, if anyone has something else to add to this list, I'm curious to hear it!

A text-based astronomy meme lists things such as Saturn's rings, the Pleiades cluster, and Polaris that are younger than sharks. The joke uses the unexpectedly ancient age of sharks as a relatable time scale, making enormous cosmic numbers funny through surprising comparisons.

• @rzeczyzabawne / 21434 2025-09-06