Gigasecond facts for kids

A gigasecond (symbol: Gs) is one billion seconds. That is about 31.7 years. It can be written as 10⁹ seconds.

3.16 Gs is about 1 century (100 years). 31.6 Gs is about 1 millennium (1000 years).

This page lists times of between 1 and 1000 gigaseconds, or between 31.7 and 31,700 years.

Shorter times
351 years – half-life of californium-249
366 years – time since the Taj Mahal was built
410 years – age of the King James Bible
418 years – half life of silver-108
432.2 years – half life of americium-241
529 years – time since Christopher Columbus reached the New World
566 years – time since the printing of the first Gutenberg Bible
680 years – half life of niobium-91
790 years – amount of time the Zhou Dynasty lasted, the longest dynasty in Chinese history
898 years – half life of californium-251
969 years – alleged age of Methuselah at death
1000 years – one millennium = 3.16 x 10¹⁰ seconds
1942 years – time since the volcanic destruction of Pompeii
2021 years – time since the birth of Jesus Christ, according to Dionysius Exiguus
2064 years – time since the assassination of Julius Caesar
2343 years – time since the death of Alexander the Great
2419 years – time since the death of Socrates
2458 years – age of the Parthenon
2773 years – time since Rome was founded, according to legend
3,200 years—time since the Greek Dark Ages and the beginning of the Iron Age
3,800 years—time since alphabetic writing started
4,200 years—time since the completion of Stonehenge.
4,569 years—time since the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
4,851 years—age of oldest living plant, a bristle-cone pine named Methuselah
5,715 years -- half-life of Carbon-14
6,500 years—time since the invention of the wheel
7,370 years—half life of americium-243
8,500 years—half life of curium-245
11,000 years—time since city of Jericho was founded
12,000 years—time since end of Pleistocene Epoch
12,000 years—time since beginning of Holocene Epoch
12,000 years—time since beginning of Neolithic Age
20,300 years -- half life of niobium-94
21,000 years—time since the Last Glacial Maximum
24,110 years -- half life of plutonium-239
29,000 years—time since the extinction of Homo neanderthalensis.
Longer times