One terasecond equals 10^12 seconds, which translates to approximately 31,709 years. This unit is primarily used in cosmology, astrophysics, and geology to measure deep time events like the half-lives of long-lived isotopes or the age of planetary features. Because human history spans only a tiny fraction of a terasecond, scientists often prefer using thousands or millions of years in standard text to make the timescales easier to grasp.
Heard on the job
The half-life of carbon-14 is less than a billionth of a terasecond, making it useless for dating those rocks.
Insider tip
When discussing geological epochs, researchers usually convert teraseconds into millions of years (Ma) for clearer communication.