Top definition whale unknown noun; a wealthy patron to a casino, gets paid special attention by a casino host so the patron will feel comfortable to gamble more money.
The age of Earth is approximately one-third of the age of the universe. An immense amount of geological change has occurred in that timespan, accompanied by biological change. Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula. Volcanic outgassing probably created the primordial atmosphere and then the ocean; but the atmosphere contained almost no oxygen and so would have been toxic to most modern life including humans.
If all of Earth time from the very beginning of the dinosaurs to today were compressed into 365 days (1 calendar year), the dinosaurs appeared January 1 and became extinct the third week of September.Using this same time scale, the Earth would have formed approximately 18.5 years earlier.) By comparison, people (Homo sapiens) have been on earth only since December 31 (New Year's eve). The dinosaurs' long period of dominance certainly makes them unqualified successes in the history of life on Earth.