Nature Geoscience launched five years ago. This timescale, just enough to complete a research project or two, may not seem a long time. But a lot has happened in the collective of disciplines that are covered in our journal. Some of the most violent plate-boundary earthquakes have shaken the planet; public perception of climate change has been on a rollercoaster ride (from the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to Climategate); and planetary missions have ventured to new horizons. We have asked nine Earth and planetary scientists to look back at fields where scientific understanding, or the public's perception of the science, is now substantially different than it was in 2007. Some of the pieces mark step changes, and others more gradual progress — but they all provide a glimpse at the rapid evolution of an exciting science, both in the past half-decade and into the future.