We credit the creation of the universe to the Big Bang . The Big Bang Theory states that the universe was a hot dense point ~13.7 billion years ago.
The Big Bang was not an explosion, as the name "Big Bang" would suggest, but rather the appearance of space everywhere. The universe inflated and grew to the point where it doubled its size at least 90 times!!!! As it expanded, the heat that was originally compressed expanded and cooled down. Although the universe continued to grow, it grew at a much slower rate and cooled off.
As the universe cooled, protons (positively charged particles) collided with electrons (negatively charged particles) to make an isotope of helium. Although the universe was cooling, for the first 30,000 years after the Big Bang, it was still too hot for light to shine.
380,000 years after the Big Bang, it was cool enough for electrons to bond with nuclei to form neutral atoms which had no charge (neutrons). This is known as the era of "recombination," which allowed light to pass through the universe.
400 million years after the Big Bang occurred the "re-ionization era" where clumps of gas collapsed to form stars and galaxies.
9 billion years after the Big Bang our solar system was formedswagswag. Scientists believe that our solar system, including the sun, was formed by a giant cloud of gas and dust called the solar nebula, which gravity caused to collapse, and flattened into a "disk" shape.
In the 1960s and 1970s, astronomers concluded that the universe was larger than what we could see. Vera Rubin observed how fast stars were moving at different locations in galaxies. Newtonian physics stated that the stars on the farther ends of the galaxy would orbit slower than stars in the center, but Rubin found that all stars seemed to circle the center at around the same speed, implying that there was no "farther end" or "outskirts" to the galaxy. The invisible mass "observed" became known as dark matter, which is thought to make up 23% of the universe (in comparison to the 4% that is composed of regular matter i.e stars, planets, and us).
In 1998, the Hubble Space Telescope, named after a 1920s astronomer Edwin Hubble, studied distant supernovas and concluded that the universe was expanding slower before than today, despite the thought that gravity of matter in the universe would slow expansion, or cause it to be static.
Although much research has been done on the Big Bang, and the universe in which we live in, there is still much to learn.
The Big Bang was not an explosion, as the name "Big Bang" would suggest, but rather the appearance of space everywhere. The universe inflated and grew to the point where it doubled its size at least 90 times!!!! As it expanded, the heat that was originally compressed expanded and cooled down. Although the universe continued to grow, it grew at a much slower rate and cooled off.
As the universe cooled, protons (positively charged particles) collided with electrons (negatively charged particles) to make an isotope of helium. Although the universe was cooling, for the first 30,000 years after the Big Bang, it was still too hot for light to shine.
380,000 years after the Big Bang, it was cool enough for electrons to bond with nuclei to form neutral atoms which had no charge (neutrons). This is known as the era of "recombination," which allowed light to pass through the universe.
400 million years after the Big Bang occurred the "re-ionization era" where clumps of gas collapsed to form stars and galaxies.
9 billion years after the Big Bang our solar system was formedswagswag. Scientists believe that our solar system, including the sun, was formed by a giant cloud of gas and dust called the solar nebula, which gravity caused to collapse, and flattened into a "disk" shape.
In the 1960s and 1970s, astronomers concluded that the universe was larger than what we could see. Vera Rubin observed how fast stars were moving at different locations in galaxies. Newtonian physics stated that the stars on the farther ends of the galaxy would orbit slower than stars in the center, but Rubin found that all stars seemed to circle the center at around the same speed, implying that there was no "farther end" or "outskirts" to the galaxy. The invisible mass "observed" became known as dark matter, which is thought to make up 23% of the universe (in comparison to the 4% that is composed of regular matter i.e stars, planets, and us).
In 1998, the Hubble Space Telescope, named after a 1920s astronomer Edwin Hubble, studied distant supernovas and concluded that the universe was expanding slower before than today, despite the thought that gravity of matter in the universe would slow expansion, or cause it to be static.
Although much research has been done on the Big Bang, and the universe in which we live in, there is still much to learn.