In the Beginning

Everything was in one, single, infinitely small, infinitely dense spot.

But lets start with the basics

Today we will talk about: Our Universe

What it is like, how it started, how it evolved to its current state, and how it will end

Hubble Telescope

This image is taken of galaxies that are billions of light-years away. Light takes a very long time to travel to Earth. Consequently, this photograph is of the conditions that existed billions of years ago, just a billion years or so after the big bang. Astronomers have thus machine of sorts. created a time

f Don Lincoln, Fermilab f

First, lets look at some of the objects we might find if we explored our Universe

Where do we live?

Where is Earth?

The Solar System

Q: What is a STAR?

Stellar Facts
A star is a big ball of burning gas Our Sun is a very average star When we look out into the night sky, many of the stars we see are very similar to our own sun In fact some of these stars also have planets, just like our own Solar System

What is this?

What is it made of?

MANY STARS

MANY STARS

SOME SUN-LIKE

Galactic Facts
Stars tend to group together to form galaxies Galaxies contain hundreds of thousands of stars At the center of most galaxies is a massive black hole! Our sun is part of a galaxy

You are here!

Our Galaxy from Earth

 We live on Earth Earth is a planet in the Solar System, orbiting our star which we call the Sun The Sun is part of a spiral galaxy called the Milky Way When we look out into the sky at night, all of the stars we see are in our galaxy But our galaxy is just one of many..

Galaxies: Hubble Space telescope image

Zoom out - galaxies form filaments and voids

When the Universe Was

Young and Hot

IN THE BEGINNING.

EVERYTHING!

EVERYTHING!

STARTS EXPANDING..

EVERYTHING!

ENERGY INCREASING, BECOMING LIKE A BOMB.

Tick tick tick

BOOM!

The Big Bang

Not really an explosion Universe expanded rapidly as a whole (Universe is still expanding today as a result of the Big Bang) Matter was created in the form of tiny particles (protons, neutrons, electrons) Too hot for normal stuff to form (eg atoms, molecules)

COSMIC SOUP

COSMIC SOUP
NEUTRON PROTON

ELECTRON

300,000 Years Later..

Universe much cooler, atoms start to form..

Hydrogen, Helium, normal stuff

Universe is now a GAS

Universe is now a GAS

HELIUM

HYDROGEN

GRAVITY!

Gravitational Collapse
We started with a uniform gas Small regions became more dense The denser regions had larger gravity and started to pull other particles towards them The gaseous Universe began to look clumpy

Gravitational Collapse

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Gravitational Collapse

Regions with more particles (higher density) become gas clouds Gas clouds become stars and galaxies Galaxies congregate together in filaments, groups and clusters

If you compress a gas in a pump, it becomes hotter, and if you release the pressure of this gas, it cools

Sooooo what? Why is this important? Well.

An animal, or a human body, for example, emits some infrared radiation that can be detected by an infrared camera Color is related to temperature

The Universe ALSO gives off heat! That we can measure!

Anywhere we look, its about the same temperature So, the big-bang must have taken place at the same time everywhere

Original temperature of the universe: 3000 K Today, it is only 3 K The cooling says how far the light has travelled 13.7 billion years: the age of the Universe

If we could view the Universe from outside, it would look like this:

The Gemini Telescope

Big Bang Time Line

Future?
The Universe is still expanding All galaxies are moving apart The explosion of the big bang is still happening! It may continue expanding forever Or is may stop expanding, and fall inwards in a big CRUNCH!

What have we learned?

The Universe started with a BIG BANG Gradually the particles were drawn together under GRAVITY to form STARS and GALAXIES Many stars have planets around them The fate of the Universe is uncertain

THE END