T10： Origin of the Universe

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1893938_The_Beginning_and_Evolution_of_the_Univ
erse

 Theory of Evolution of the Universe

 Expansion and the Destruction of the Universe

 Measuring Distances in Outer Space

10.1 Theory of Evolution of the Universe

Step 1: How It All Started

The Big Bang was not an explosion in space, as the theory's name might suggest.
Instead, it was the appearance of space everywhere in the universe, researchers
have said. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe was born as a very hot,
very dense, single point in space.

A key part of this comes from observations of the cosmic microwave background,
which contains the afterglow of light and radiation left over from the Big Bang. This
relic of the Big Bang pervades the universe and is visible to microwave detectors,
which allows scientists to piece together clues of the early universe.

In 2001, NASA launched the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)

mission to study the conditions as they existed in the early universe by measuring
radiation from the cosmic microwave background. Among other discoveries, WMAP
was able to determine the age of the universe — about 13.7 billion years old.
Step 2: The Universe's First Growth Spurt
When the universe was very young — something like a hundredth of a billionth of a
trillionth of a trillionth of a second (whew!) — it underwent an incredible growth spurt.
During this burst of expansion, which is known as inflation, the universe grew
exponentially and doubled in size at least 90 times.

After inflation, the universe continued to grow, but at a slower rate. As space
expanded, the universe cooled and matter formed.
Step 3: Too Hot to Shine
Light chemical elements were created within the first three minutes of the universe's
formation. As the universe expanded, temperatures cooled and protons and
neutrons collided to make deuterium, which is an isotope of hydrogen. Much of this
deuterium combined to make helium.

For the first 380,000 years after the Big Bang, however, the intense heat from the
universe's creation made it essentially too hot for light to shine. Atoms crashed
together with enough force to break up into a dense, opaque plasma of protons,
neutrons and electrons that scattered light like fog.
Step 4: Let There Be Light
About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, matter cooled enough for electrons to
combine with nuclei to form neutral atoms. This phase is known as "recombination,"
and the absorption of free electrons caused the universe to become transparent. The
light that was unleashed at this time is detectable today in the form of radiation from
the cosmic microwave background.

Yet, the era of recombination was followed by a period of darkness before stars and
other bright objects were formed.
Step 5: Emerging from the Cosmic Dark Ages
Roughly 400 million years after the Big Bang, the universe began to come out of its
dark ages. This period in the universe's evolution is called the age of re-ionization.

This dynamic phase was thought to have lasted more than a half-billion years, but
based on new observations, scientists think re-ionization may have occurred more
rapidly than previously thought.

During this time, clumps of gas collapsed enough to form the very first stars and
galaxies. The emitted ultraviolet light from these energetic events cleared out and
destroyed most of the surrounding neutral hydrogen gas. The process of re-
ionization, plus the clearing of foggy hydrogen gas, caused the universe to become
transparent to ultraviolet light for the first time.
Step 6: More Stars and More Galaxies
Astronomers comb the universe looking for the most far-flung and oldest galaxies to
help them understand the properties of the early universe. Data from older missions
like WMAP and the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), which launched in 1989,
and missions still in operation, like the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in
1990, all help scientists try to solve the most enduring mysteries and answer the
most debated questions in cosmology.
Step 7: Birth of Our Solar System
Our solar system is estimated to have been born a little after 9 billion years after the
Big Bang, making it about 4.6 billion years old. According to current estimates, the
sun is one of more than 100 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone, and orbits
roughly 25,000 light-years from the galactic core.

Many scientists think the sun and the rest of our solar system was formed from a
giant, rotating cloud of gas and dust known as the solar nebula. As gravity caused
the nebula to collapse, it spun faster and flattened into a disk. During this phase,
most of the material was pulled toward the center to form the sun.
Step 8: The Invisible Stuff in the Universe
Basic Newtonian physics implies that stars on the outskirts of a galaxy would orbit
more slowly than stars at the center, but Rubin found no difference in the velocities
of stars farther out. In fact, she found that all stars in a galaxy seem to circle the
center at more or less the same speed.
This mysterious and invisible mass became known as dark matter. Dark matter is
inferred because of the gravitational pull it exerts on regular matter. One hypothesis
states the mysterious stuff could be formed by exotic particles that don't interact with
light or regular matter, which is why it has been so difficult to detect.
Dark matter is thought to make up 23 percent of the universe. In comparison, only 4
percent of the universe is composed of regular matter, which encompasses stars,
planets and people.

Step 9: The Expanding and Accelerating Universe

In the 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble made a revolutionary discovery about the
universe. Using a newly constructed telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory in
Los Angeles, Hubble observed that the universe is not static, but rather is expanding.

Decades later, in 1998, the prolific space telescope named after the famous
astronomer, the Hubble Space Telescope, studied very distant supernovas and
found that, a long time ago, the universe was expanding more slowly than it is today.
This discovery was surprising because it was long thought that the gravity of matter
in the universe would slow its expansion, or even cause it to contract.

Dark energy is thought to be the strange force that is pulling the cosmos apart at
ever-increasing speeds, but it remains undetected and shrouded in mystery. The
existence of this elusive energy, which is thought to make up 73 percent of the
universe, is one of the most hotly debated topics in cosmology.
——

11.2 Expansion and the Destruction of the Universe

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zphppv4/revision/1
The universe was born with the Big Bang as an unimaginably hot, dense point.
When the universe was just 10-34 of a second or so old — that is, a hundredth of a
billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second in age — it experienced an incredible
burst of expansion known as inflation, in which space itself expanded faster than the
speed of light. During this period, the universe doubled in size at least 90 times,
going from subatomic-sized to golf-ball-sized almost instantaneously.
The work that goes into understanding the expanding universe comes from a
combination of theoretical physics and direct observations by astronomers. However,
in some cases astronomers have not been able to see direct evidence — such as
the case of gravitational waves associated with the cosmic microwave background,
the leftover radiation from the Big Bang. A preliminary announcement about finding
these waves in 2014 was quickly retracted, after astronomers found the signal
detected could be explained by dust in the Milky Way.

According to NASA, after inflation the growth of the universe continued, but at a

slower rate. As space expanded, the universe cooled and matter formed. One
second after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with neutrons, protons, electrons,
anti-electrons, photons and neutrinos.
During the first three minutes of the universe, the light elements were born during a
process known as Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Temperatures cooled from 100
nonillion (1032) Kelvin to 1 billion (109) Kelvin, and protons and neutrons collided to
make deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen. Most of the deuterium combined to
make helium, and trace amounts of lithium were also generated.
For the first 380,000 years or so, the universe was essentially too hot for light to
shine, according to France's National Center of Space Research (Centre National
d'Etudes Spatiales, or CNES). The heat of creation smashed atoms together with
enough force to break them up into a dense plasma, an opaque soup of protons,
neutrons and electrons that scattered light like fog.
Roughly 380,000 years after the Big Bang, matter cooled enough for atoms to form
during the era of recombination, resulting in a transparent, electrically neutral
gas, according to NASA. This set loose the initial flash of light created during the Big
Bang, which is detectable today as cosmic microwave background radiation.
However, after this point, the universe was plunged into darkness, since no stars or
any other bright objects had formed yet.
About 400 million years after the Big Bang, the universe began to emerge from
the cosmic dark ages during the epoch of reionization. During this time, which
lasted more than a half-billion years, clumps of gas collapsed enough to form the first
stars and galaxies, whose energetic ultraviolet light ionized and destroyed most of
the neutral hydrogen.
Although the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in
the universe pulled on itself via gravity, about 5 or 6 billion years after the Big
Bang, according to NASA, a mysterious force now called dark energy began
speeding up the expansion of the universe again, a phenomenon that continues
today.
A little after 9 billion years after the Big Bang, our solar system was born.

a shift towards longer wavelengths (“red shift”). This is because, as space expands, electromagnetic
waves stretch, becoming redder. This effect makes it possible to measure the speed with which
galaxies are separating from each other, called recession speed.

Redshift is light's version of a phenomenon we experience all the time with

sound. Have you ever noticed how the pitch of a police siren seems to drop
suddenly as the car zooms by you? As the siren approaches you, the
waves of sound are squeezed together, and you hear them as being
higher-pitched. After the car passes by, sound waves from the
receding siren are stretched apart. You hear these stretched
waves as being lower-pitched.

This apparent change in the pitch (or frequency) of sound is called

Doppler shift. Light from distant stars and galaxies can be shifted
Follow the
in much the same way. car to see
a
Shockwav
e
demonstra
tion of
Doppler.
Like sound, light is a wave that can be described in terms of its frequency,
the number of wave peaks that pass by each second. Just like a cosmic
police car, a star zooming toward you has its light waves squeezed
together. You see these light waves as having a higher frequency than
normal. Since blue is at the high-frequency end of the visible spectrum, we
say the light from an approaching star is shifted toward blue, or blueshifted.

Likewise, if a star is zooming away from you, any light it emits gets
stretched. You see these stretched-out light waves as having a lower
frequency. Since red is at the low-frequency end of the visible spectrum,
we say that light from a receding star is shifted toward red, or redshifted.
Imagine
you're
moving to
the left with
this
arrowhead.
Light
emitted
from
galaxies
moving
toward you
would be
squished,
making the
wavelength
shorter and
the light
bluer. On
earth, we
perceive
the light
from
galaxies
moving
away from
us (as it
appears
almost all
galaxies
are) . . . . as
being
somewhat
stretched,
with longer
wavelength
s that make
it look
redder.

The amount of the shift depends on the speed of the star, relative to you.
For a moving object to create an appreciable redshift or blueshift requires
some pretty serious speeds. To get just a 1% change in the frequency of
light, a star has to be moving 1,864 miles per second. For a blue lightbulb
to look red, it would have to be flying away from you at 3/4 of the speed of
light.

Studying light from galaxies throughout our universe, astronomers have

noticed something surprising: almost all of it is redshifted. In fact, not only is
it redshifted, galaxies that are farther away are more redshifted than closer
ones. So it seems that not only are all the galaxies in the universe moving
away from us, the farther ones are moving away from us the fastest.

10.3

Distance Measure

In astronomy, the most commonly used measures of distance are the light year, parsec and
astronomical unit.

Astronomical Unit (A.U.)

An astronomical unit (A.U.) is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, which is about
93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. Astronomical units are usually used to measure
distances within our solar system. For example, the planet Mercury is about 1/3 of an A.U. from
the Sun, while the farthest planet, Pluto, is about 40 A.U. from the Sun (thats 40 times as far
away from the Sun as the Earth is).

Light-Year (ly)
Most objects in space are so far away, that using a relatively small unit of distance, such as an
astronomical unit, is not practical. Instead, astronomers measure distances to objects which are
outside our solar system in light-years. A light-year (ly) is the distance that light can travel in one
year in a vacuum (empty space). The speed of light is about 186,000 miles or 300,000 kilometers
per second. So, in one year light travels a distance of about 5,880,000,000,000 miles or
9,460,000,000,000 kilometers or 63,240 A.U.. This distance is 1 light-year. For example, the
nearest star to us is about 4.3 light-years away. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 150,000
light-years across, and the nearest large galaxy, Andromeda, is 2.3 million light-years away.

Parsec (pc)
Astronomers use another unit of distance called a parsec (pc), which is equal to 3.26 light-years.
The definition of the parsec is based on a triangle. A parsec is the length of the long leg of a right
triangle, whose short leg is one astronomical unit when the angle between the Sun and the Earth,
as seen from an object in space (a star for example), is one arcsecond The word parsec stands for
"parallax of one arc second" One kiloparsec (kpc), is one thousand parsecs. One megaparsec
(Mpc) is one million parsecs.
 SUMMARY

1 Astronomical Unit (A.U.) is the average distance between the Sun and the Earth.
1 A.U. = 93 million miles = 150 million kilometers

1 light-year (ly) is the distance that light travels in one year in a vacuum.
1 ly = 5,880,000,000,000 miles = 9,460,000,000,000 kilometers = 63,240 A.U

1 parsec (pc) = 3.26 light-years