Big Bang

The universe contains everything that exists: Earth,

the Sun, the stars, galaxies (collections of billions of
stars), and everything else in space. People have
wondered how the universe got started for
thousands of years. Most scientists now think they
have the answer. They think the universe began
about 14 billion years ago with a kind of big
explosion. They call the explosion the big bang.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE BIG BANG?

No one knows what caused the big bang, but scientists
think they know what happened all the way back to the
first seconds after the big bang.

The brand new universe was very hot and very small. It
blew outwards very fast. In the first three minutes, matter
started to form. Hundreds of years later, the universe
looked like a big ball of fire.

You can picture the universe as something like a black

balloon with white dots painted on it. The black represents
space and the white dots are galaxies. Blowing air into the
balloon makes it bigger. The spaces between each dot get
farther apart as the balloon expands.

As it got bigger, the universe got cooler. Hydrogen gas

formed. The gas broke into clumps. The clumps came
together to make galaxies and stars. Other kinds of matter
formed in the stars. Finally, planets like Earth formed
around some stars.

IS THERE PROOF OF A BIG BANG?

The expansion of the universe is evidence for the big
bang. American scientist Edwin Hubble studied light
coming from galaxies far out in the universe. In 1929, he
found that the galaxies were speeding away from Earth
and from each other in all directions. Scientists tracked
the paths of the galaxies back to their starting place. They
saw that all the galaxies must have started from the same
place. Packing all that matter into a small area would
make a very dense, searing hot ball—the big bang.

Scientists use math to describe how the universe behaves.

In the early 1900s, German American scientist Albert
Einstein came up with equations that predict an expanding
universe. These equations have correctly predicted the
motions of stars, planets, and light.

More proof came in the 1990s from a spacecraft called the

Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE). COBE saw rays
coming from far off in the universe. The rays are left over
from the early days of the universe. They could only have
been created in a much smaller and hotter universe long
ago.

WILL THE UNIVERSE KEEP EXPANDING?

Scientists are not sure what will happen to the universe.
They currently think it will keep expanding forever. They
even think the expansion is speeding up. But scientists are
still studying this question.
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