BLOG #1 - THE BIG BANG - COSMIC BEGINNINGS

Accepted astrophysical theories posit that at one point there was nothing: no stars, planets or galaxies - not even the space itself. The matter that makes up everything that now exists was concentrated in a single, extremely dense point known as a singularity. The force of gravity in a singularity is so great that the fabric of space time curves in on itself. In an instant known as the big bang, however, the contents of the primordial singularity escaped - and formed the universe.

               The big bang is a catchy shorthand for a complex astrophysical theory, backed up with sophisticated calculations. The term was coined in the 1950s by British astronomer Fred Boyle, a proponent of a theory of the universe as a steady state. In fact, Boyle used the term derisively. Though the name stuck, it gives a false impression, making it seem as though the event that unleashed all the energy of the universe almost 14 billion years ago was an explosion.

Point of Singularity to the creation of the Universe

               Astrophysicists see the big bang more as an instantaneous expansion that within a few seconds, created nuclear reactions and produced the protons, neutrons and the electrons that form the structure of matter today. Not long after, the nuclear reaction stopped. The universe was roughly one quarter helium, and three quarters hydrogen - a ratio exhibited the universe's oldest stars today. The formation of the universe played out over billions of years. Our own Earth, along with its solar system, is a product of a stellar explosion almost five billion years ago. 

          The story of the universe still is being written and redefined. By all the scientific accounts, it continues to expand, and the question of an eventual end looms large in current investigations. The universe itself provides some concrete support for the big bang theory in the form of cosmic background radiation, the "afterglow" of the cosmic inflation. In 1965, engineers looking for the source of the static interfering with satellite communications found a consistent signal emanating from every point in the sky at the wavelength predicted for this radiation.

Our Prime Home - The Milky Way galaxy