The Big Bang

The big bang theory is the concept that describes the creation of the universe. And as time passed, it became widely accepted by scientists and astronomers alike. However, it isn’t explained clearly by a few sources, making it hard to understand what really the big bang is and what happened.

To start off, the big bang states that the universe we live in was created from a huge explosion triggered by an extremely dense object that exploded with unbelievable force. This dense point was believed to hold every speck of energy that existed in that previous universe in which was jammed into that one point. After exploding, it created matter that was propelled to the outer edges of this universe, creating the galaxies and stars we know, and more importantly, the Earth!
But a question you’re probably asking yourself is, “How did we find this out?”

Well, that’s a good question! An astronomer and scientist I will mention later, accidentally discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation dubbed, the Big Bang Echo. a Microwave Background that has the ability to capture ancient lights from extremely far away, ultimately allowing us to see the past. For a little background, the further into space we see, the further back in time we can see. This is due to the fact that since light farther away takes longer to reach us, we can only see what has happened prior until that light emitted reaches us (and as a little rewording: light doesn’t travel at an infinite speed, therefore it still takes time for light to travel a long distance no matter how far.)

Anyway, to steer back on track, let's talk about what happened during the Big Bang. After the huge explosion by the Big Bang, much of the matter that was released was extremely dense and hot. Over time, as the universe slowly cooled and conditions “aligned”, the matter gave rise to the very building blocks we know, electrons, protons, neutrons and quarks. After many thousands of years, the first nuclei were created using protons and neutrons. It took many more years until the first electron was captured into the orbit of a nucleus, thus creating the first atom.

An explanation of the Cosmic Microwave Background by Sixty Symbols

The first atoms of the universe were primarily composed of helium and hydrogen atoms, which CERN stated, “-...are still the most abundant atoms in the universe.”

Almost 150-300 million years after the Big Bang, the first star was formed. However other sources suggest that the first star was formed only 100 millions years after the Big Bang. It was only a chain reaction after that, as more stars formed and began creating one of the biggest celestial structures ever, galaxies. Obviously it wasn’t until billions of years later until even bigger celestial structures were formed (such as super clusters and the cosmos!)

But how did we acquire all of this info in less than 200 years? Well I can safely say that the “Big bang Echo” had a primary role in discovering such things, made by two astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. But we just can’t leave out the Hubble space telescope and many other space telescopes because these objects are what helped us see so far into space. And as you can probably tell now… The universe is pretty dang old right!?

Well this old dark abyss sure has left us with quite the history, and is only what we believe is the beginning of the universe’s journey in time. And after reading this, I think that we can all say, it started with a bang.

Original Document: The Astron : The Big Bang Theory

BBC: How Do We Know The Big Bang Actually Happened?

CERN: The Early Universe

USM: Planetarium