History of the Universe

Image taken from By NASA/WMAP Science Team - Original version: NASA; modified by Ryan Kaldari, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11885244
 Key Stages
• Big Bang
• Inflation
• Recombination
• Dark Ages
• Formation of large-scale structure
– Milky Way galaxy
– Solar System
 Big Bang
• Universe began ~13.8 billion years ago in
event known as Big Bang
– Universe is currently expanding and tracing it
backward leads to a point in time where all matter
was in one place, a singularity
– From t=0 to t=10^-43 is considered Planck epoch;
all four fundamental forces are unified because of
high temperatures
– Little is truly understood about this time
 Evidence for the Big Bang Theory
• Hubble’s Law
– The further an object (galaxy) is from us the faster it is
moving away
– Doppler Effect Video

Images taken from NASA and http://hyperphysics.phy-

astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Astro/hubble.html
 Evidence for the Big Bang Theory
• Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
– “Leftover” radiation from the Big Bang
– Universe is smooth in temperature to 1 part in 100,000
• Abundance of primordial elements matches
theoretical Big Bang nucleosynthesis predictions
 Inflationary Epoch
• Universe expands by a factor
of 1026 and stops rapid
expansion at 10-32 seconds
• Explains why Universe looks
very similar, but not perfectly
similar in all directions

Image taken from http://oneminuteastronomer.com/6112/cosmic-inflation/ and wikipedia.com

 Recombination
• Between t=0 seconds and t=380,000
years the Universe slowly cools and
matter begins to coalesce
– Quarks for protons and neutrons
– Protons and neutrons form nuclei
– Nuclei and electrons combine to make
neutral atoms
• When neutral atoms form, light can
now travel unobstructed and the Image taken from
Universe becomes transparent ned.ipac.caltech.edu
– Origin of Cosmic Microwave
Background Radiation
– Universe is 3000K and 42 million light-
years across
 “Dark Ages”
• From 380,000 years to 400,000,000 years the
Universe is dark, no stars or galaxies have
formed
Formation of Large-Scale Structure
• Stars form  Galaxies form  Clusters form 
Superclusters form
• Milky Way galaxy forms ~8.8 billion years ago
• Solar System forms ~4.6 billion years ago
 Accelerated Expansion Dark Energy
• Rate of expansion of
Universe changed from
constant to accelerating
about 5 billion years
ago
• Amount of redshift is
too small in very distant
objects
• Used Type Ia Image taken from
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/12/02/d
ark-energy-accelerated-expans/
Supernovas as standard
candles