Accepted astrophysical theories posit that at one point there was nothing : no stars, plants or galaxies - not even 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 curve 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 catchy shorthand for a complex astrophysical theory, backed up with sophisticated calculation. The term was coined in the 1950s by British astronomer Fred Hoyle, a proponent of a theory of the universe as a steady state. In fact, Hoyla 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. Astrophysicists see the big bang more as an instantaneous expansion that within a few seconds created nuclear reactions and produced the protons, neutrons, and electrons that from the structure of matter today. Not long after, the nuclear reaction stopped. The universe was roughly one-quarter helium, three -quarters hydrogen a ratio exhibited in the universe's oldest stars today. The formation of the universe played out over billion of years. Our own Earth, along with our solar system, is a product of a steeler explosion almost five billion years ago.
SCHEMATIC OF ALL TIME shows the big bang to the left and then a progression from particles to atoms, atoms to molecules, and molecules to life-forms.
The story of the universe still is being written and refined. By all scientific accounts, it continue to expand, and the question of an eventual and looms large in current investigations.
The Universe itself provides some concrete support fir 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.
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