According to the standard Big Bang model, the universe was born during a period of inflation that began about 13.7 billion years ago. Like a rapidly expanding balloon, it swelled from a size smaller than an electron to nearly its current size within a tiny fraction of a second.
How was the universe created?
Soon after the Big Bang, primordial protons and neutrons formed from the quark-gluon plasma of the early Universe as it cooled below two trillion degrees. A few minutes later, in a process known as Big Bang nucleosynthesis, nuclei formed from the primordial protons and neutrons.What's holding the universe together?
It seems that dark matter is like scaffolding that holds the universe together. This scaffolding has been around since the Big Bang, congregating thousands of galaxies where the filaments cross. ... To understand the substance of the dark matter, scientists use a particle accelerator to speed things up.
What is the universe made up of?
Astronomers like to call all material made up of protons, neutrons and electrons "baryonic matter". Until about thirty years ago, astronomers thought that the universe was composed almost entirely of this "baryonic matter", ordinary atoms.
Astronomers like to call all material made up of protons, neutrons and electrons "baryonic matter". Until about thirty years ago, astronomers thought that the universe was composed almost entirely of this "baryonic matter", ordinary atoms.
How will the universe end?
What is outside the universe?
Space outside space that extends infinitely into what our little bubble of a universe may expand into forever. Lying hundreds of billions of light-years from us could be other island universes much like our own.