Beyond the Big Bang

Singularity

According to general relativity, the initial state of the universe, at the beginning of the Big Bang, it is a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system, like black holes

Scientific Theory

Comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts which is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena

Earth

Silicon and oxygen based with a metallic core it is the third planet from the Sun and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to by its Latin name, (Terra)

The Universe

Is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all physical matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space

Solar System

Consists of a star and the astronomical objects bound to it by gravity

Galaxy

Is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas dust

Galaxy Group and Clusters

Are the largest known gravitationally bound objects to have arisen thus far in the process of cosmic structure formation. They form the densest part of the large scale structure of the universe

Stars

A massive, luminous ball of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth

Prehistory

Is the period before recorded history

Milky Way Galaxy

Is the home galaxy of the Solar System, and of Earth. It is agreed that it is a spiral galaxy, with observations suggesting that it is a barred spiral galaxy. It contains 200 to 400 billion stars and an estimated 6 billion of those with planetary systems like ours, 500 million of which could be located in the habitable zone of their parent star

Andromeda Galaxy

Is the nearest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and is the largest galaxy of the Local Group

Expansion of the Universe

Is the observation that the universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate

Goseck Circle

It is considered the earliest sun observatory currently known in the world. Interpretations of the ring suggest that European Neolithic and Bronze Age people measured the heavens far earlier and more accurately than historians have thought

Astronomy

The science that deals with the material universe beyond the earth's atmosphere

Astrology

The study that assumes and attempts to interpret the influence of the heavenly bodies on human affairs

Cosmology

The branch of astronomy that deals with the general structure and evolution of the universe

Aristotle

Was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great, who imagined the earth at the center of the universe with the sun moon stars and planets all moving around the earth in perfect crystalline spheres

Ptolemy

Was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet who improved on Aristotle's model of the universe accurately tracing the paths of the planets and was able to make predictions about their movements calling them epicycles

Heliocentrism

Is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around a stationary Sun at the center of the solar system

Nicolaus Copernicus

Was a mathematician and astronomer who proposed that the sun was stationary in the center of the universe and the earth revolved around it

Johannes Kepler

Was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion placing the planets motion around the sun in ellipsis

Galileo Galilei

Was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism

Telescope

An optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer, which became a foundational tool for early astronomers and scientist

Isaac Newton

Was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian. His monograph Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, lays the foundations for most of classical mechanics and is one of the most important scientific books ever written, which described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries creating physics

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Isaac Newton's three-volume work containing explanations of his laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation

Albert Einstein

Was a German-born theoretical physicist who discovered the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics

General Relativity

Is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915. According to the theory the observed gravitational attraction between masses results from their warping of space and time

Monsignor Georges Lemaître

Proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom"

Primeval Atom

Monsignor Georges Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe starting from this single hot dense point

Edwin Hubble

An American astronomer who profoundly changed understanding of the universe by confirming the existence of galaxies other than our own, and helped establish that the universe is expanding

Light-Year

Often used to measure distances to stars and other distances on a galactic scale the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year (365.25 days)

Speed of Light

Approximately 186,282 miles per second, the fastest any particle can travel in our universe

Steady State Theory

Is a model developed in 1948 by Fred Hoyle and others as an alternative to the Big Bang theory (known, usually, as the standard cosmological model) asserts that although the universe is expanding, it nevertheless does not change its appearance over time it has no beginning and no end

Fred Hoyle

English astronomer and mathematician noted primarily for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and his often controversial stance rejection of the "Big Bang" theory in favor of the steady state theory

Stellar Nucleosynthesis

Predicted by Fred Hoyle is the collective term for the nuclear reactions taking place in stars to build the nuclei of the elements heavier than hydrogen

Arno Allan Penzias / Robert Woodrow Wilson

In 1965 while using the Holmdel Horn Antenna these scientists by accident discovered the microwave background radiation that permeates the universe, one of the most important discoveries in cosmology since Edwin Hubble demonstrated in the 1920s that the universe was expanding

Holmdel Horn Antenna

Used as a radio telescope at Bell Telephone Laboratories, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1988 because of its association with the research work of radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson who 1965 discovered the microwave background radiation that permeates the universe which was one of the most important discoveries in cosmology since Edwin Hubble

Supernova

The explosion of a star, caused by gravitational collapse, during which the star's luminosity increases by as much as 20 magnitudes and most of the star's mass is blown away at very high velocity

Alan Guth

An American theoretical physicist and cosmologist serving as Victor Weiss Kopf Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is the originator of the inflationary universe theory

Inflation (cosmology)

Is the theorized extremely rapid exponential expansion of the early universe by a factor of at least 1078 in volume, explaining the uniformity of the universe

Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)

Is a spacecraft which measures differences in the temperature of the Big Bang's remnant radiant heat known as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation — across the full sky

Fundamental Interaction (Four Known Forces of Nature)

Electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and gravitation

White Dwarf

The final evolutionary state of all stars whose mass is not high enough to become supernovae—over 97% of the stars in our galaxy

Black Dwarf

Is a hypothetical stellar remnant, created when a white dwarf becomes sufficiently cool to no longer emit significant heat or light

Matter

Is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist, a common way of defining anything that has mass and occupies volume

Particle

One of the extremely small constituents of matter, as an atom or nucleus

Particle Physics

Is a branch of physics that studies the elementary subatomic constituents of matter and radiation, and their interactions

Grand Unified Theory

Is a vision of a physics theory that can combine three of the four fundamental forces into one single equation

Exponential Growth

Occurs when the growth rate of a mathematical function is proportional to the function's current value

Density

Defined in a qualitative manner as the measure of the relative "heaviness" of objects with a constant volume, regardless of spatial size of the object

Law of Conservation of Mass

Implies that mass cannot be created or destroyed inside a closed system, although it may be rearranged in space and changed into different types of particles

Radioactive Decay

Is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles (ionizing radiation). The emission is spontaneous, in that the atom loses energy without any interaction with another particle from outside the atom

Proton

A positively charged elementary particle that is a fundamental constituent of all atomic nuclei. It is the lightest and most stable baryon, having a charge equal in magnitude to that of the electron

Cosmic Background Radiation

Electromagnetic radiation coming from every direction in the universe, considered the remnant of the big bang and corresponding to the black-body radiation of 3 K, the temperature to which the universe has cooled

Repulsion (Physics)

The force that acts between bodies of like electric charge or magnetic polarity, tending to separate them

Gravitational Lensing

One of the predictions of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity refers to a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant source (a background star or galaxy) and an observer that is capable of bending the light from the source, as it travels towards the observer