Big Bang

meteor

Most of us probably have seen _____ or shooting stars. A _____ is the flash of light that we see in the night sky when a small chunk of interplanetary debris burns up as it passes through our atmosphere. "_____" refers to the flash of light caused by the debris, not the debris itself.

meteoroid

The debris is called a _____. A ______ is a piece of interplanetary matter that is smaller than a kilometer and frequently only millimeters in size. Most _____ that enter the Earth's atmosphere are so small that they vaporize completely and never reach the planet's surface.

meteorite

If any part of a meteoroid survives the fall through the atmosphere and lands on Earth, it is called a _____. Although the vast majority of ____ are very small, their size can range from about a fraction of a gram (the size of a pebble) to 100 kilograms (220 lbs) or more (the size of a huge, life-destroying boulder).

When did the universe begin?

~13.7 Billion years ago

What did the size of the universe begin as?

The universe begins as the size of a single atom

How did the universe begin?

The universe began as a violent expansion

Where and what did the universe expand from?

All matter and space were created from a single point of pure energy in an instant

What is a star?

The objects that heat and light the planets in a system

To form a star:

Need Hydrogen and helium

Need gravity

Characteristics of Stars

The power source of a star:

Nuclear fusion begins

Hydrogen atoms combine to form helium

Define galaxy

A collection of stars & planets held together by gravity

How did galaxies form?

Shortly after the Big Bang, gravity caused huge masses of gas to collapse and condense

List the two paths of stars

Stellar Nebula > Average Star > Red Giant > Planetary Nebula > White Dwarf

OR

Stellar Nebula > Massive Star > Red Super Giant >

Super Nova > Neutron Star

or

Super Nova > Black Hole

What happened ~ 3 minutes after big bang?

The universe has grown from the size of an atom to larger than the size a grapefruit

Who made the equation E=m2, and what is it saying?

energy froze into matter according to Albert Einstein's equation.

This basically says that like snowflakes freezing, energy forms matter into clumps that today we call protons, neutrons and electrons.

These parts later form into atoms

What happened ~ several hundred thousand years after Big Bang?

ATOMS form (specifically Hydrogen and its isotopes with a small amount of Helium.)

The early Universe was about 75% Hydrogen and 25% Helium. It is still almost the same today.

What happened ~200 to 400 million years after Big Bang?

1st stars and galaxies form

What happened ~ 4.6 billion years ago?

Our Solar system forms

What are common misconceptions about the Big Bang?

there was no explosion; there was (and continues to be) an expansion

Rather than imagining a balloon popping and releasing its contents, imagine a balloon expanding: an infinitesimally small balloon expanding to the size of our current universe

we tend to image the singularity as a little fireball appearing somewhere in space

space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy - nothing.

Big Bang Timeline

Big Bang - energy

Matter

E=mc2

protons

Neutrons

electrons

Atoms

Hydrogen

helium

Stars and galaxies

Our solar system

Sun and all planets

Earth (present day)

Big Bang evidence

Universal expansion and Hubble's Law

3 degree background radiation

Quasars

Radioactive decay

Stellar formation and evolution

Speed of light and stellar distances

1. Universal expansion and Hubble's Law

Hubble observed the majority of galaxies are moving away from us and each other

The farther, the faster they move

Red Shift

Define Parallax

is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight.

2. Background Microwave radiation

Noise radiation (static) is evenly spread across space

The amount of radiation matched predictions

C.O.B.E satellite confirmed for the entire universe that noise radiation (static) is evenly spread

Law of conservation of energy (energy can neither be created or destroyed) - energy remains constant over time

Define and explain Quasars

super large (solar system size) galactic cores that put out more light than whole galaxies

Only found 10-15 billion light years away

Found nowhere else

Nothing exists past them

4. Radioactive decay

Radiometric dating - gives us the age of items from the decay of radioactive materials found within the object

Moon rocks have been dated and found to be older than Earth

Gives us an estimated time that Earth and the Moon formed

5. Stellar formation and evolution

We observe the life cycles of stars across the universe using tools such as satellites and telescopes

we view stars form, burn and explode

6. Speed of light and stellar distances

The speed of light is a universal constant of 300,000 km/s2

We observe stars millions/billions of light-years away

A light-year is the distance that light travels in 1 year - the light we see today from a star 500 light years away is 500 years old

The furthest stars away are 10-15 billion light years away

We have telescopes that can see further, but there isn't anything viewable

big bang

a theory that the universe formed in a huge explosion

cosmic background radiation

leftover thermal energy from the big bang

dark energy

a force that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate

planetesimal

the asteroid-like bodies that formed the building blocks of planets

dark matter

matter that does not give off electromagnetic radiation

solar nebula

a large cloud of gas and dust, such as the one that formed our solar system

In which direction are nearly all galaxies moving?

Away from earth and away from each other

What's Hubble's law?

the farther the planet is from us, the faster it's traveling

Explain how the sun was formed

Slowly, gravity began to pull the solar nebula together. As the solar nebula shrank, it spun faster and faster and eventually flatted into a rotating disk. Gravity pulled most of the gas into the center of the disk, where the gas eventually became hot and dense enough for nuclear fusion to begin. The sun was born.

Which two scientist discovered a faint radiation on their radio telescope coming from all directions in space now known as cosmic background radiation?

2 scientist known as _____

Who was the first person to observe and conclude the universe all came from one spot?

George Lemaitre

What is the "key"?

energy

What else do scientist call cosmic background radiation?

the finger print of the universe

first law of thermodynamics

matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed (everything that was there then is here now)

When was the universe created?

13.8 billion years or 13 years

When were the first stars and galaxies created?

12.7 billion years or 12 years

When did the Earth form?

4.5 billion years or 4.5 years

When was the first single celled life form on Earth created?

3.8 billion years or 3.8 (4) years

When was the first multi-cellular life form on Earth created?

540 million years or 6 months

When were the dinosaurs extinct?

65 million years or 3 weeks

When were humans and chimps split from last shared ancestor?

7 million years or 3 days

When were the first homo sapiens created?

250 thousand years or 50 minutes

The study of the universe is known as _____

cosmology