Directions: Use the information provided and your knowledge of Earth and Space Sciences to answer the following questions. Show all work where necessary.
Directions: Use the information provided and your knowledge of Earth and Space Sciences to answer the following questions. Show all work where necessary.
How and when did the universe begin?
Approximately 13.7 billion years ago, all the matter and energy in the universe were created in an enormous explosion known as the “Big Bang”.
Figure 1.
Source: https://louisville.edu/planetarium/research/implementation/visualization-scripts/high-school/hs-module-1
What is the compelling evidence that supports the Big Bang Theory?
Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) is the energy released as matter and antimatter annihilated each other, during the Big Bang.
The CBR is a nearly uniform radiation received from all regions of the sky.
The evidence is apparent as a radio signal with a temperature of
Amazing Fact Alert:
Using powerful telescopes, scientists have made extensive spectroscopic surveys of distant stars and galaxies. The data indicates that hydrogen and helium make up nearly all of the nuclear matter in the universe. The most abundant element, hydrogen, accounts for 74% of the mass while helium contributes 25%. Heavier elements comprise less than 1% of the total.
The observed 3:1 ratio of hydrogen to helium along with the relative scarcity of heavier elements yield critical clues about the density, temperature, and expansion rate of the early universe. The correlations between these observations and the predictions of the Big Bang model are striking pieces of evidence in support for the theory.
Figure 2.
The Doppler red-shift of light observed from distant stars and galaxies gives evidence that the universe is expanding (moving away from a central point). This allows for Big Bang Theory, because after a “bang” occurs all of the matter moves away from the point of origin.
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
As the light moves away from an object the distance between its waves becomes greater. This is displayed by red light, where the waves are further apart (longer).
The opposite is evidence of blue light, where the waves become compressed as the object moves closer.
When spectroscopic information is processed, an object that displays a red-shift is moving away (receding) from the viewer; and an object that displays a blue-shift is moving towards the viewer.
Figure 5.
In the smallest of fractions of the first second after the Big Bang, what was once a complete vacuum began to evolve into what we now know as the Universe.
In the very beginning there was nothing except for a plasma soup, a single point of infinite energy. Science has devised a theory of what happened, based on inferences determined by the evidence found in the universe of today.
Immediately after the Big Bang, the universe was tremendously hot as a result of particles of matter and antimatter rushing apart in all directions. As it began to cool, at around
As the universe expanded further, and thus cooled, common particles began to form. These particles called baryons that include photons, neutrinos, electrons and quarks. These would become the building blocks of life as we know it. During the baryon genesis period there were no recognizable heavy particles such as protons or neutrons because of the still intense heat. At this moment, there was only a quark soup.
After the universe had cooled to about 3000 billion degrees Kelvin, a radical transition began which has been likened to the phase transition of water turning to ice. Composite particles such as protons and neutrons, called hadrons, became the common state of matter after this transition.
Still, no more of complex matter could form at these temperatures.
Although lighter particles, called leptons, also existed, they were prohibited from reacting with the hadrons to form more complex states of matter. These leptons, which include electrons, neutrinos and photons, would soon be able to join their hadron kin in a union that would define present-day common matter.
After about one to three minutes had passed since the creation of the universe, protons and neutrons began to react with each other to form deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen.
Deuterium, or heavy hydrogen, soon collected another neutron to form tritium. Rapidly following this reaction was the addition of another proton which produced a helium nucleus. Scientists believe that there was one helium nucleus for every ten protons within the first three minutes of the universe.
After further cooling, these excess protons would be able to capture an electron to create common hydrogen. Consequently, the universe today is observed to contain one helium atom for every ten or eleven atoms of hydrogen.
While it is true that much of this information is speculative, as the universe ages we are able to become increasingly confident in our knowledge of its history. By studying the way in which the universe exists today it is possible to learn a great deal about its past. Through finding answers studying the formation of simple atoms in the laboratory we can make some educated guesses as to how they formed originally. Only through further research and discovery will it be possible to completely understand the creation of the universe and its first atomic structures, however, maybe we will never know for sure.
Describe how the observation of cosmic background radiation (CBR) provides evidence supporting the Big Bang Theory.
What is the primary significance of the 3:1 ratio of hydrogen to helium observed in the universe?
Explain how the Doppler red-shift observed in light from distant galaxies supports the idea of an expanding universe.
Which of the following observations provides the strongest evidence that the universe began from a single point?
The following data show average red-shift values (z) for galaxies at different distances.
Galaxy Distance (Mly) | Red Shift (z) |
|---|---|
100 | 0.002 |
200 | 0.004 |
400 | 0.008 |
800 | 0.016 |
Describe the pattern and explain what it indicates about the motion of galaxies.
Explain how the existence of more matter than antimatter supports the Big Bang model of the universe’s origin.
What do scientists infer from the nearly uniform temperature of the cosmic background radiation across the sky?
Describe one line of evidence, besides red-shift and cosmic background radiation, that supports the Big Bang Theory.