The beginning?

[cee-dee]

OK, so "They" say "everything" began with the Big Bang.

Fair enough, it was quite something and happened faster than the blink of an eye?

"They" also say nothing can travel faster than light?

If that's so, how can "They" view light which "began" shortly after the Big Bang?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19728375

We are "here", they're viewing light from a heck of a long way away, such light will have taken billions of years to get here even at approximately 186,000 miles per second.

So how did we get out "here", so far from that light when it was Starlight so long ago?

OK, were we able to get to the source of that light in an instant, we'd find it was probably no longer there but we are billions of miles from where that light was so how come the matter from which our Solar System was formed got sooooo far away from the Stars they're no "seeing"?

[cee-dee]

Interesting.

Now, accepting for a moment that the "viable" portion of the Universe was smaller than an atom and for some reason best known to itself decided to "explode", it would explode/expand in all directions?

Sooooo, if it exploded/expanded in all directions, it must have done so from a single point, ie, the centre? Where's the centre? Where are we in relation to "the centre"?

Also...... if it was the "viable" = possible portion of the Universe that was smaller than an atom, what's the "impossible" part of the Universe?

Those clever chaps never seem to get round to questions like the above?

OK, accepting for another moment that what they say so far is right, why don't they say that they don't know for sure, they're theorising but have no idea where the"centre" is, where we are in relation to it and they've no idea how far the Universe extends beyond the "part" they've been able to "see" so far?

[cee-dee]

As an afterthought, they've spent $900 million for something that's only lasted 4 years, wouldn't that money have been better spent on developing new propulsion systems, artificial gravity systems and heat shields?

[10phizz]

No, much better on providing  wells for all those forced to drink filthy water and 

provide mosquito nets for those in danger of contracting malaria...........not one iota of space exploration is going to make life on earth any better.

(unless you count the benefits of enhanced salaries for all the scientists )

[upthecreekyetagain]

Why does it have to be one or the other - why not both.

Money is not an entity in itself but a representation of people's labour and assets.

If there are those, (country's and individuals), who want to use their time and resources in the exploration of space, the maritime environment or just climb mountains who are we to say they shouldn't be allowed to do so.  As for benefits then let's face it there are many people, possibly the majority, who have never done anything to make life on Earth better for others.

[upthecreekyetagain]

. . . . and very, very, very few people who have only worked for the betterment of others with no thought of benefits for themselves.

[cee-dee]

I can't see how attempting to peer at supposed light coming from places/things that are no longer there is of much benefit to mankind or will enable travel to the Moon, the other Planets or the Asteroid belt never mind deep space.

As far as I can see, all the benefit is going to people who're playing with their particular interest using money provided by someone else to construct their toys.

The "research" doesn't achieve anything other than "it aids our understanding of the formation of the Universe". OK, so when you've "understood", what then? How will you use that "understanding" to further travel around our own Solar System?

All technological advancements are like climbing a ladder. You can't jump steps. It would have been no use the Wright Brothers thinking of making a plane out of metal and mounting machine guns on it.

Before that was possible, advancements in internal combustion engines had to be made along with research in to aerodynamics plus the methodology, metrology, metallurgy and manipulation of metal.

At the moment, we can't even get to the edge of our own Solar System in a reasonable time so I don't see the point in wasting money on playing about looking billions upon billions of miles out in to deep space.

[bankhaunter]

So a person who does not have a boat should not make a telescope to look at a distant island?

Why should travel be the only reason to want to know what's out there or understand how it came about?

[cee-dee]

Now you've gone over the top there.

The comparison is not the same but if it was, the bloke who wanted to make a telescope would want someone else to pay for it.

[cee-dee]

Here's another theory to add to the list.

Now you know that when they make an A bomb, the nuclear material is forced together to cause fission? Fusion is created in an H bomb in a blink after fission.

So, in thinking about the Universe as we know it, "our" Universe could have been created by two lots of the "right" material slamming in to each other?

OK, so you're gonna ask where those things came from and the answer is "I dunno". Except....... it leads to another theory that ove eons of time, all the material in "A" Universe comes back together getting compressed smaller and smaller under immense gravity. When two of those collide.......****BINGO**** it all kicks off again.

[spawnjohnuk]

though the universe is expanding or growing not compressing so it would have to be 2 universes fighting for the same space that causes bingo.

[cee-dee]

"Black Holes" are supposed to have such immense gravity that not even light can escape? Soooo, eventually the Black Holes consume all around them because the ever greater gravity sucks more and more in to them.

Sooner or (most probably much) later one Black Hole consumes another (or they just amalgamate) and the bigger Black Hole can suck in matter from even further away and so it goes on for eons.

Eventually the Black Hole has such a massive amount of matter and the gravity is so great, the matter within is compressed in to a minute "space".

Now...... when another such thing comes along.........****BINGO****

Who is not to say this has all happened before............... many times?

Also.... note that I said the Universe as we know it. We don't know what else lies "beyond" our own do we? Is there an end, an "edge"? It's not that long ago people thought that if they reached the horizon they'd drop off.....

[spawnjohnuk]

hmmm ,however it happened 'a split or tear in the universal matter maybe' ,its baffling its not observed happening all over the place or indeed why the big bang didn't happen on 3 planets say in this solar system.

That makes it happening over and over not really possible to me as it created life forms unique to 5000billion square acres lol  it should have left some trace somewhere of a creature inventor floating about in the gloop or even on planet...you know a bit of a spaceship or whatever.

[cee-dee]

Time this was back on the front page? 🙂

We're having a close encounter this month, well, a fly-by that's 3½ million miles away!

http://news.discovery.com/space/asteroids-meteors-meteorites/asteroid-flyby-1998-qe2-130517.htm

[barbara.1482]

Star trekking across the universe slowly going forward we cannot reverse!!:^O

[Anonymous]

that's twice that an NEO  (Near Earth Object)  has passed us, I just wonder if number three will be the one?

[cee-dee]

Time for a reminder about the NEO making it's fly-by today. See #272.

Anyway, between now and the end of the Universe, there'll be lots of chances for a cataclysmic collision.

However, if we get missed during the expected life of our Solar System, the end of the Sun will "get us".

If we've escaped to someplace else and keep doing that, the end of the Universe certainly will get us because when all the Hydrogen in the Universe has been consumed, all the Stars will die and the Universe will be a cold, dark place again......

But don't worry, it'll take trillions and trillions of years :-)B-)

[**bustysinclaire**]

?:|

[Anonymous]

Chronology of the universeFrom Wikipedia

This chronology of the universe describes

the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology, the prevailing scientific model of how the universe came into being and developed over time, using the cosmological time parameter of comoving coordinates. The instant in which the universe is thought to have begun rapidly expanding f...singularity is known as the Big Bang. As of 2013, this expansion is estimated to have begun 13.798 ± 0.037 billion years ago.[1] It is convenient to divide the evolution of the universe so far into three phases.

The very earliest universe was so hot, or energetic, that initially no particles existed or could ex...believed to be merged into one unified force. Space itself expanded during an inflationary epoch due to the immensity of the energies involved. Gradually the immense energies coo...symmetry breaking, a kind of repeated condensation from one status quo to another, leading finally t...strong force from the electroweak force and the first particles.

In the second phase, this quark-gluon plasma universe then cooled further, the current fundamental forces we know take their p...breaking of electroweak symmetry - and the full range of complex and composite particles we see arou...hydrogen), and the cosmic microwave background radiation we can detect today. Modern high energy particle physics theories are satisfactory at these energy levels, and so physicists believe they ha...electromagnetic energy, rather than "foggy", by the end of this phase.

The third phase started with a universe whose fundamental particles and forces were as we know them,...the emergence of large scale stable structures, such as the earliest stars, quasars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies and superclusters, and the development of these to create the kind of universe we see today. Some resear...[2]

Beyond the present day, scientists anticipate that the Earth will cease to support life in about a b...Stelliferous Era will end as stars eventually die and fewer are born to replace them, leading to a d...protons are unstable then eventually matter may evaporate into low level energy in a kind of entropy related heat death. Alternatively the universe may collapse in a big crunch, although current data shows the rate of expansion is still increasing. If this is correc...false vacuum catastrophe or a Big Rip as possible ends to the universe.

Contents  [hide] 1 Very early universe 1.1 Planck epoch1.2 Grand unification epoch1.3 Electroweak epoch 1.3.1 Inflationary epoch1.3.2 Baryogenesis2 Early universe 2.1 Supersymmetry breaking (speculative)2.2 Electroweak symmetry breaking and the quark epoch2.3 Hadron epoch2.4 Lepton epoch2.5 Photon epoch 2.5.1 Nucleosynthesis2.5.2 Matter domination2.5.3 Recombination2.5.4 Dark Ages3 Structure formation 3.1 Reionization3.2 Formation of stars3.3 Formation of galaxies3.4 Formation of groups, clusters and superclusters3.5 Formation of the Solar System3.6 Today4 Ultimate fate of the universe 4.1 Fate of the Solar system: 1 to 5 billion years4.2 Big freeze: 1014 years and beyond4.3 Big Crunch: 100+ billion years from now4.4 Big Rip: 20+ billion years from now4.5 Vacuum metastability event4.6 Heat death: 10150+ years from now5 See also6 References7 External linksVery early universe [edit]

All ideas concerning the very early universe (cosmogony) are speculative. No accelerator experiments have yet probed energies of sufficient magnit...Hartle–Hawking initial state, string landscape, brane inflation, string gas cosmology, and the ekpyrotic universe. Some of these are mutually compatible, while others are not.

Planck epoch [edit]Up to 10–43 seconds after the Big BangMain article: Planck epoch

The Planck epoch is an era in traditional (non-inflationary) big bang cosmology in which the tempera...electromagnetism, gravitation, weak nuclear interaction, and strong nuclear interaction—are all unified in one fundamental force. Little is understood about phys...gravitational singularity before this time, but this theory is based on general relativity and is expected to break down due to quantum effects. Physicists hope that proposed theories of quantum gravitation, such as string theory, loop quantum gravity, and causal sets, will eventually lead to a better understanding of this epoch.[citation needed] In inflationary cosmology, times prior to the end of inflation (roughly 10−32 seconds after the Bi...

Grand unification epoch [edit]Between 10–43 seconds and 10–36 seconds after the Big Bang[3]Main article: Grand unification epoch

As the universe expands and cools, it crosses transition temperatures at which forces separate from each other. Thes...phase transitions much like condensation and freezing. The grand unification epoch begins when gravitation separates from the other forces of nat...gauge forces. The non-gravitational physics in this epoch would be described by a so-called grand unified theory (GUT). The grand unification epoch ends when the GUT forces further separate in...magnetic monopoles in large quantities, which are not observed. The lack of magnetic monopoles was o...

In modern inflationary cosmology, the traditional grand unification epoch, like the Planck epoch, do...citation needed][further explanation needed]

Electroweak epoch [edit]Between 10–36 seconds (or the end of inflation) and 10–12 seconds after the Big Bang[3]Main article: Electroweak epoch

In traditional big bang cosmology, the Electroweak epoch begins 10−36 seconds after the Big Bang, wh...electromagnetism and the weak interaction). In inflationary cosmology, the electroweak epoch begins when the inflationary epo...

Inflationary epoch [edit]Unknown duration, ending 10–32(?) seconds after the Big BangMain article: Inflationary epoch

Cosmic inflation is an era of accelerating expansion produced by a hypothesized field called the inflaton, which would have properties similar to the Higgs field and dark energy. While decelerating expansion magnifies deviations from homogeneity, making the universe...

Inflation ends when the inflaton field decays into ordinary particles in a process called "reheating...

According to the simplest inflationary models, inflation ended at a temperature corresponding to rou...

Baryogenesis [edit]Main article: Baryogenesis

There is currently insufficient observational evidence to explain why the universe contains far more...baryons than antibaryons. A candidate explanation for this phenomenon must allow the Sakharov conditions to be satisfied at some time after the end of cosmological inflation. While particle physics suggests asymmetries under which these conditions are met, these asymmetries are to...

Early universe [edit] Cosmic History

After cosmic inflation ends, the universe is filled with a quark–gluon plasma. From this point onwards the physics of the early universe is better understood, ...

Supersymmetry breaking (speculative) [edit]Main article: Supersymmetry breaking

If supersymmetry is a property of our universe, then it must be broken at an energy that is no lower th...TeV, the electroweak symmetry scale. The masses of particles and their superpartners would then no longer be equal, which could explain why no superpartners of known parti...

Electroweak symmetry breaking and the quark epoch [edit]Between 10–12 seconds and 10–6 seconds after the Big BangMain articles: Electroweak symmetry breaking and Quark epoch

As the universe's temperature falls below a certain very high energy level, it is believed that the Higgs field spontaneously acquires a vacuum expectation value, which breaks electroweak gauge symmetry. (If the Higgs field does not exist then a similar effect must occ...some other cause). This has two related effects:

The weak force and electromagnetic force, and their respective bosons (the W and Z bosons and photon) manifest differently in the present universe, with different ranges;Via the Higgs mechanism, all elementary particles interacting with the Higgs field become massive, having been massless at higher...

At the end of this epoch, the fundamental interactions of gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong interaction and the weak interaction have now taken their present forms, and fundamental particles have mass, but the te...

Hadron epoch [edit]Between 10–6 seconds and 1 second after the Big BangMain article: Hadron epoch

The quark-gluon plasma that composes the universe cools until hadrons, including baryons such as protons and neutrons, can form. At approximately 1 second after the Big Bang neutrinos decouple and begin traveling freely through space. This cosmic neutrino background, while unlikely to ever be observed in detail since the neutrino energies...cosmic microwave background that was emitted much later. (See above regarding the quark-gluon plasma...Big Bang nucleosynthesis predictions of the Helium abundance, and from anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background

Lepton epoch [edit]Between 1 second and 10 seconds after the Big BangMain article: Lepton epoch

The majority of hadrons and anti-hadrons annihilate each other at the end of the hadron epoch, leavi...leptons and anti-leptons dominating the mass of the universe. Approximately 10 seconds after the Big...annihilation reactions, leaving a small residue of leptons.[4]

Photon epoch [edit]Between 10 seconds and 380,000 years after the Big BangMain article: Photon epoch

After most leptons and anti-leptons are annihilated at the end of the lepton epoch the energy of the...photons. These photons are still interacting frequently with charged protons, electrons and (eventua...nuclei, and continue to do so for the next 380,000 years.

Nucleosynthesis [edit]Between 3 minutes and 20 minutes after the Big Bang[5]Main article: Big Bang nucleosynthesis

During the photon epoch the temperature of the universe falls to the point where atomic nuclei can b...nuclear fusion. Free neutrons combine with protons to form deuterium. Deuterium rapidly fuses into h...

Matter domination [edit]70,000 years after the Big Bang

At this time, the densities of non-relativistic matter (atomic nuclei) and relativistic radiation (p...Jeans length, which determines the smallest structures that can form (due to competition between gra...free-streaming radiation, can begin to grow in amplitude.

According to ΛCDM, at this stage, cold dark matter dominates, paving the way for gravitational collapse to amplify the tiny inhomogene...

Recombination [edit]ca. 377,000 years after the Big BangMain article: Recombination (cosmology) 9 year WMAP data (2012) shows the cosmic microwave background radiation variations throughout the Universe from our perspective, thoug...[6][7]

Hydrogen and helium atoms begin to form as the density of the universe falls. This is thought to have occurred about 377,000 ...[8] Hydrogen and helium are at the beginning ionized, i.e., no electrons are bound to the nuclei, wh...[9] At the end of recombination, most of the protons in the universe are bound up in neutral atoms. ...mean free path becomes effectively infinite and the photons can now travel freely (see Thomson scattering): the universe has become transparent. This cosmic event is usually referred to a...decoupling.

The photons present at the time of decoupling are the same photons that we see in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, after being greatly cooled by the expansion of the Univ...pressure waves within the electron-baryon plasma-known as baryon acoustic oscillations- became embedded in the distribution of matter as it condensed, giving ...inflation (see diagram), and the spread of objects such as galaxies in the universe is an indication...[10]

Dark Ages [edit]See also: Hydrogen line

Before decoupling occurs, most of the photons in the universe are interacting with electrons and protons in...line of neutral hydrogen. There is currently an observational effort underway to detect this faint radiation, as it is in principle an even more pow...UDFy-38135539, the first observed galaxy to have existed during the following reionization epoch, gives us a window into these times. The galaxy earliest in this period observed ...UDFj-39546284 to be at a time some 480 million years after the Big Bang or about halfway through the...light-years. More recently, the UDFj-39546284 galaxy was found to be around "380 million years" afte...[11]

Structure formation [edit]See also: Large-scale structure of the cosmos and Structure formation The Hubble Ultra Deep Fields often showcase galaxies from an ancient era that tell us what the early Ste... Another Hubble image shows an infant galaxy forming nearby, which means this happened very recently...

Structure formation in the big bang model proceeds hierarchically, with smaller structures forming b...quasars, which are thought to be bright, early active galaxies, and population III stars. Before this epoch, the evolution of the universe could be understood through l...perturbation theory: that is, all structures could be understood as small deviations from a perfect ...computational problem becomes much more difficult, involving, for example, N-body simulations with billions of particles.

Reionization [edit]150 million to 1 billion years after the Big BangSee also: Reionization and 21 centimeter radiation

The first stars and quasars form from gravitational collapse. The intense radiation they emit reioni...plasma.

Formation of stars [edit]See also: Star formation

The first stars, most likely Population III stars, form and start the process of turning the light elements that were formed in t...[12]

Formation of galaxies [edit]See also: Galaxy formation and evolution

Large volumes of matter collapse to form a galaxy. Population II stars are formed early on in this process, with Population I stars formed later.

Johannes Schedler's project has identified a quasar CFHQS 1641+3755 at 12.7 billion light-years away...[13] when the Universe was just 7% of its present age.

On July 11, 2007, using the 10-metre Keck II telescope on Mauna Kea, Richard Ellis of the California...[14] Only about 10 of these extremely early objects are currently known.[15]

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field shows a number of small galaxies merging to form larger ones, at 13 billion ...[16]

Based upon the emerging science of nucleocosmochronology, the Galactic thin disk of the Milky Way is estimated to have been formed 8.8 ...[17]

Formation of groups, clusters and superclusters [edit]See also: Large-scale structure of the cosmos

Gravitational attraction pulls galaxies towards each other to form groups, clusters and superclusters.

Formation of the Solar System [edit]9 billion years after the Big BangMain article: Formation and evolution of the Solar System

The Solar System began forming about 4.6 billion years ago, or about 9 billion years after the Big Bang....

Today [edit]13.8 billion years after the Big Bang

The Big Bang is estimated to have occurred about 13.8 billion years ago.[18] Since the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating, the cosmic web is likely to be the largest structure that will ever form in the universe. The present ac...

Ultimate fate of the universe [edit]Main article: Ultimate fate of the universe

As with interpretations of what happened in the very early universe, advances in fundamental physics are required before it will be possible to know the ultimate fate of the universe with any certainty. Below are some of the main possibilities.

Fate of the Solar system: 1 to 5 billion years [edit]Main articles: Formation and evolution of the Solar System#Future, Stability of the Solar System, Future of the Earth#Solar evolution, and Red giant#The Sun as a red giant Relative size of our Sun as it is now (inset) compared to its estimated future size as a red giant

Over a timescale of a billion years or more, the Earth and Solar System are unstable. Earth's existi...biosphere is expected to vanish in about a billion years, as the Sun's heat production gradually inc...[19] the Earth's magnetic fields, axial tilt and atmosphere are subject to long term change; and the...chaotic over million- and billion-year timescales;[20] Eventually in around 5.4 billion years from now, the core of the Sun will become hot enough to ...[19] This will cause the outer layers of the star to expand greatly, and the star will enter a phase...red giant.[21][22] Within 7.5 billion years, the Sun will have expanded to a radius of 1.2 AU—256 times its curren...tidal interaction between Sun and Earth, Earth would actually fall back into a lower orbit, and get ...[23] The Sun itself will continue to exist for many billions of years, passing through a number of phases, and eventually (if nothing else changes) ending up as a long-lived white dwarf. Eventually, after billions more years, the Sun will finally cease to shine altogether, ...black dwarf.[24]

Big freeze: 1014 years and beyond [edit]Main articles: Future of an expanding universe and Heat death of the universe

This scenario is generally considered to be the most likely,[citation needed] as it occurs if the universe continues expanding as it has been. Over a time scale on the order of...stars burn out, stars cease to be created, and the universe goes dark.[25], §IID. Over a much longer time scale in the eras following this, the galaxy evaporates as the stellar remnants comprising it escape into space, and black holes evaporate via Hawking radiation.[25], §III, §IVG. In some grand unified theories, proton decay after at least 1034 years will convert the remaining interstellar gas and stellar remna...[25], §IV, §VF. In this case, the universe has reached a high-entropy state consisting of a bath of particles and low-energy radiation. It is not known however wh...thermodynamic equilibrium.[25], §VIB, VID.

Big Crunch: 100+ billion years from now [edit]See also: Big Crunch

If the energy density of dark energy were negative or the universe were closed, then it would be possible that the expansion of the universe would reverse and the universe ...oscillatory universe scenarios, such as the cyclic model, although a Big Crunch does not necessarily imply an oscillatory Universe. Current obse...

Big Rip: 20+ billion years from now [edit]See also: Big Rip

This scenario is possible only if the energy density of dark energy actually increases without limit over time.[citation needed] Such dark energy is called phantom energy and is unlike any known kind of energy. In this case, the expansion rate of the unive...gravitational singularity. At the time of this singul

[Anonymous]

Chronology of the universeFrom Wikipedia

This chronology of the universe describes

the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology, the prevailing scientific model of how the universe came into being and developed over time, using the cosmological time parameter of comoving coordinates. The instant in which the universe is thought to have begun rapidly expanding f...singularity is known as the Big Bang. As of 2013, this expansion is estimated to have begun 13.798 ± 0.037 billion years ago.[1] It is convenient to divide the evolution of the universe so far into three phases.

The very earliest universe was so hot, or energetic, that initially no particles existed or could ex...believed to be merged into one unified force. Space itself expanded during an inflationary epoch due to the immensity of the energies involved. Gradually the immense energies coo...symmetry breaking, a kind of repeated condensation from one status quo to another, leading finally t...strong force from the electroweak force and the first particles.

In the second phase, this quark-gluon plasma universe then cooled further, the current fundamental forces we know take their p...breaking of electroweak symmetry - and the full range of complex and composite particles we see arou...hydrogen), and the cosmic microwave background radiation we can detect today. Modern high energy particle physics theories are satisfactory at these energy levels, and so physicists believe they ha...electromagnetic energy, rather than "foggy", by the end of this phase.

The third phase started with a universe whose fundamental particles and forces were as we know them,...the emergence of large scale stable structures, such as the earliest stars, quasars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies and superclusters, and the development of these to create the kind of universe we see today. Some resear...[2]

Beyond the present day, scientists anticipate that the Earth will cease to support life in about a b...Stelliferous Era will end as stars eventually die and fewer are born to replace them, leading to a d...protons are unstable then eventually matter may evaporate into low level energy in a kind of entropy related heat death. Alternatively the universe may collapse in a big crunch, although current data shows the rate of expansion is still increasing. If this is correc...false vacuum catastrophe or a Big Rip as possible ends to the universe.

Contents  [hide] 1 Very early universe 1.1 Planck epoch1.2 Grand unification epoch1.3 Electroweak epoch 1.3.1 Inflationary epoch1.3.2 Baryogenesis2 Early universe 2.1 Supersymmetry breaking (speculative)2.2 Electroweak symmetry breaking and the quark epoch2.3 Hadron epoch2.4 Lepton epoch2.5 Photon epoch 2.5.1 Nucleosynthesis2.5.2 Matter domination2.5.3 Recombination2.5.4 Dark Ages3 Structure formation 3.1 Reionization3.2 Formation of stars3.3 Formation of galaxies3.4 Formation of groups, clusters and superclusters3.5 Formation of the Solar System3.6 Today4 Ultimate fate of the universe 4.1 Fate of the Solar system: 1 to 5 billion years4.2 Big freeze: 1014 years and beyond4.3 Big Crunch: 100+ billion years from now4.4 Big Rip: 20+ billion years from now4.5 Vacuum metastability event4.6 Heat death: 10150+ years from now5 See also6 References7 External linksVery early universe [edit]

All ideas concerning the very early universe (cosmogony) are speculative. No accelerator experiments have yet probed energies of sufficient magnit...Hartle–Hawking initial state, string landscape, brane inflation, string gas cosmology, and the ekpyrotic universe. Some of these are mutually compatible, while others are not.

Planck epoch [edit]Up to 10–43 seconds after the Big BangMain article: Planck epoch

The Planck epoch is an era in traditional (non-inflationary) big bang cosmology in which the tempera...electromagnetism, gravitation, weak nuclear interaction, and strong nuclear interaction—are all unified in one fundamental force. Little is understood about phys...gravitational singularity before this time, but this theory is based on general relativity and is expected to break down due to quantum effects. Physicists hope that proposed theories of quantum gravitation, such as string theory, loop quantum gravity, and causal sets, will eventually lead to a better understanding of this epoch.[citation needed] In inflationary cosmology, times prior to the end of inflation (roughly 10−32 seconds after the Bi...

Grand unification epoch [edit]Between 10–43 seconds and 10–36 seconds after the Big Bang[3]Main article: Grand unification epoch

As the universe expands and cools, it crosses transition temperatures at which forces separate from each other. Thes...phase transitions much like condensation and freezing. The grand unification epoch begins when gravitation separates from the other forces of nat...gauge forces. The non-gravitational physics in this epoch would be described by a so-called grand unified theory (GUT). The grand unification epoch ends when the GUT forces further separate in...magnetic monopoles in large quantities, which are not observed. The lack of magnetic monopoles was o...

In modern inflationary cosmology, the traditional grand unification epoch, like the Planck epoch, do...citation needed][further explanation needed]

Electroweak epoch [edit]Between 10–36 seconds (or the end of inflation) and 10–12 seconds after the Big Bang[3]Main article: Electroweak epoch

In traditional big bang cosmology, the Electroweak epoch begins 10−36 seconds after the Big Bang, wh...electromagnetism and the weak interaction). In inflationary cosmology, the electroweak epoch begins when the inflationary epo...

Inflationary epoch [edit]Unknown duration, ending 10–32(?) seconds after the Big BangMain article: Inflationary epoch

Cosmic inflation is an era of accelerating expansion produced by a hypothesized field called the inflaton, which would have properties similar to the Higgs field and dark energy. While decelerating expansion magnifies deviations from homogeneity, making the universe...

Inflation ends when the inflaton field decays into ordinary particles in a process called "reheating...

According to the simplest inflationary models, inflation ended at a temperature corresponding to rou...

Baryogenesis [edit]Main article: Baryogenesis

There is currently insufficient observational evidence to explain why the universe contains far more...baryons than antibaryons. A candidate explanation for this phenomenon must allow the Sakharov conditions to be satisfied at some time after the end of cosmological inflation. While particle physics suggests asymmetries under which these conditions are met, these asymmetries are to...

Early universe [edit] Cosmic History

After cosmic inflation ends, the universe is filled with a quark–gluon plasma. From this point onwards the physics of the early universe is better understood, ...

Supersymmetry breaking (speculative) [edit]Main article: Supersymmetry breaking

If supersymmetry is a property of our universe, then it must be broken at an energy that is no lower th...TeV, the electroweak symmetry scale. The masses of particles and their superpartners would then no longer be equal, which could explain why no superpartners of known parti...

Electroweak symmetry breaking and the quark epoch [edit]Between 10–12 seconds and 10–6 seconds after the Big BangMain articles: Electroweak symmetry breaking and Quark epoch

As the universe's temperature falls below a certain very high energy level, it is believed that the Higgs field spontaneously acquires a vacuum expectation value, which breaks electroweak gauge symmetry. (If the Higgs field does not exist then a similar effect must occ...some other cause). This has two related effects:

The weak force and electromagnetic force, and their respective bosons (the W and Z bosons and photon) manifest differently in the present universe, with different ranges;Via the Higgs mechanism, all elementary particles interacting with the Higgs field become massive, having been massless at higher...

At the end of this epoch, the fundamental interactions of gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong interaction and the weak interaction have now taken their present forms, and fundamental particles have mass, but the te...

Hadron epoch [edit]Between 10–6 seconds and 1 second after the Big BangMain article: Hadron epoch

The quark-gluon plasma that composes the universe cools until hadrons, including baryons such as protons and neutrons, can form. At approximately 1 second after the Big Bang neutrinos decouple and begin traveling freely through space. This cosmic neutrino background, while unlikely to ever be observed in detail since the neutrino energies...cosmic microwave background that was emitted much later. (See above regarding the quark-gluon plasma...Big Bang nucleosynthesis predictions of the Helium abundance, and from anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background

Lepton epoch [edit]Between 1 second and 10 seconds after the Big BangMain article: Lepton epoch

The majority of hadrons and anti-hadrons annihilate each other at the end of the hadron epoch, leavi...leptons and anti-leptons dominating the mass of the universe. Approximately 10 seconds after the Big...annihilation reactions, leaving a small residue of leptons.[4]

Photon epoch [edit]Between 10 seconds and 380,000 years after the Big BangMain article: Photon epoch

After most leptons and anti-leptons are annihilated at the end of the lepton epoch the energy of the...photons. These photons are still interacting frequently with charged protons, electrons and (eventua...nuclei, and continue to do so for the next 380,000 years.

Nucleosynthesis [edit]Between 3 minutes and 20 minutes after the Big Bang[5]Main article: Big Bang nucleosynthesis

During the photon epoch the temperature of the universe falls to the point where atomic nuclei can b...nuclear fusion. Free neutrons combine with protons to form deuterium. Deuterium rapidly fuses into h...

Matter domination [edit]70,000 years after the Big Bang

At this time, the densities of non-relativistic matter (atomic nuclei) and relativistic radiation (p...Jeans length, which determines the smallest structures that can form (due to competition between gra...free-streaming radiation, can begin to grow in amplitude.

According to ΛCDM, at this stage, cold dark matter dominates, paving the way for gravitational collapse to amplify the tiny inhomogene...

Recombination [edit]ca. 377,000 years after the Big BangMain article: Recombination (cosmology) 9 year WMAP data (2012) shows the cosmic microwave background radiation variations throughout the Universe from our perspective, thoug...[6][7]

Hydrogen and helium atoms begin to form as the density of the universe falls. This is thought to have occurred about 377,000 ...[8] Hydrogen and helium are at the beginning ionized, i.e., no electrons are bound to the nuclei, wh...[9] At the end of recombination, most of the protons in the universe are bound up in neutral atoms. ...mean free path becomes effectively infinite and the photons can now travel freely (see Thomson scattering): the universe has become transparent. This cosmic event is usually referred to a...decoupling.

The photons present at the time of decoupling are the same photons that we see in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, after being greatly cooled by the expansion of the Univ...pressure waves within the electron-baryon plasma-known as baryon acoustic oscillations- became embedded in the distribution of matter as it condensed, giving ...inflation (see diagram), and the spread of objects such as galaxies in the universe is an indication...[10]

Dark Ages [edit]See also: Hydrogen line

Before decoupling occurs, most of the photons in the universe are interacting with electrons and protons in...line of neutral hydrogen. There is currently an observational effort underway to detect this faint radiation, as it is in principle an even more pow...UDFy-38135539, the first observed galaxy to have existed during the following reionization epoch, gives us a window into these times. The galaxy earliest in this period observed ...UDFj-39546284 to be at a time some 480 million years after the Big Bang or about halfway through the...light-years. More recently, the UDFj-39546284 galaxy was found to be around "380 million years" afte...[11]

Structure formation [edit]See also: Large-scale structure of the cosmos and Structure formation The Hubble Ultra Deep Fields often showcase galaxies from an ancient era that tell us what the early Ste... Another Hubble image shows an infant galaxy forming nearby, which means this happened very recently...

Structure formation in the big bang model proceeds hierarchically, with smaller structures forming b...quasars, which are thought to be bright, early active galaxies, and population III stars. Before this epoch, the evolution of the universe could be understood through l...perturbation theory: that is, all structures could be understood as small deviations from a perfect ...computational problem becomes much more difficult, involving, for example, N-body simulations with billions of particles.

Reionization [edit]150 million to 1 billion years after the Big BangSee also: Reionization and 21 centimeter radiation

The first stars and quasars form from gravitational collapse. The intense radiation they emit reioni...plasma.

Formation of stars [edit]See also: Star formation

The first stars, most likely Population III stars, form and start the process of turning the light elements that were formed in t...[12]

Formation of galaxies [edit]See also: Galaxy formation and evolution

Large volumes of matter collapse to form a galaxy. Population II stars are formed early on in this process, with Population I stars formed later.

Johannes Schedler's project has identified a quasar CFHQS 1641+3755 at 12.7 billion light-years away...[13] when the Universe was just 7% of its present age.

On July 11, 2007, using the 10-metre Keck II telescope on Mauna Kea, Richard Ellis of the California...[14] Only about 10 of these extremely early objects are currently known.[15]

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field shows a number of small galaxies merging to form larger ones, at 13 billion ...[16]

Based upon the emerging science of nucleocosmochronology, the Galactic thin disk of the Milky Way is estimated to have been formed 8.8 ...[17]

Formation of groups, clusters and superclusters [edit]See also: Large-scale structure of the cosmos

Gravitational attraction pulls galaxies towards each other to form groups, clusters and superclusters.

Formation of the Solar System [edit]9 billion years after the Big BangMain article: Formation and evolution of the Solar System

The Solar System began forming about 4.6 billion years ago, or about 9 billion years after the Big Bang....

Today [edit]13.8 billion years after the Big Bang

The Big Bang is estimated to have occurred about 13.8 billion years ago.[18] Since the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating, the cosmic web is likely to be the largest structure that will ever form in the universe. The present ac...

Ultimate fate of the universe [edit]Main article: Ultimate fate of the universe

As with interpretations of what happened in the very early universe, advances in fundamental physics are required before it will be possible to know the ultimate fate of the universe with any certainty. Below are some of the main possibilities.

Fate of the Solar system: 1 to 5 billion years [edit]Main articles: Formation and evolution of the Solar System#Future, Stability of the Solar System, Future of the Earth#Solar evolution, and Red giant#The Sun as a red giant Relative size of our Sun as it is now (inset) compared to its estimated future size as a red giant

Over a timescale of a billion years or more, the Earth and Solar System are unstable. Earth's existi...biosphere is expected to vanish in about a billion years, as the Sun's heat production gradually inc...[19] the Earth's magnetic fields, axial tilt and atmosphere are subject to long term change; and the...chaotic over million- and billion-year timescales;[20] Eventually in around 5.4 billion years from now, the core of the Sun will become hot enough to ...[19] This will cause the outer layers of the star to expand greatly, and the star will enter a phase...red giant.[21][22] Within 7.5 billion years, the Sun will have expanded to a radius of 1.2 AU—256 times its curren...tidal interaction between Sun and Earth, Earth would actually fall back into a lower orbit, and get ...[23] The Sun itself will continue to exist for many billions of years, passing through a number of phases, and eventually (if nothing else changes) ending up as a long-lived white dwarf. Eventually, after billions more years, the Sun will finally cease to shine altogether, ...black dwarf.[24]

Big freeze: 1014 years and beyond [edit]Main articles: Future of an expanding universe and Heat death of the universe

This scenario is generally considered to be the most likely,[citation needed] as it occurs if the universe continues expanding as it has been. Over a time scale on the order of...stars burn out, stars cease to be created, and the universe goes dark.[25], §IID. Over a much longer time scale in the eras following this, the galaxy evaporates as the stellar remnants comprising it escape into space, and black holes evaporate via Hawking radiation.[25], §III, §IVG. In some grand unified theories, proton decay after at least 1034 years will convert the remaining interstellar gas and stellar remna...[25], §IV, §VF. In this case, the universe has reached a high-entropy state consisting of a bath of particles and low-energy radiation. It is not known however wh...thermodynamic equilibrium.[25], §VIB, VID.

Big Crunch: 100+ billion years from now [edit]See also: Big Crunch

If the energy density of dark energy were negative or the universe were closed, then it would be possible that the expansion of the universe would reverse and the universe ...oscillatory universe scenarios, such as the cyclic model, although a Big Crunch does not necessarily imply an oscillatory Universe. Current obse...

Big Rip: 20+ billion years from now [edit]See also: Big Rip

This scenario is possible only if the energy density of dark energy actually increases without limit over time.[citation needed] Such dark energy is called phantom energy and is unlike any known kind of energy. In this case, the expansion rate of the unive...gravitational singularity. At the time of this singul

[cee-dee]

Double post there. S/R the first incomplete one Pete?

Anyway, pebbles are found on Mars?

http://news.sky.com/story/1097511/nasa-pebbles-find-supports-mars-life-theory

OK, so it's probable that it was flowing water that caused the bits of rock to be bundled along in the flow causing the bits of rock to become rounded in to a familar pebble shape BUT....

Mars is covered in dust, it could be that the bits of rock were rounded by "flowing" in a torrent of dust?

You don't need water to "round" the bits of rock, anything that causes them to move would produce the same effect?