The Big Bang

Hey? Where does it all come from? How was the world created? All the planets? And how did the stars end up in the sky?

What do you think? -- Every religion has its own creation myth -- a story answering the Big Questions. Scientists offer another, just as fascinating, story. When astronomers study the universe, they see that almost every galaxy that is visible to us It doesn't matter where you look -- the further away a galaxy is, the faster it's moving away from you. The universe is expanding. And if we back-track these movements, like playing a film backwards, we find that the further back in time we go, the closer together were the galaxies!

And if we go really far back in time, to the very first moments of time, all matter in the universe was concentrated at one single point. Imagine that. You take the whole universe, all the planets and suns, everything, and squeeze it until it has no size at all. That's how it all started. It was a singularity.

A point, without any width at all. -- For some reason this dot of matter started to expand. All the matter and energy that makes up the universe was hurled out from the singularity. Space, and time, were created. -- It's been almost 14 billion years. The point has become the universe we know today, and it keeps expanding. When this film is over, the universe is slightly larger than when you started to watch it. -- The moment when it all started is known as the Big Bang.

But it wasn't a bang, like an explosion, with matter being spread out in a space that was already there. It was space itself that expanded. That's a mind bending thought, and there is more. During the very first second, yes second, after the Big Bang, almost all neutrons and protons existing in the universe were created. A few minutes later, neutrons and protons clumped together to form small atomic nuclei -- hydrogen and helium.

The universe was extremely hot in the beginning. High temperatures mean that particles - such as electrons - move with very high speed. When the universe cooled down, the electrons slowed down, and now they could attach to the atomic nuclei. The universe was now about 380,000 years old, and the first atoms were formed: the tiny building blocks that make up all the matter in the universe. -- And there's more: When the unattached electrons moved around freely, they blocked the movement of photons: light particles. Light could only move short distances through the Universe.

But when the electrons attached to the atomic nuclei, photons were given freedom of movement through the vastness of the universe. Space became translucent. Light could now travel through it, so when stars eventually began to form, their images could travel immense distances. -- The light from these stars, for instance, has traveled at least 4 quadrillion kilometers before reaching your eyes. -- Wow! How cool! But hey!

What happened before the Big Bang? Get this! The Big Bang did not only create space. It also created time. So 'before' the Big Bang doesn't exist.

And there was no space, so nothing was 'small' or 'large'. Nothing was 'cold' or 'hot'. The only thing in existence was that singularity. Alright, but for how long was that around? No time at all.

Time didn't exist. But now, time exists. And it flies, too. Good night. Woooooow!