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After the big bang, the light was not restricted. Here we see phases after the big bang (left left), about 13.8 billion years ago to this day (lower right). ; | Credit: Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Nowadays, Dark of Night is intersecting with star light. But before the stars were born, did Light shone at the beginning of the universe?
The short answer is “no”. But the long answer reveals an extraordinary journey of light. Initially, the light of the early universe was “stuck” and it took several hundred thousand years before it escaped. Then it took about 100 million years to form the stars.
The astronomer of the speed and direction in which the galaxy was moving Edwin Hubble discovered The universe is expanding. This 1929 The discovery suggested that space was once smaller, and scientists finally estimated that the whole universe was concentrated on one, infinitely dense point about 13.8 billion years ago, up to The Great Bang happened.
“With a big bang was created and expanded space, along with everything in the universe” Andrew LadenLive Science told Bowling Green State University Physics and Astronomy.
The only way the universe now is formed can fit into a small place, ”Laden said. The famous Einstein equation E = MC2 revealed that energy and mass could be changed, explained by Laden.
As The universe The density of its energy decreased and it cooled down. The first particles after a large explosion began to form in the first second of According to Las Cumbres Observatory; It covered Photons which form light as well as protons, neutrons and electrons that make up atoms; About three minutes after the big bang, protons and neutrons could combine together to create atoms such as helium, under NASA;
“Think of fog and dew,” said Layden. “Particles with a lot of energy are scattered like water in the fog, and when the energy becomes small enough, they can condense like dew drops.”
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However, although the photons of light existed since the first second after the Great Bang, they could not shine throughout the universe. This is because the early space was so hot that “electrons were moving too fast Atomic nuclei Keep them around them in orbit, ”said Laden. – The universe was just this very hot, dense soup. “
All electrons freely pulling around the early universe meant that the light could not move much. “Because the light tried to travel in a straight line during that time, it always joined the electrons, so she couldn’t go very far,” Laden said.
The visual time of space events after the big bang. | Credit: JPL/NASA
Similar situation is in the sun, Srinivasan RaghunathanLive Science, a cosmologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “You can imagine a photon of light created by a nuclear reaction in the center of the sun, trying to get out to the surface of the sun,” he said. “The center of the sun is particularly hot, so there are many free electrons. This means that light is unable to travel in straight lines.”
The distance from the sun center to its surface is about 432,450 miles (696,000 kilometers). The speed of the light in the vacuum is about 186,000 miles per second (300,000 km/s), but it takes about 1 to 2 million years in the sun until light avoids the center of the sun to its surface, ”said Raghunathan.
However, about 380,000 years after the Great Bang, the expansion of the universe allowed space to cool enough to make the nuclei strokes on the electrons. “When this happens, all those electrons are no longer free,” said Laden. “It happens about 3,000 Kelvin [4,940 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2,725 degrees Celsius]cool pink star surface temperature ”.
In a short year, “everything goes from hot dense soup to a clear universe where light can travel freely,” said Laden. “At that moment, the first photons in the universe can escape.”
The universe is characterized by light when it was about 3,000 Kelvininfrared to Visible wavelengthsNoted by Laden. However, when space expanded over 13 billion years and cool to the average temperature of approximately 2.73 Kelvin (minus 455 F or minus 270 C), the first light of the universe was stretched to longer microwave waves.
Astronomers first discovered this remaining radiation from the big bang called space microwave background 1964;
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The analysis of these microwaves has given many insights. For example, the gravitational pull of galaxies can distort light – a phenomenon called gravity lens. By examining the amount of distortion, which the cosmic microwave background experienced at different points of the sky can help scientists reconstruct the large-scale structure of the universe-galaxy and the giant voids between them through space, said rakunathan.
After the Light of the Great Bang was released, the universe suffered a period known as cosmic dark ages. After all, after millions of years, the gravitational pulling of gas clouds led to these clumps of matter to collapse.
“It created the first generation of stars, and the universe had galaxies that had full stars about 1 billion years after the Great Bang, starting with space Dawn,” said Layden.