People like to place neat things in boxes and sections. We like these regular sections. Therefore, it is not surprising that the chronological epochs of the universe also divided into epochs, epochs and epochs, where our universe was working very differently. We know where we are and what the universe has been doing for most of its time. We also have a good indication of where it will go in the next 80 billion years. However, go far enough in each direction and you will see great uncertainty and many unknowns.
YOU ARE HERE- A UNIQUE AGE
Depending on which physicist you ask, this is the Second Age of the Universe, the penultimate Age of the Universe, or one that has gone on for many ages and has yet to come. Whatever the definition, we are here: the stelliferous Age, the time of stars, of galaxies, and of life. This period of the universe began about one and a half million years after the Big Bang, and it is likely to last so long that the universe could now celebrate its 100th birthday, 86 billion years ago.
This era has marked by a number of important events that have shaped the universe and will continue to do so for a long time to come. The first is the assembly of the first stars and the first galaxy. We have a lot of uncertainty about how this happened but future telescopes should help us understand. These stars were the second light in the universe after the Big Bang and played a role in the re-ionization of the universe. Light scatters electrons from hydrogen atoms (their ionizing) found in clouds all over the universe. It has made the universe transparent.
Then for billions of years, those clouds formed stellar stars on themselves, the most active in the universe where the cosmic high noon known, the universe is still building them but at a much lower rate and it will continue to do so for billions of years. Another notable phenomenon is that the expansion of the universe shifted to gear about four billion years ago. It begins to expand at a skin rate. The main hypothesis is that due to the existence of dark energy, a mysterious substance that makes up the content of most energy-matter in the universe.
THE STORY SO FAR
In the words of Julie Andrews, “Let’s get started, a very good place to start.” There is only one problem. When we talk about the universe, we cannot really do that. Our starting point needs to be 10-43 seconds after the Big Bang. It is Planck Epoch and our physics does not work there in any way. Any theory in the future will explain this but for now it is our starting point. A fraction of another subtraction one second later, we find ourselves in a grand unification night lasting 10-36 after the Big Bang. This is one billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second.
Now, the universe has only two forces: gravity and electromagnetic interaction, which is a combination of electromagnetism and two atomic forces. Gravity may merge with the other three forces but it soon separates from the others. After this age, the strong nuclear energy (which holds the protons together) separates and leads to the electronic age, and then expansion. 10-32 seconds after the Big Bang, the universe experiences an (yet interpretable or confirming) expansion known as cosmic inflation. The size of the universe has expanded at least 1078 times. This extension will make the hair look a bit thinner at 10 times wider than the Milky Way in a subtraction.
Despite the incredible expansion, the universe remains very hot for somewhat longer. At about 100 billion seconds after the Big Bang, the universe began to form the first particle, and it began to display strange quark-gluon plasma matter, which laboratories like CERN have recently begun to explore.
In about a second of the Big Bang, we are somewhat more familiar with the formation of such particles, within two to 20 minutes of the first neutrons, then electrons and the first atoms after the Big Bang. Despite the structure of these particles, matter will take a long time to dominate the universe. For thousands of years, radiation in the form of photons will reign supreme in the cosmic microwave background at 370,000 years after the Big Bang. At that moment, the universe has expanded enough that photons can move freely without talking about anything. These one and a half billion years are cosmic dark ages until they formed. The dominance of the matter had begun, albeit somewhat. From the 47,000 years of the Big Bang to 9.8 billion years (when darkness took power), the matter was an important element in shaping the 6 Universe on its critical scale.
