SCI/151
07/07/12
Cosmology, as defined by Encarta Dictionary is “the philosophical study of the nature of the universe.” This concern with viewing the universe and its vast issues and meaning takes the mind into a mysterious spectrum. The very foundation of Cosmology began with Astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1929. He discovered that other galaxies existed in the universe and determined that these galaxies were moving away from each other at a rate that was constant with the distance between them. The farther away from Earth the galaxy was, the faster they would be traveling away from us. In theory, this also proved that universe was expanding. This discovery assisted the profound astronomer with formulating Hubble’s Law, which directly contributed to giving astronomers the keys to discovering how old our universe is and proving that the universe is expanding. The Big Bang theory is the most notable theory about the creation of our universe, which happened more than 14 billion years ago. The process began to expand from particles released from the superior explosion and dropping temperatures. The process started as a small speck of matter and formed into a dense object as large as Earth from radiant energy and exotic particles called quarks or antiquarks. As the temperature dropped during this process, things such as protons and neutrons began to form together creating helium nuclei over a period of a few hundred thousand years. More than two billion years after the Big Bang, galaxies began to form as gravity started to collect and mass together irregular matter forming a sponge type structure. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, forms one billion years after this mark. Star clusters form from inside a giant sphere of gas and spiral arms take shape as settling gas forms into a disk shape displaying a centered core like formation. One example scientist conducted to prove the Big Bang Theory were scientist Arno Penzias and
References: Bennit, J., Donahue, M., Schneider, N. & Voit, M. Chapter 20 (2010). The Cosmic Perspective: Pearson Education. http://www.edwinhubble.com/hubble_bio_001.htm http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dp65co.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/theory-of-everything.html http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/dec/HQ_08329_DARK_ENERGY.html http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/04/discovery-of-dark-energy-nabs-nobel-prize-for-three-astronomers/