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Opening moments of the Universe, timeline for our universe

The Big Bang in Seconds

Whether you believe in a Creator-God or not, the Big Bang is oftentimes the explanation for how our universe began. Why? Because that’s what science has pointed to, and science is smarter than you! 

Science has analyzed the motion of galaxies around us, and found that they were expanding, as a result of reactions set off at the time of the Big Bang. Science has added those findings with studies of radiation and found that our current universe was born 13.7 billion years ago; that’s give-or-take 200 million years or so.

But more than that, science has begun to piece together those opening moments of the first, or simply the latest, universe. While it may not be entirely comprehensive – how would we know if it was or not – what we are seeing is mind blowing.

Right up there at the very beginning – or as close to the beginning as scientists have gotten – is what is known as the Planck Era. It takes place 10^-43 seconds after the big bang, or, for those of us who aren’t mathematically inclined, a decimal point, 43 zeroes, and a 1; in other words, a very short amount of time (you can figure out the amount of zeroes on the rest for yourself).

It is believed that at this time, all of the fundamental forces that make up our universe today – gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, etc. – were thought to be all unified, in a roiling mass of inconceivably hot and dense mayhem.

Next up is 10^-35 seconds, at which point the universe expands from a form much smaller than a subatomic particle to a form much larger than what we can see today. It is thought that this was preceded by a temperature decrease, which saw a decay of X and Y bosons, which is thought to have violated certain laws and given birth to a small excess of matter over antimatter.

This transition period is thought to have triggered the previously mentioned expansion.

This is quickly followed at 10^-32 seconds by the appearance of particles of matter via Einstein’s famous E=mc^2, which initially saw a mix of matter and antimatter annihilate each other in a burst of radiation, leaving behind only scattered pockets of matter.

10^-11 seconds is the next point at which scientists have pinpointed an event, an event known as the electroweak era. (*note* if you are looking to research any of this, make sure to swap the word era for epoch, and you’ll find what you’re looking for.) It is at this point that the temperature of the universe was low enough to separate the strong force and the electroweak force – the last two unified forces.

And, moments before we make a huge time jump, at 10^-6 seconds, the universe is still expanding, but reaches a point where it is cool enough to allow those particles we’re friendly with today – protons and neutrons – to form from quarks.

At this point we make a huge leap to 200 seconds… yes, that is a huge leap! But after just being told the universe has been cooling, you may find it surprising to see that the temperature was sitting around the one billion degrees Celsius mark. At 200 seconds, protons and neutrons start to come together, forming nuclei. But within 20 minutes the temperature of the universe has dropped, so that it is too cold to drive the process any further.

The last thing those brave protons and neutrons created were the first nuclei of hydrogen and helium, those simplest and most common chemical elements we have witnessed in our own little universe.

At this point, we make truly tremendous leaps of time, due to a combination of a slow forming universe, and a good old lack of knowledge. At 300,000 years in from the Big Bang, the universe has cooled to 1,000 C, allowing for electrons to pair up with nuclei to form the first atoms.

At this point, the end of what is known as the Recombination Era (or epoch), the universe consists of roughly 75% hydrogen and 25% helium. With electrons now bound to atoms, the universe finally becomes transparent to light, thus making it the earliest point in time that is observable today.

Two hundred million years in and small dense regions of cosmic gas begin to collapse under their own collective gravity, creating enough heat to create nuclear fusion between hydrogen atoms, thus forming the very first stars to light up the universe.

0.5 billion to 1 billion years, and gravity is beginning to play a large part, pulling together huge regions of cosmic gas forming galaxies of stars. From these galaxies came clusters of such; ie, the Milky Way galaxy belongs to the Local Group cluster.

At 9 billion years dark energy begins to exert its anti-gravitational effects upon the universe, counteracting gravities attempt to slow the expansion. Dark energy thus becomes the prime accelerator of the universe from that point on.

And then, at 9.1 billion years from the moment everything went kablooie, a region of gas and dust from ever exploding stars in what we now call the Milky Way, begins to collapse under its own gravity, subsequently forming a small star, which will then be surrounded by a disk of rocky material and gas.

In time, that rocky material and gas begin to swarm, collide, and merge, to create a system that Yacko would one day sing about, suggesting that;

Everybody lives on a street in a city
Or a village or a town for what it’s worth.
And they’re all inside a country which is part of a continent
That sits upon a planet known as Earth.