The Big Bang

What is the Big Bang? Have you ever heard people or your science teacher talk about the Big Bang!

The Big Bang was a massive heat explosion that started the universe 13.7 billion years ago. This amazing explosion that started everything has had scientists scratching their heads for thousands of years.  Although, through technology, we can understand a lot more about this amazing phenomenon now more than we did a long time ago. 

It’s hard to know exactly why this event happened, but what we do know is that this explosive event started with a ‘Big Bang’ and burst of energy that was extremely hot. 1,800 trillion trillion degrees to be more precise. That is an extremely hot explosion. Within less than 1 second, the universe was born, and has been expending and getting colder and colder by the minute. So the Big Bang is in fact. Well! Still Banging… Because of the Big Bang, the universe was made, and it’s continuing to expend ever since.

[note: That the big bang is not a proven fact, but is the most logical and best guess that scientists agree may have started the universe]

Believe it or not, but for almost half a million years from the start of the Big Bang, the universe was a very different. The universe was a very hot and sticky place. Made up of an infinite amount of tiny particles of matter. These tiny matter particles were surrounded by just foggy gases. Over tens of millions of years later hydrogen and helium were formed. These elements made up and started to form the first stars and galaxies. After another very long time of about a billion years, there were millions of other galaxies made up with millions of stars in each galaxy. And that’s still just near the beginning of time.    

 

The time line of the Big Bang

Over hundreds of years, and through advances in technology, we now have a better understanding as to how the Big Bang occurred.

• Big Bang
• Radiation Era
• After 300 thousand years. Dark Ages Begin
• After 400 million years. Stars and Galaxies start to form
• After 1 billion years. Dark Ages Ends
• 5 billion years from now, our solar system and planes are formed
• 7 billion years. Present Day

While its hard to understand how and why the Big Bang happened, scientists pretty much know what has been happening ever since the Big Bang happened. They know this through many experiments, and put all of their information together to get the best answers.

The Big Bang is still continuing to this day, which causes to expand the universe every minute. Even as you read this. How wonderful is that!

 

Kids Fun Facts Corner

# 1. Scientists are always trying to re-create the Big Bang on a small scale in at CERN in big labs to learn more and more about the universe.

# 2. After just three minutes of the Big Bang happening, the universe had already formed gravity.

# 3. When you see the grey speckles of static on your TV when the channels are not working, that static is directly a cause of the Big Bang.

 

Q&A Corner

Q. What two gases are very important to make up everything in the universe?

Q. How long did it take for the universe to form gravity?

Q. Name the time lines of the Big Bang?

Q. How old is the universe?

Q. Name the organization where scientists are trying to re-create the Big Bang on a small scale?

Download questions about the Big Bang here: Big Bang (answers are on this page)

For further reading and more info on the Big Bang Constellation visit www.kids.kiddle.com/Big Bang