How could the birth of our universe be an explosive Big Bang?

<span class=No one knows what triggered the Big Bang that eventually allowed the stars to begin to form. Adolf Schaller for STScI, CC BY“Src =” https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/YRDKFuvlS3Z1bODmgNWPMA–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTQ0My41NjI1/https://s.yimg.com/bu/~u B / aD05MDY7dz0xNDQwO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u / https: //media.zenfs.com/en/the_conversation_us_articles_815/5ee01d7a1b779ad1d6a05063b6129779 “data-src =” https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/YRDKFuvlS3Z1bODmgNWPMA–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTQ0My41NjI1/https : //s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/RpFObC6yv7i2NQyyNiWi5g–~B/aD05MDY7dz0xNDQwO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_conicles
No one knows what triggered the Big Bang that eventually allowed the stars to begin to form. Adolf Schaller for STScI, CC BY

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question that you want an expert to answer, send it to [email protected].

How could a Big Bang be the beginning of the universe, since intense explosions destroy everything? – Tristan S., 8, Newark, Delaware

Pretend to be a perfectly flat chess piece in a chess game on a perfectly flat and humorous chessboard. One day you look around and ask: How did I get here? How did the chessboard get here? How did it all start? You take out your telescope and start exploring your universe, the chessboard ….

What do you find? Your universe, the chessboard, is getting bigger and bigger. And with more time, even bigger! The picture expands in all directions you can see. There is nothing that seems to cause this expansion, as far as you can tell – it just seems to be the nature of the chessboard.

But wait a minute. If it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, then it means that in the past, it must have been smaller and smaller. At one point, long, long ago, right at the beginning, he must have been so small that he was infinitely small.

Let’s move on from what happened then. At the beginning of your universe, the chessboard was infinitely small and then expanded, becoming larger and larger until the day you decided to make a few observations about the nature of your chess universe. All things in the universe – the small particles that make you up and everything else – started very close and then spread further over time.

Our universe works exactly the same. When astronomers like me make observations of distant galaxies, we see that they are all moving away. It seems that our universe started very small and has been expanding ever since. In fact, scientists now know that not only is the universe expanding, but the speed with which it is expanding is increasing. This mysterious effect is caused by what physicists call dark energy, although we know very little about it.

Astronomers also observe something called the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. It is a very low level of energy that exists throughout the space. We know from those measurements that our universe is 13.8 billion years old – much, much older than humans and about three times older than Earth.

If astronomers look back to the event that began our universe, we call it the Big Bang.

Many people hear the name “Big Bang” and think of a huge explosion of things, like a bomb exploding. But the Big Bang was not an explosion that destroyed things. It was the beginning of our universe, the beginning of both space and time. Rather than an explosion, it was a very rapid expansion, the event that began to grow the universe more and more.

This expansion is different from an explosion, which can be caused by things like chemical reactions or high impacts. Explosions result in energy going from one place to another and usually a large part of it. Instead, during the Big Bang, the energy moved along with the space as it expanded, moving wildly, but becoming more widespread over time as space increased over time.

Back in the chessboard universe, the “Big Bang” would be like the beginning of all. It is the beginning of the growth of the picture.

It is important to realize that “before” the Big Bang, there was no space and no time. Returning to the analogy of the chessboard, you can count the time on the game clock after the start, but there is no game time before the start – the clock did not work. And before the game started, the universe of chessboards did not exist and there was no space in the chessboard. You have to be careful when you say “before” in this context because not even time existed until the Big Bang.

You also wrapped your mind around the idea that the universe does not expand “into” anything, because, as far as we know, the Big Bang was the beginning of space and time. Confused, I know!

Astronomers are not sure what caused the Big Bang. We just look at the observations and see that this is how the universe began. We know that it was extremely small and bigger, and we know that it started 13.8 billion years ago.

What started our own chess game? This is one of the deepest questions anyone can ask.

Hello, curious children! Do you have a question that you want an expert to answer? Please ask an adult to send your question to [email protected]. Please tell us the name, age and city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, tell us what you’re wondering. We will not be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a non-profit news site dedicated to exchanging ideas from university experts.

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Michael Lam does not work, consult, hold shares or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article and did not disclose any relevant affiliation beyond their academic appointment.

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