It All Started with a Bang!

While studying about space and the universe in Earth and Space Science, a distant memory surfaced from when I was in the fifth grade. Every year our school did a french language speech competition for students from grades 4-8 and for some strange reason, 10-year old Chloe decided to do her speech about the dominant theory in regards to the origin of our universe; the theory of the Big Bang.

Now I really don't remember what I said exactly in that speech, all I know is that it was apparently pretty good because I ended up having to recite it in front of the school. Where did that confidence come from, and where did it go? No one knows. it's one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. Anyways, all jokes aside I thought about how things might have changed since I did my original research about the topic and also how I might have changed (in that I can probably handle more complicated research nowadays) and decided that I should kind of revive my old passion and see what I might find.       
         

                The basic theory of the Big Bang is that the universe began as a hot dense mass and had a diameter of only a few millimeters. In a trillion-trillionth of a second, this mass expanded to astronomical scope and continued to expand (albeit much more slowly) [source]. At first, the universe was actually expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light, which in fact does not violate laws of physics because laws state that light is the fastest that anything can travel within the universe, and that doesn’t include the universe itself. 

By observing the Doppler shift of many different stars, Hubble discovered that everything was moving away from us [source]. He could determine this fact because the visible light waves emitted by these stars were becoming longer and going through redshift, which, according to the Doppler shift, means that they must be moving away from the observer.

[picture source]

Some of the most important evidence to back up the theory of the Big Bang was predicted in 1948 by Ralph Alpher, but actually discovered by accident 17 years later by Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias of Bell Telephone Laboratories; cosmic microwave background. Cosmic microwave background (also known as CMB) are radio waves from about 380,000 years after the big bang, when light was first able to shine as a result of electrons grouping up with nuclei and forming neutral atoms. Previously, the electrons had scattered the photons (light) to scatter, therefore the forming of neutral atom allowed light to finally shine [source]. Wilson and Penzias created a radio receiver and were getting very strange results. At first, they thought that their results were because of pigeons and their dung, but an astronomy team led by Robert Dicke that were searching for CMB realized that it must be the cause of Penzias and Wilson's strange readings.

[picture source]

This video details an important discovery that happened in March of last year; evidence of gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are described as ripples in space-time caused by extremely violent events, such as the Big Bang. After searching for 9 years, researchers in the South Pole have found the first ever evidence for gravitational waves and more importantly, the first concrete evidence for the cosmic inflation theory (the theory that the universe expanded rapidly in the first trillion-trillionth of a second of it's life) [source].

[picture source]

This discovery could likely be the biggest discovery in astronomy since the realization that the rate of expansion of our universe is actually accelerating, a discovery made in 1998 as a result of observations of very distant supernovae that were made in order to calculate the deceleration. Up until then, it had always been believed that the amount of matter in the universe would eventually slow the expansion because of the gravity the mass creates. The discovery that the rate of expansion was expanding led to the creation of the idea of "dark energy" which is simply the term to explain the amount of outward force that would be needed to overcome the inward force of gravity and continue to accelerate the expansion. Scientists realized that either 75% of the universe is dark energy that exerts this outward force, or Einstein's Theory of Relativity must be wrong. At this point, dark energy is a complete mystery, it has a name, but that is almost all that we know about it [source]. 

To most people, the fact that we literally have no idea what makes up 96% of our universe is terrifying, and I agree that it can be scary to be in the dark about something. Some people may feel lost or insignificant when they think about the scale of the universe, but personally i find it so reassuring and inspiring. Thinking about how much there still is left to discover gives me hope that maybe I can contribute to something really significant, but also thinking about things on the scale of the universe makes me feel so much less stressed about my problems, I mean, why do I matter when our entire solar system doesn't even make a dent when it comes to the scale of the universe. Space is where the most mystery is, but that means it's also where the most discovery can happen. Remember, the sky really is the limit!

Works Consulted
"Dark Energy, Dark Matter." NASA Science. NASA, n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2015. <http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/>.
Howell, Elizabeth. "What Is the Big Bang Theory?" Space.com. Purch, 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 Jan. 2015. <http://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html>.
"Origins of the Universe." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2015. <http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/universe/origins-universe-article/>.
"The Big Bang - NASA Science." NASA Science. NASA, n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2015. <http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-powered-the-big-bang/>.
Wall, Mike. "Smoking Gun for Universes Incredible Big Bang Expansion Found." Space.com. Purch, 17 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 Jan. 2015. <http://www.space.com/25078-universe-inflation-gravitational-waves-discovery.html>.
"What Is Dark Energy?" HubbleSite. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2015. <http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/dark_energy/de-what_is_dark_energy.php>.
"Why Is the Universe Speeding Up?" The Dark Energy Survey. The Dark Energy Survey, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2015. <http://www.darkenergysurvey.org/>.