|
Home Sweet Home We live in an enormous galaxy containing 100 billion stars. This photograph of the nearby galaxy M31, is what we believe our Milky Way galaxy looks like.
The Big Bang |
|
|
Creation of Matter In the first few seconds of the universe, energy in the form of photons, condensed out to form the matter of the universe. In the first three minutes that the universe existed, all the matter in the universe, made up of protons, neutrons and electrons, had been formed. Soon after this, the density and temperature of the universe was such that it fused some of the Hydrogen (naked protons) into Helium (about 25% by mass).
Creation of Stars and Galaxies |
Creation of Elements Necessary for LifeNuclear reactions (those which involve the nuclei of atoms) occurring in the cores of stars fuse together simpler atoms to form more complex heavier atoms. Thus within just a few million years of the birth of our universe, deep within the central core of newly formed massive stars, elements such as C, Si, and finally Fe are being fused together from the simple primordial H and He atoms created in the Big Bang. When the stars finally die, going Supernova, these elements formed in their cores are thrown back out into interstellar space. It is from this enriched material that planets, and eventually life, will form.
``Stars have died that we might live'' Preston Cloud