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Big Bang Theory

Big Bang theory is the leading explanation for how our universe began. According to the theory, the entire universe began as a tiny singularity that went through an explosive expansion 13.8 billion years ago, gradually expanding into the cosmos we see today. Today, astronomers can detect an "echo" from the Big Bang in the cosmic microwave background, a phenomenon that can be detected with radio telescopes. Big Bang Theory is also the name of a popular CBS sitcom about scientists, where several real-life scientists and astronauts have appeared.

Related Topics: Black Holes, Dark Matter, Gravitational Waves, The Theory of Relativity in Space 

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The galaxy cluster Abell 1689 is famous for the way it bends light in a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Study of the cluster has revealed secrets about how dark energy shapes the universe.

The problems with modern physics

By Paul Sutter

Physicists have certainly achieved a lot, but many mysteries about the universe remain.

An artist's impression of a quasar. New measurements of the universe's expansion have relied on the gravitational lensing of light from six quasars.

No One Can Agree How Fast Universe Is Expanding. New Measure Makes Things Worse.

By Adam Mann

We just might need new physics to get out of this mess.

An abstract image of axion strings, which may have made up the "axiverse."

The Universe May Be Flooded with a Cobweb Network of Invisible Strings

By Paul Sutter

What if I told you that our universe was flooded with hundreds of kinds of nearly invisible particles and that, long ago, these particles formed a network of universe-spanning strings?

What exactly happens inside atoms?

There's a Giant Mystery Hiding Inside Every Atom in the Universe

By Rafi Letzter

No one really knows what happens inside an atom.

abstract image of a particle

Mysterious 'Particle X17' Could Carry a Newfound Fifth Force of Nature, But Most Experts Are Skeptical

By Mara Johnson-Groh

It would rewrite the Standard Model of physics.

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) — a network of radio telescopes in the Australian outback — is scouring the skies for traces of neutral hydrogen, the last surviving molecule of the cosmic dark ages.

When Did the 'Dark Ages of the Universe' End? This Rare Molecule Holds the Answer.

By Brandon Specktor

Long ago, millions of years before the first star sparked to life, the entire universe was a sea of darkness.

A series of three photographs show a Dutch radio antenna as it unfolded from the Chinese lunar relay satellite, Queqiao.

Radio Telescope Unfurls 3 Antennas Beyond the Far Side of the Moon

By Meghan Bartels

In a quiet orbit around the far side of the moon, three radio antennas are now outstretched, craning for whispers from a mysterious period early in the universe's history.

Vast geysers of gas erupt from our Milky Way galaxy.

There Might Be Cracks in the Universe — But We Can't See Them from Earth

By Rafi Letzter

The cracks, if they exist, are old, remnants of a time shortly after the Big Bang.

The centers of massive galaxy clusters are super hot (red), while bright structures show diffuse gas from the intergalactic medium shock heating at the boundary between cosmic voids and filaments. 

Physicists Just Created the Most Detailed Simulation of the Universe in History

By Tim Childers

An international team of scientists has created the most detailed large-scale model of the universe to date, a simulation they call TNG50.

Early data from the Planck collaboration maps the cosmic microwave background across the sky.

The Universe Might Be a Giant Loop

By Rafi Letzter

Is the universe flat? Maybe not.

This image of the Type 1a supernova remnant 0509-67.5 was made using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory. Analyses of Type 1a supernovae has led astronomers to conclude that the universe’s expansion is accelerating, driven by a mysterious force called dark energy.

The Cosmological Conundrum of the Expansion Rate of the Universe

By Paul Sutter

Different measurements of the universe's expansion yield different results. Are we getting something wrong, or do we need brand-new physics to figure it out?

Chaos theory is demonstrated in this image, which was created with a long exposure of a light at the end of a double pendulum.

An Unpredictable Universe: A Deep Dive Into Chaos Theory

By Paul Sutter

We live in a chaotic universe made up of many chaotic, unpredictable systems.

Cosmic-string loops wiggle and oscillate, producing gravitational waves, then slowly shrink as they lose energy until they disappear.

The Mysterious Cosmic Strings

By Paul Sutter

These weird defects in space-time should be out there, somewhere.

Researchers have found signatures of strontium in the aftermath of a neutron star merger.

We May Finally Know How the Universe's Heavy Elements Formed

By Charles Q. Choi

For the first time, scientists have detected a newly born heavy element in space, forged in the aftermath of a collision between a pair of dead stars known as neutron stars.

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-Hubble/Europe Collaboration; Acknowledgment: H. Bond (STScI and Pennsylvania State University)

How the Universe Stopped Making Sense

By Rafi Letzter

What's going on?

An artist's illustration of the cosmology and exoplanet research honored by the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics, directed toward understanding our place in the universe.

This Year's Nobel Prize in Physics Mixes 2 Research Fields — And Politics

By Meghan Bartels

The Nobel Prize in physics this year has gone to two very different research threads — and danced around some big societal issues, even as they celebrate distinguished work.

An artist's depiction of the history of the universe.

Nobel Prize in Physics Honors Scientists Who Transformed Our Ideas About the Cosmos

By Jeanna Bryner

The Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to three scientists for unraveling the structure and history of the universe and for changing our perspective of Earth’s place in it.

In this Hubble Space Telescope view of the distant quasar RXJ1131-1231, a foreground galaxy smears the image of the background quasar into a bright arc (left) and creates a total of four images — a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.

Einstein's Gravitational Lenses Could Clear Up Roiling Debate on Expanding Cosmos

By Charles Q. Choi

Warps in the fabric of space-time can act like magnifying glasses, and that may help solve a cosmic mystery about the rate of the universe's expansion, a new study found.

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud taken with a ground-based telescope. The inset image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, and shows a galaxy cluster teeming with variable Cepheids, a class of stars that flicker regularly. Using this pulsation rate, scientists have calculated the universe's expansion rate, but that number doesn't match with values derived from other cosmic phenomena, such as the echo of the Big Bang known as the cosmic microwave background radiation.

One Number Shows Something Is Fundamentally Wrong with Our Conception of the Universe

By Adam Mann

Here's what's going on with the discrepancies in cosmic expansion measurements.

During the brief "inflation" period, the newborn universe expanded far faster than the speed of light, growing from a subatomic size to a golf-ball size almost instantaneously.

The Problems with the Cosmic Calendar

By Paul Sutter

Our lives here on Earth are small and insignificant and inconsequential — but only in a certain frame of reference, and that frame of reference doesn't necessarily apply to cosmic scales.