The Big Bang

The Big Bang

The ancients knew that the world is very old. They sought to look into the distant past. We now know that the Cosmos is far older than they ever imagined. We have examined the universe in space and seen that we live on a mote of dust circling a humdrum star in the remotest corner of an obscure galaxy. And if we are a speck in the immensity of space, we also occupy an instant in the expense of ages.

At the beginning of this universe, there were no galaxies, stars or planets, no life or civilisations, merely a uniform, radiant fireball filling all the space.

We know now that our universe – or at least its most recent incarnation – is some fifteen or twenty billion years old. This is the time since a remarkable explosive event called the Big Bang.

The passage from the Chaos of the Big Bang to the Cosmos that we are beginning to know is the most awesome transformation of matter and energy that we have been privileged to glimpse. And until we find more intelligent beings elsewhere, we are ourselves the most spectacular of all the transformations – the remote descendants of the Big Bang, dedicated to understanding and further transforming of the Cosmos from which we spring.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order (Carl Jung). Image: © Megan Jorgensen (Elena)

dd