Origin of the universe and its primitive phases explored

In the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the four fundamental forces of nature - gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces - separated from each other, setting the stage for the evolution of our universe. This groundbreaking event was first proposed by a Belgian priest named Georges Lemaitre in the 1920s.

As the universe expanded and cooled, significant events unfolded. Within the first second of its existence, matter coalesced into protons and neutrons. For a long time, the universe remained an electrically charged fog due to its high temperature, preventing the formation of stable atoms. However, as the universe cooled down, approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang, a pivotal moment called recombination occurred. Neutral atoms formed, making the universe transparent for the first time, allowing the primordial afterglow, cosmic microwave background radiation, to be seen today.

The cooler universe provided the perfect conditions for the formation of hydrogen and helium nuclei. After the first three minutes, protons and neutrons had assembled into hydrogen and helium, with hydrogen making up 75 percent and helium 25 percent of the early universe's matter. The universe didn't have a single star until about 180 million years after the Big Bang.

The idea of the Big Bang received major support from Edwin Hubble's observations and the discovery of cosmic microwave radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in the 1960s. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964 was made by Penzias and Wilson, while the theoretical prediction and interpretation linking it to the Big Bang were developed earlier by Ralph Alpher, George Gamow, and Robert Herman in the late 1940s. Additional theoretical work by Rainer K. Sachs and Arthur M. Wolfe predicted temperature fluctuations in 1967.

The model of breakneck expansion, called inflation, suggests that the universe expanded outward evenly with tiny variations provided by fluctuations on the quantum scale. This model may explain why the universe has an even temperature and distribution of matter.

Inflation also provides a potential explanation for the existence of dark energy, which makes up 68 percent of the universe's total matter and energy. Dark energy is thought to be driving the acceleration of the universe's expansion, causing it to expand at an accelerating pace, with the expansion rate being significantly faster than expected.

Experiments such as DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande are using neutrinos and antineutrinos to solve the mystery of the universe's matter. Some particle colliders, such as CERN's Large Hadron Collider, are powerful enough to re-create the quark-gluon plasma, a piping-hot primordial soup that existed in the early universe.

Vast clouds of dark matter may have provided a gravitational scaffold for the first galaxies and stars. As the universe cooled, more diverse kinds of particles began to form and eventually condensed into the stars and galaxies of our present universe.

The Big Bang theory suggests that our universe originated from an event, with galaxies moving away from each other at great speeds. This theory continues to shape our understanding of the universe's origins and evolution, offering a compelling narrative for the cosmic dance that has brought us to where we are today.