Emma Jonson What event do you think caused the universe to start expanding?
According to the Big Bang theory, the universe began about 13.7 billion years ago. Everything that is now in the universe was squeezed into a very small volume. Imagine all of the known universe in a single, hot, chaotic mass. An enormous explosion—a big bang—caused the universe to start expanding rapidly.
How did space start?
The Big Bang theory says that the universe came into being from a single, unimaginably hot and dense point (aka, a singularity) more than 13 billion years ago. It didn’t occur in an already existing space. Rather, it initiated the expansion—and cooling—of space itself.
What’s the cause of the expansion of the universe?
Now it appears that the Universe will not only expand forever, but the speed of its expansion will continue to accelerate faster and faster. So what’s causing this expansion?
How does the expansion of space affect the things that?
After all, the expansion of space is roughly analogous to a stretching rubber sheet. If you stretch the sheet anything drawn on it will stretch just as much. The expansion of space doesn’t cause the things in space to expand, just move apart.
How is the Big Bang related to space?
Usually we consider the big bang to be the beginning of time and space, and so it is meaningless to ask what existed before or what lies beyond the expanding universe. Because space itself is intimately connected with matter in the universe, as matter was created in the big bang, so was space.
Why is the expansion of the universe not restricted by special relativity?
The space between objects shrinks or grows as the various geodesics converge or diverge. Because this expansion is caused by relative changes in the distance-defining metric, this expansion (and the resultant movement apart of objects) is not restricted by the speed of light upper bound of special relativity.