Alejandra, Maria, Adelaida

Colegio Los Nogales

The universe is gigantic. It contains Earth, the planets, the stars, and everything else in outer space. The universe is so big that a spaceship could travel for billions of years without reaching the end of it. It might even go on forever!

The Origins Of The Universe

 

 

Earth and all the planets in our system make up just a tiny part of the universe. Billions of other stars like our Sun all form a group called the Milky Way Galaxy. With telescopes we can see billions of other galaxies. Galaxies are in turn clumped together in enormous groups called clusters and super clusters. There are at least 100 billion—that’s 100,000,000,000—galaxies in the universe. The universe is a big place!

 
Text Box: Many astronomers think the universe began about 14 billion years ago. They think it suddenly exploded into being. They call this beginning the big bang. All space and time began with the big bang. With a special telescope, astronomers can see radiation left over from the big bang. They call this cosmic background radiation. The big bang theory says that the universe was hotter than you can even imagine at the moment it began. The universe started to fly outward, or expand. As it expanded, it started to cool! Tiny particles that would make up matter started to form. All of this happened in just a few minutes.

When did the Universe begin?

WILL THE UNIVERSE END?

Astronomers want to know what will happen to the universe. They think it is still expanding. In fact, the universe seems to be expanding faster and faster as time goes on. Many astronomers think the universe will go on expanding forever. If it keeps on expanding, everything in the universe will eventually grow cold. Billions of years in the future even the stars will stop shining.