Cosmology
The Formation and Evolution of Galaxies
One of the greatest and possibly most important questions about our universe is how it originated. Astronomer Sandy Faber of California's Lick Observatory states that, "Galaxies are the building blocks of the universe, and therefore one of the greatest questions of modern astronomy is to understand how they form." (Chaikin)
Galaxy is usually understood as a cluster or aggregate of stars - combined gas and dust - held together by gravity. Galaxies come in three main types: ellipticals, spirals, and irregulars. (The Galaxies) There are a number of theories about the formation of galaxies. Two predominant theories are the Bottom-Up and Top-Down theories. The Bottom-Up theory states that the Universe started from small particles of mass that came together to form galaxies, which evolved into clusters and then super-clusters. (ibid) The second theory - the Top-Down theory - states that "vast pancaked-shaped clouds of matter...
" At almost 4 minutes, the temperature has fallen to the point where sub-atomic particles become naturally attracted to each other and form certain kinds of isotopes. At almost an hour after the Big Bang, all nuclear material has bonded, yet the temperatures is "still too high for protons and electrons to bind together" to form atoms. From this point on to about 700,000 years later, the temperature has dropped
The Moon is believed by many to have been part of the earth and that it was tore off as a result of an initial spin that was too great to hold the planet together. One of the prevailing theories was that involving an impact of large magnitude involving the newly formed Earth and a giant object of the size of Mars hitting Earth and blowing up material that
The one thing that the Christian belief in God's creation of the universe does not account for is evolution since the animals, plants and man were formed as complex life forms. Scientists scoff at this view of creation due to the totality of evidence they believe exists for evolution. However fundamentalists would argue that there is not one shred of evidence for anything but microevolution -- that is, organisms adopting within
Twin Stars Twins - Typically a word indicating the production of two offspring from the same source of origin, mostly referred during reproductive results. Science Express -- A science publication that electronically publishes selected articles prior to the articles' appearance in print. Matthew Turk and Tom Abel -- Turk was a former astrophysics graduate student of the Kavli Institute, and currently studying at a post-doctoral fellowship at UC San Diego. Abel is an
Dangling Particles, physicist Lisa Randall explains why the complexities and abstract nature of modern science only makes it even more incomprehensible to the layman. For example, virtually everything we know today about quantum mechanics at the smallest end of the spectrum of matter and everything we know about galaxy formation at the largest end of the spectrum requires advanced scientific training to conceptualize. A layperson relying exclusively on direct
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