I wanted to post something today and felt the most appropriate would be the theory of the formation of the stars. I had a great fascination for astronomy as a boy and retain it even today.
The most accepted theory for the formation of the Universe is the Big Bang theory. This theory was propounded by Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian scientist in 1927. As per this theory, as the Universe is expanding today, it must have been constricted once upon a time. This theory has been modified a number of times by various other scientists, but the core philosophy of the theory remains.
As per this, probably between 4000-6000 crores years ago all the mass in the Universe is concentrated as a single whole, a primeval atom. Matter is extremely concentrated in this whole and perhaps all the matter of the Universe only occupied as much space as our present day Solar System.
The statistics of this Primeval atom are mind boggling. A cubic centimeter of matter from it would have weighed some 100 million tons. Matter becomes hotter as it constricts and colder when it expands and in this concentrated primeval atom the temperatures would have been so enormous that even atoms did not exists and neither did protons and electrons. The temperature would have been 100 billion degrees Kelvin one hundredth of a second after the Big Bang.
Only the neutrons remained in this primeval state and scientists have named this primeval matter as Neutronium. It would not have been possible for the matter to be in this intensely hot state for long and it would have exploded only in a fraction of time. The massive explosion threw matter in all directions and with the expansion they have cooled slowly to form atoms and later coalesce into stars and solar systems and planets.
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