The Infinite Universe

Since ancient time mankind has looked to the stars, the universe has always been a source of passion and mystery. Where do we come from ? How was the cosmos born ? What might the universe contain ? Our universe began with The Big Bang but what was before it ? What followed directly after it came into existence? These are the questions humanity is preoccupied with since we looked up and pondered. We remain fascinated by the expanse of the cosmos, an enormousness that transcends the limits of human imagination and we continue to discover more about its creation, shape and size.

Cosmologists are retracing the history of the universe. Back to its origin the Big Bang, from where energy, matter, space and time all emerged and with them the understanding of laws of physics. According to the theory, space and time emerged 13.8 billion years ago and initially the energy and matter present have become less and less dense as the universe expanded. After the inflationary epoch at around 10−32 seconds and the separation of four known fundamental forces (gravitation, electromagnetism, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction.), the universe gradually cooled and continued to expand, allowing the first subatomic particles and simple atoms to form.

Ancient Greeks believed that first, the Indian philosophers came up with a cosmological model by placing the earth at the center. Over the centuries, more astronomical observations led to the discovery of the Heliocentric model with Sun at the center of the solar system, a theory by Nicolas Copernicus. Further research led to the realisation that Sun is one of the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, which is one of atleast hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. More than 2,500 stars with planets are orbiting in our galaxy. Galaxies are distributed uniformly, meaning that the universe has neither an edge nor a center. Galaxies are distributed in clusters or super clusters which form immense filaments and void in space. Discoveries in the early 20th century suggest that the universe had a beginning and it has been expanding since then and currently still enlarging at an increasing rate.

In the beginning there was just darkness or what we call as the 'Dark Ages’, the first stars that emitted light and enhanced the universe didn’t appear until 200 million years after the Big Bang. The question that remains- Is our universe infinitely large or is it finite? What is the shape of the universe ? In order to acknowledge the shape of the universe we live in need to understand the curvature of the space. Imagine we live in a space that’s curved but because we are part of that space we wouldn’t notice the curvature. Therefore there are three general possibilities for the geography of the universe. First, it’s a spherical or closed universe, if our universe is a sphere with a positive curvature then it would continue to expand and eventually shrink back to nothing, back to the big bang which would mean the universe is finite. Second, a hyberbolic universe which is complicated and very different, we’d have a universe with no bounds and would expand forever. Third possibility, a completely flat universe. Stars and planets emerge, galaxies filled with solar system, energy penetrates the cosmos in the form of radiation but something intangible is there that shapes the universe. A substance no scientist has ever seen nor will ever be able to directly observe is the 'Dark Matter’. Dark matter pervades the universe. It is something we can neither see nor touch but dark matter is the only explanation for the motion of the celestial bodies and galaxies, this invisible matter holds the universe together.

With the help of telescopes scientists lock back billions of years but when they gaze back in time, they eventually hit a limit. Scientists can observe the earliest light which occured 200 million years after the Big Bang, the first 200 million years after the creation of our universe is still hidden from us. Even today telescopes keep getting larger and their resolution continues to increase. An extremely large telescope is under construction in the Atacama dessert in Chille when it goes into operation in 2024 the ELT will be the largest optical telescope in the world. But the keenest eyes to the sky are located in outer space like “ The Hubble Space Telescope” launced in 1990. It helped us to peer deeper into the universe giving images of strange and enticing landscapes of light, star dust and clouds of gas shaped by comic wind and radiation. Similarly another one is “The James Webb Telescope” is an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, launching on 31st October 2021. It will be launched into orbit 1.5 million kilometers away from earth. The telescope will offer a view of farthest reaches of the universe and examine the birth of stars and galaxies into the cosmic dawn.

By analysing the universe we are also engaged in a search of our own origin. Just a few decades before, many believed that out solar system is unique but it turns out it’s just a tiny grain of sand on an immense Galactic beach. Finding life in outer space would be the greatest discovery of all time, it would provide response to humanity’s most enduring question — ‘ Are we alone in the universe?’ Is there another planet similar to earth providing favourable conditions for survival? There are many competing hypothesis about the ultimate fate of the universe and about what, if anything preceded the Big Bang, while other physicists and philosophers refuse to postulate. Some physictsts have suggested various multiverse hypothese, in which our universe might be one among many universes that likewise exists.

I’ll end this article with a quote by Elizabeth Gilbert —

“The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.”

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