by Muhammad Akhir Ariffin

Created on: January 07, 2009

A star filled sky on clear nights has provided mankind with a fascinating spectacle since time immemorial. For our ancestors the night sky was a realm of myths, legends and the supernatural; for us, however space probes and giant telescopes have made breathtaking views of the universe and scientific discussions on its secrets possible. In spite of all that we know, we are still awed by the wonders of the heavens. The planets Earth represent a mere speck of dust in the immense expanse of space.

The origins of the Universe

According to a generally accepted theory, our universe originated about 15 billions years ago. A mighty explosion or "big bang" signaled the moment the universe came into being. Space, time and matter originated from literally out of nowhere. In the 1920s, the American astronomer E.P. Hubble found the explanation for the continually expanding universe. He proved that our galaxy, the Milky Way has been drifting through the universe for billions of years, moving further and further away from its neighboring galaxies. Billions of cubic meters of new space come between the galaxies and push them further apart each day. The farther apart they are from each other, the quicker they move away from each other and the quicker the distance grows between them. But the reverse is also true; that the further back in time one goes, the closer they must have been to each other. Ultimately this means that in the beginning the universe must have been incredibly dense. All matter must have been unified in one place from which the universe eventually exploded.

Today the universe has taken on vast dimensions. The most distant recognizable objects at the moment are quasars which are about 12 billion light years away. A light year refers to the distance a ray of light can travel in one year. The speed of light is c.300, 000 km/sec. Cosmic background radiation (called 3-K-radiation) is considered to be further evidence for the Big Bang theory. 3-K-radiation is electromagnetic radiation left over from the beginning of the universe. Einstein in 1916 used his Theory of Relativity to prove that large masses such as the Sun through their gravitation can cause the curvature of light thereby creating the belief that the universe is the form of a bent shape that cannot be represented pictorially. There are two possibilities for the future of the universe according to the Theory of Relativity: the "Big Crunch" (massive collapse) after reaching its maximum extent, or the currently

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