From nothing to you in 12 easy steps (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. It’s a crazy world out there. Be curious.” –Stephen Hawking

In the beginning, before even the Big Bang, all that we had was space and time, expanding rapidly according to the rules of cosmological inflation. Today, we’ve got an observable Universe full of stars and galaxies, tens of billions of light years across, with at least one instance of intelligent life: on Earth.

The Earth and Sun, not so different from how they might have appeared 4 billion years ago. Image credit: NASA/Terry Virts.

The story of how we got to be here was a mystery to philosophers, theologists and poets for all of human history, but advances during the last century have brought that from the realm of the speculative to firm, scientific knowledge.

An infrared view from ESA’s Herschel observatory of a new star-forming region. Image credit: ESA / SPIRE / PACS / P. André (CEA Saclay).

Here’s that full story in 12 steps, totaling a mere 200 words.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1tsvVMV

“It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. It’s a crazy world out there. Be curious.” –Stephen Hawking

In the beginning, before even the Big Bang, all that we had was space and time, expanding rapidly according to the rules of cosmological inflation. Today, we’ve got an observable Universe full of stars and galaxies, tens of billions of light years across, with at least one instance of intelligent life: on Earth.

The Earth and Sun, not so different from how they might have appeared 4 billion years ago. Image credit: NASA/Terry Virts.

The story of how we got to be here was a mystery to philosophers, theologists and poets for all of human history, but advances during the last century have brought that from the realm of the speculative to firm, scientific knowledge.

An infrared view from ESA’s Herschel observatory of a new star-forming region. Image credit: ESA / SPIRE / PACS / P. André (CEA Saclay).

Here’s that full story in 12 steps, totaling a mere 200 words.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1tsvVMV