How the Universe Began
The story starts nearly 14 billion years ago, when the universe was far hotter, denser, and smaller than anything we can easily imagine. Space itself began expanding, and that early expansion set everything else in motion. Scientists can describe much of what happened after those first moments, even though the exact conditions at the very beginning are still beyond our full understanding.
As the universe expanded, it cooled. Forces that may once have been united separated into the ones we know today, including gravity and the forces that control atoms. Matter and antimatter formed in huge numbers and destroyed each other, but a tiny extra amount of matter survived. That small imbalance is why anything exists at all, from stars and planets to people.
Within minutes, the first atomic nuclei formed, mostly hydrogen and helium. For a long time after that, the universe was a hot fog where light could not travel freely. Much later, gravity began pulling gas together into the first stars and galaxies. Inside stars, simple matter was transformed into heavier elements, and when those stars died, they scattered those materials into space.
Much later still, one cloud of enriched gas and dust collapsed to form the Sun, Earth, and the rest of the solar system. Earth formed in a region where temperatures allowed liquid water to exist, which made life possible. The atoms in our bodies were created through this long chain of cosmic events, linking everyday life to the deep past of the universe.
Full summary available in the Readsome app
