The Big Bang

380,000 years after the start of the big bang was the moment of Recombination. What happened at this time?

• Human life began

• The universe cooled enough to allow neutral atoms to form

• The universe cooled enough to allow the four fundamental forces to emerge

• Quarks formed protons and neutrons

What were the first two elements to form once the Universe expanded and cooled?

• Helium and oxygen

• Carbon and helium

• Hydrogen and oxygen

• Hydrogen and helium

What is the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation?

• Energy released 380,000 years after the start of the Big Bang

• Energy released during the fusion of hydrogen nuclei in the center of stars

• Light from stars that are more than 14 billion years old

• Energy emitted by the Sun

At the moment of Recombination, the Universe was orange. Now that light is in the microwave part of the spectrum. How did this change take place?

• The light slowed down over billions of years.

• The light speeded up over billions of years

• As the universe expanded, the expanding space stretched the wavelength of the light

• Free electrons in space absorbed and reemitted the light

Who provided the first observational evidence that the Universe is expanding?

• Edwin Hubble

• Albert Einstein

• Steven Hawking

• Richard Onofrey

Which answer is NOT a piece of evidence for the Big Bang Theory?

• Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

• Hubble's Law

• The blueshift of the Andromeda Galaxy

• The elemental makeup of very old stars - 75% hydrogen and 25% helium

What is Hubble's Law?

• Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light

• A very rapid expansion in the size of the Universe almost immediately after the Big Bang

• Distant galaxies are moving away from us at a speed that is proportional to their distance from us

• The Moon is made of green cheese.

What are the four fundamental forces that emerged immediately after the Big Bang?

• Gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and electromagnetism

• Dark energy, dark matter, regular matter and antimatter

• Gravity, electrons, antimatter and atoms

• Quarks, protons, dark matter and electrons

What is an absorption spectrum?

• Lines of light that are absorbed when a continuous spectrum passes through a thin gas

• Lines of light that are produced by burning an element

• All the colors of the rainbow

• How well a sponge works

How was Hubble able to show evidence for his law?

• By graphing the speed of the galaxies vs. their distance from Earth

• By graphing the redshift of the galaxies vs. their speed

• By calculating the speed of every known galaxy

• By calculating the temperature of the universe