How was the universe created? The Big Bang Theory

 Our Milky Way has more than 100 billion stars and there are billions of galaxies in the universe. So an obvious question is how it all started?  

Postulation
Humans have been trying to figure this out for centuries and ironically most accepted theory today was first proposed by a theologian named George Lemaitre in early 1927. It did not gain momentum until an astronomer named Edwin Hubble (Hubble telescope named after him) found out that Universe is expanding. This led many to theorize that if universe is expanding so it must have been started as tiny and dense point. Hubble was mocked for years and in fact the name "Big Bang Theory" was coined sarcastically by astronomer Fred Hoyle. 

Evidence?
It was an accidental discovery in 1964 by astronomer Wilson and Penzias that led to second experimental evidence (first being expansion of the universe) for Big Bang Theory. They discovered persistent radio signal in their antennas which is attributed to energy photons released just after (10^-32 second) the Big Bang. 


(Source of the image: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_cmb.html)

Explaining how universe formed?
According to the Big Bang Theory, all the matter was contained inside a single, minute point which bursted about 13 billion years ago. Universe expanded at tremendous rate, doubling every 10^-34 second. Huge amount of energy was created due to the burst. This energy was converted into matter and antimatter which kept on recombining to annihilate but also kept on forming due to very high temperature (billions of degrees of Kelvin). After few seconds, universe started to cool down and at some point of time there was not enough energy for creation of matter and antimatter. And luckily for us, annihilation (combination of matter and antimatter) was probabilistic and not all the matter annihilated. After minutes of the Big Bang, electrons and protons were created from the matter which further led to formation of atoms of basic elements of Hydrogen and Helium. These gases ultimately led to the formation of the planets and stars.

But then how was the initial burst created? Perhaps another theologian can guess or maybe they already have ;-)

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