MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

(MINISTERUL EDUCATIEI SI CERCETARII STIINTIFICE)

P APER FOR OBTAINING THE PROFICIENCY

CERTIFICATE FOR ALUMNI CLASSES WITH
INTENSIVE STUDY OF

ENGLISH

(Lucrare pentru obtinerea atestatului de competent lingvistic pentru

absolventii claselor cu studiu intensiv al limbii engleze)

Coordinator :Professor TONE MONICA

Student :SIMION SORIN GABRIEL,XII-B

BUCHAREST,
2015

HOW DOES THE UNIVERSE WORK?

BUCHAREST,
2015

Table of Content
ARGUMENT........................................................................................................................................................ 1
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 2
SPACE ,SOLAR SYSTEM and BEYOND .......................................................................................................... 3
Space ............................................................................................................................................................. 3
Our Solar System ,Planets, Moons and Dwarf Planets ..................................................................................... 3
Kuiper Belt .................................................................................................................................................... 5
Exoplanets -Planets around other Stars ........................................................................................................... 5
Galaxies......................................................................................................................................................... 6
Pretty strange stuff in space ............................................................................................................................ 6
Nebulae - The Dust of Stars............................................................................................................................ 6
Beyond Our Solar System .............................................................................................................................. 7
Beyond Our Galaxy ....................................................................................................................................... 7
UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF SPACE .............................................................................................................. 8
What are the Mysterious Noises from Space? And What is Dark Energy? ...................................................... 8
Are we alone in the Universe? ........................................................................................................................ 8
Where are the White Holes? ........................................................................................................................... 8
Why does Titan Have an Atmosphere? ........................................................................................................... 9
What are the Fermi Bubbles?.......................................................................................................................... 9
Where Are the Missing Baryons? ................................................................................................................... 9
Where do High-energy Cosmic Rays come from? ........................................................................................... 9
Where Did Saturn's Rings Come From? and Where did galaxies come from? .................................................. 9
NEW DISCOVERIES and NEW TELESCOPE TECHNOLOGY ................................................................ 10
How did we get here?................................................................................................................................... 10
God Particle' Higgs Boson............................................................................................................................ 10
Latest Secrets of Mars ................................................................................................................................. 10
NASAs Space Telescopes .......................................................................................................................... 11
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS ............................................................................................................................. 12
BIBLIOGRAPHY & RESOURCES .................................................................................................................. 13

ARGUMENT

It starts with a TED1 conference 2014.Physicist Brian Green 2promises, he will tell the
audience the whole history of the universe in four minutes ..He does it with two metaphors. One
from the beginning till now, and another from now till the end (I shall mention just one of
them).
The universe today is 13.7 billion years old, and it can be very hard to get our minds around
that number. So Greene uses a metaphor pioneered by Carl Sagan. Imagine that were part of a
single calendar year. All of cosmic history compressed into a single calendar year.
On this calendar:
May 12, the Milky Way is formed.
Sept, 2nd, the Earth is formed.
11:40 pm New Years Eve, Humans evolve.
11:44 pm, we domesticate fire.
11:58 pm the first cave paintings are made.
11:59:49 pm writing is developed, so all of recorded history takes place in the last 10
seconds.
11:59:58, the Renaissance.
11:59:59, modern science begins, allowing us to figure this all out.
And to top it off, that science includes the observations that led to the discovery that there
was a Big Bang in the first place. Those were done by Edwin Hubble, an Oxford-trained lawyer
who changed to become an astronomer, which to me means theres hope for absolutely
everyone3.
Greene has such a rare gift for explaining the most challenging scientific ideas, I appreciate
so much his refreshingly insightful explanations.The bottom line is ,that I start to be interested
about the profound mysteries of this wonderful mechanism called Universe.
This paper is an incursion in our knowledge about the universe at some of the most amazing
revelations about the universe and the enduring enigmas still to be solved.

TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less).
Greene, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, has focused on unified theories for more
than 25 years, and has written several best-selling and non-technical books on the subject including The Elegant
Universe, a Pulitzer finalist, and The Fabric of the Cosmos
3
https://www.ted.com/speakers/brian_greene
2

INTRODUCTION
Big Bang theory holds that our universe began 13.7 billion years ago, in a massive expansion
that blew space up like a balloon.
Just what is the Universe? It is everything that exists. However, from Earth we cannot observe
everything in the Universe. Some things are dark (brown dwarf stars, planets, and Dark Matter)
and we cannot see them. Additionally, there are parts of the universe whose light has not yet
reached us in this part of the Universe. And because light travels at a set speed we actually look
back in time when we look into the cosmos.
There are many questions associated with the creation and evolution of the major constituents
of the universe. A basic question astronomers must address is, how did the universe create its
first stars and galaxies? Once these entities were created, how did they influence subsequent
galaxy, star and planet formation? This is an important question, because these later objects are
made of elements that can only have been created by the first generation of stars.
It is still unknown whether the universe created black holes with the first generation of stars
or whether these exotic objects were created by the first generation of stars. Because black holes
represent the most extreme physical conditions of spacetime and generate some of the most
energetic phenomena following the Big Bang, they are the ultimate physical laboratories for
testing theories of the universe.
Our universe is both ancient and vast, and expanding out farther and faster every day. This
accelerating universe, the dark energy that seems to be behind it, and other puzzles like the exact
nature of the Big Bang and the early evolution of the universe are among the great puzzles of
cosmology.
There was a time when scientists thought Earth was at the center of the universe. As late as
the 1920s, we did not realize that our galaxy was just one of many in a vast universe. Only later
did we recognize that the other galaxies were running away from us in every direction at
ever greater speeds. Likewise in recent decades, our understanding of the universe has
accelerated.
The universe is filled with stars, galaxies, planets and more, plus a veritable buffet of
invisible stuff like dark matter astronomers have yet to see. But scientists have pinned down
some of the major ingredients of our universe.
In 1929, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble found hard evidence that the universe was
expanding.If the universe is expanding, it must once have been much smaller than it is now. This
realization led to the Big Bang theory: the idea that the universe began as something incredibly
small, and then expanded incredibly quickly. We can see the "afterglow" of the Big Bang even
today, in the cosmic microwave background radiation a constant stream of radio waves,
coming from all directions in the sky.

SPACE ,SOLAR SYSTEM and BEYOND

Space
Have you ever gone out at on a cloudless night, when there is no bright Moon in the sky
or city lights to obscure your view, and been blown away by the astonishing number of stars in
the sky? Probably for as long as people have been around, to look up into the sky, we have
wondered what the many spots of light in the sky mean. Thousands of years ago, the earliest
civilizations observed the heavens. Early man observed the heavens because
the Sun, Moon and stars gave indication of coming seasons to farmers and hunters. The sky
aided in navigation especially for nomads and sailors. And many ancient civilizations thought
the sky gave signs of life, war, earthquakes, the fate of kingdoms...and more. Since the invention
of the telescope, we have been able to "see" further away and study stars and galaxies, as well as
many of the more mysterious objects in our Universe.
Space is a rocky place. The biggest space rocks are asteroids. Asteroids are made up of rock
and iron like the four planets closest to our sun, but they are much smaller. All the asteroids put
together would be smaller than our moon. Asteroids are different from comets, which are mostly
rock and ice. Comets have tails.
Asteroids are more like planets and moons. Scientists often call asteroids minor planets.Some
asteroids even have moons. When the Galileo spacecraft flew past asteroid Ida in 1993, scientists
were surprised to find it had a little buddy. They named the tiny moon Dactyl.Most asteroids
orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter. This area is called the asteroid belt. There are millions of
asteroids -- and one dwarf planet, Ceres.
Our Solar System ,Planets, Moons and Dwarf Planets 4
Our solar system is made up of a star - the Sun - eight planets, 146 moons, a bunch of
comets, asteroids and space rocks, ice and several dwarf planets, such as Pluto.
The eight planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
The sun is the closest star to Earth, a hot ball of glowing gases at the heart of our solar
system. Its influence extends far beyond the orbits of distant Neptune and Pluto. Without the
sun's intense energy and heat, there would be no life on Earth. The connection and interactions
between the sun and Earth drive the seasons, ocean currents, weather and climate. It is the center
of our solar system And though it is special to us, there are billions of stars like our sun scattered
across the Milky Way galaxy.
Mercury is closest to the Sun. Neptune is the farthest. Remember the order of the planets like
this: My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Neptune.
Planets, asteroids and comets orbit our Sun. They travel around in our Sun in a flattened circle
called an ellipse. It takes the Earth one year to go around the Sun. Mercury goes around the Sun
in only 88 days. It takes Pluto, the most famous dwarf planet, 248 years to make one trip around
the Sun.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/solarsystem

Moons -- also called satellites are generally solid bodies, and few have atmospheres. Most
of the planetary moons probably formed from the discs of gas and dust circulating around planets
in the early solar system.Moons orbit planets.
Earth has one and Mars has its two small moons. In the outer solar system, the gas
giants Jupiter and Saturnand the ice giants Uranus and Neptune have numerous moons. As these
planets grew in the early solar system, they were able to capture objects with their large
gravitational fields. Mercury and Venus don't have any.
Most moons in our solar system are named for mythological characters from a wide variety of
cultures. Right now, Jupiter has the most named moons - 50 .
Uranus is the exception. Uranus' moons are named for characters in William Shakespeare's plays
and from Alexander Pope's poem "Rape of the Lock."

There may be dozens of dwarf planets in our solar system. Pluto is the most famous dwarf
planet. Discovered in 1930, it was long classified as our solar system's ninth planet. Pluto and its
busy system of moons orbits the sun in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy debris beyond Neptune.
According to the International Astronomical Union (I.A.U), which sets definitions for
planetary science, a dwarf planet is a celestial body that:
Orbits the sun.
Has enough mass to assume a nearly round shape.
Has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.
Is not a moon.
The main distinction between a dwarf planet and a planet is that planets have cleared the path
around the sun while dwarf planets tend to orbit in zones of similar objects that can cross their
path around the sun, such as the asteroid and Kuiper belts. Dwarf planets also are generally
smaller than the planet Mercury.
The first five recognized dwarf planets are Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea.
Scientists believe there may be dozens or even more than 100 dwarf planets awaiting discovery.
The I.A.U recognized Pluto's special place in our solar system by designating dwarf planets
that orbit the sun beyond Neptune as plutoids. Eris, which orbits far beyond Neptune, is a
plutoid while Ceres, which orbits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is a dwarf
planet.
Kuiper Belt

The Kuiper Belt is made up of millions of icy and rocky objects that orbit our Sun beyond the
orbits of Neptune and Pluto. Astronomers think some comets come from the Kuiper Belt.
Astronomers think the frozen objects in the Kuiper Belt may hold clues about the origin of our
solar system - sort of like how fossils tell the story of dinosaurs on Earth. Scientists think the
gravity of big planets like Jupiter and Saturn swept all these icy leftovers out to the edge of our
solar system.
It's hard to say exactly what's going on in the Kuiper Belt. Even the biggest of the Kuipet
Belt Objects is smaller than the United States and it is billions of miles away where the Sun's
light is weak. They are very hard to see even with the most powerful telescopes. Kuiper Belt
Objects are so hard to find that it took more than 40 years to find one after a scientist worked out
the math that said they should be floating around way out there on the edge of our solar system.
Exoplanets -Planets around other Stars
Until the 1990s, scientists only knew of planets in our own Solar System and at that point
accepted there were nine planets. As telescope technology improved, however, two things
happened. Scientists discovered exoplanets, or planets that are outside of our solar system. This
began with finding massive planets many times larger than Jupiter, and then eventually finding
planets that are rocky even a few that are close to Earths size itself.
The other change was finding worlds similar to Pluto, then considered the Solar Systems
furthest planet, far out in our own Solar System. At first astronomers began treating these new
worlds like planets, but as more information came in, the International Astronomical Union held
a meeting to better figure out the definition.The result was redefining Pluto and worlds like it as
a dwarf planet.
Did you know that about 200 planets have been discovered around distant stars? The first
planet found to be orbiting a star like our Sun was announced in 1995. Since then astronomers
have continued to find new planets outside of our solar system, at a rate of more than one new
planet every month!

The star and its planet orbit around each other. The planet moves in a wide orbit, while the
star just appears to wobble slightly. By measuring the Doppler shift of the light coming from the
star, scientists can detect the tiny motion caused by the planet. Most of the distant planets were
discovered this way.If we are lucky, some of the planets can pass in front of their star. This
blocks out some of the light that we usually see from the star, briefly making it dimmer. It's like
a solar eclipse, but the planet only covers a small part of the star. Only a few planets outside our
solar system pass in front of their stars.All of the distant planets are too far away to see directly.
We can only see their effect on the star that they orbit.
Galaxies
During the early 1900's, which is not very long ago, astronomers were unaware that there
were other galaxies outside our own Milky Way Galaxy. When they saw a small fuzzy patch in
the sky through their telescopes, they called it a nebula. When examined closely, some of the
nebulae had a spiral shape. So astronomers at first called these "spiral nebulae". These nebulae
were all believed to be part of our Galaxy, our community of stars.
Edwin Hubble studied the "spiral nebulae" and found that they were composed of stars.
These nebulae were not nebulae at all, but other communities of billions of stars held together by
gravity - galaxies! Suddenly, our universe was much bigger. We realized that our Galaxy was
just one of many billions of galaxies in the universe.Hubble studied galaxies for a very long time,
and after seeing many, many galaxies, he realized that he could put them into groups based on
their shape: spirals, ellipticals, orirregulars. His work helped us to understand that the appearance
of galaxies depends on our point of view, and on what's happening in the galaxies.
Pretty strange stuff in space
There is some things that not even the strangest science fiction stories have dreamed. Some
things are just so weird that even astrophysicists don't know what they are.
When stars die they go out in many different ways. When normal stars, like our sun, die they go
by throwing off their outer layers and leaving behind a White Dwarf. When really massive stars
die they often blow up in a huge explosion called aSupernova. Depending on how massive a star
was that went supernova, a Neutron Star or a Black Hole may be left behind as a monument to
the star's life.
But there are still stranger things in space. Not very long ago astronomers were baffled by the
mystery of Quasars. These objects look like stars but are much farther away than stars in our
galaxy and they are much brighter.
There is also a phenomenon that has caused much excitement and wonder among
astronomers called Gravitational Lensing. This is where really massive things, like galaxies and
galaxy clusters, actually bend light like a lens using gravity!
But one of the strangest things in space is the mystery of Gamma Ray Bursts. These are what
seem to be random bursts of gamma rays, you know the radiation that made the Incredible Hulk.
They come from every direction in the sky, they never repeat, and they are very energetic
Nebulae - The Dust of Stars
Why would we call nebulae stardust? Because the gas in nebulae is used to make new stars,
and dying stars create nebulae from their gas. While stars are made of very hot, dense gas, the
gas in nebulae is cool and spread out. Water is at least 1,000,000,000,000,000 times as dense as
the gas found in nebulae.
Nebulae come in a variety of shapes. But their appearance is usually due to the type of
energy source which is lighting them up. There is lot of gas that we can't see in the Galaxy.
Something must happen for the nebulae to reveal themselves.
6

So, what happens to make nebulae glow? It depends on the type of nebulae. Some are
involved in the formation of new stars. These are stellar nurseries called HII regions. The young
stars found in HII regions are extremely hot and provide a lot of energy for lighting up nebulae.
Some nebulae are created by dying stars: supernova remnants and the planetary nebulae
surrounding white dwarfs.
Beyond Our Solar System
Our sun is one of at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, a spiral galaxy about 100,000
light years across. The stars are arranged in a pinwheel pattern with four major arms, and we live
about two-thirds of the way up one of them. Many if not most of the stars host their own families
of planets. More than a thousand of these extrasolar (or exoplanets) have been discovered and
thousands more are awaiting confirmation.
All of the stars in the Milky Way orbit a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center, which is
estimated to be some 4 million times as massive as our sun. Fortunately, it is a safe distance of
around 28,000 light years away Earth. The Milky Way zips alonga galactic orbit at an average
speed of about 514,000 miles per hour (828,000 km/hr). It takes about 230 million years for our
solar system to make one revolution around the galactic center.
Beyond Our Galaxy
The Milky Way is part of the Local Group, a neighborhood about 10 million light years
across, consisting of more than 30 galaxies that are gravitationally bound to each other. Aside
from our galaxy, the most massive one in this group is Andromeda, which appears to be on
course to collide with the Milky Way in about 4 billion years.
Scientists studying galaxies observed that the stars in the outer parts are orbiting the galactic
centers just as quickly as the stars further in, a violation of Newton's well-established laws of
gravitation. They deduced that something other than the stars and clouds of gas and dust known
to comprise galaxies was providing extra gravity lots of it. They calculated that there must be
five times as much of this mysterious dark matter, detectable only by its gravitational pull, as
there is of the matter we already knew about.
The Local Group is only one of many, many clusters of galaxies, and they are all moving
away from each other as more and more space comes into being between them. This means the
universe, itself, is expanding. That discovery is what led to the theory of the Big Bang origin of
the universe.
Scientists expected that the gravitational attraction of everything in the universe would put
the brakes on the rate of expansion, and eventually the expansion would stop or even reverse.
But in the 1990s, scientists discovered that the expansion is actually getting faster. The force
responsible for this surprising acceleration was dubbed dark energy. No one is sure what it is, but
one possibility is that it is energy contained within the very vacuum of space.
Since matter and energy are equivalent (as expressed in Einstein's famous equation, E=MC 2)
scientists have been able to calculate that whatever dark energy is, it comprises about 68 percent
of everything in the universe. Dark matter accounts for another 27 percent, leaving only five
percent for protons, neutrons, electrons and photons in other words, everything we see and
understand.
Scientists calculate that there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, each
one brimming with stars. On a very large scale, they form a bubbly structure, in which vast
sheets and filaments of galaxies surround gargantuan voids.

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF SPACE

For thousands of years scientists try to understand the mysteries of the night sky. Strange
noises from the depth of space, unexplained gas bubbles circling the earth, and mysterious
moons are just three of the unexplained space mysteries scientists are trying to solve.
So far, world wide universe still contains many mysteries that modern science has not yet fully
explored. But with what we know about the universe, there are many facts that we have to feel
surprised. Here are the things like that.
What are the Mysterious Noises from Space?
In 1977 a radio signal from space was detected. Lasting at least 72 seconds, the Wow! Signal
came from near the Sagittarius constellation. However the brief burst of radio waves has yet to
be repeated on record.In 2014 NASA sent a balloon covered in microphones into space. When it
returned it had recorded hissing, crackling and whirling noises.While these could simply be
gravity waves or vibrations from the balloon itself, it's not surprising that many have taken the
noises to be alien.
What is Dark Energy?
Dark Energy accounts for a huge part of the universe's composition. Yet we know very little
about it.In the late 90s scientists hoping to examine the slowing rate of universal expansion
found the opposite was actually true- expansion was accelerating, seemingly thanks to
undetectable Dark Energy.One theory to explain this is Quintessence, which hypothesises that
there is a negative energy field made of Dark Matter which overpowers gravity, causing matter
to repel away from each other. Dark matter is an invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the
universe's mass

Are we alone in the Universe?

This question is as old as humankind itself . Today we know of over 1700 planets around
other stars and thousands of planet candidates. Do any of these planets have conditions that
would support life? What conditions favor the formation of terrestrial-class planets in developing
planetary systems?.Before we can determine if there are other planetary systems capable of
supporting life, we must first find them .5
In 1996 US President Bill Clinton publicly announced that fossilised microbes had been
found in a fallen Martian meteorite. The case the claims was widely dismissed as unfounded,with
scientists claiming the marks taken to be fossils could be the result of nonbiological processes.In
spite of this NASA claimed in 2015 that we are likely to have proof within 30 years.In 1961 the
astronomer Frank Drake created an equation to estimate the number of civilizations in our
galaxy. Following this there could be anywhere between 2 and 50,000 civilisations.
Where are the White Holes?
Einstein's equations suggest space should be home to white, as well as black holes which
spew out matter.Though mathematical logic supports this, we are still looking for evidence of
their existence.One suggestion claims they have the same radiation levels as Black Holes,
meaning we may have mistakenly recorded them as a black, rather than White Holes.
5

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics

Why does Titan Have an Atmosphere?

Though Titan may not be the biggest moon in our Solar system, it is the only one to have an
atmosphere.Extending 600 kilometres above the moon, the atmosphere is composed primarily of
nitrogen,making it similar to Earth's. As such it is seen as a key place to search for signs of
life.Some believe the atmosphere could have formed due to the planet's distance from the
sun.This follows that during formation volatile gases became trapped in ice on the cold
moon,and later created an atmosphere.
What are the Fermi Bubbles?
Two huge bubbles of gamma ray emissions were discovered floating above and below the
Milky Way in 2010.Stretching over 50-000 light-years the bubbles, the incredibly bright bubbles
span over half the visible sky, however their cause is unknown.Previously hidden by a fog of
gamma-rays,one theory states that the bubbles could be expanding jets of matter sprayed from
Black Holes
Where Are the Missing Baryons?
While 95% of the universe is composed of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, the remaining 5%
is made up of Baryonic Matter- the term for particles such as proton and neutrons. However
scientists have only ever been able to record half of this matter, meaning 2.5% of the universe is
seemingly missing.In 2012 scientists discovered a gas cloud surrounding the Milky Way. With a
temperature equivalent to 400 times the surface of the sun, they suggested the missing particles
could be hiding similar dense clouds across the universe.
Where do High-energy Cosmic Rays come from?
High-energy cosmic rays end life by colliding with Earth's atmosphere. Each carrying tens of
millions the amount of energy created by the Hadron Collider, if understood they could provide
us with an entirely new branch of physics.Yet we don't know where they come from.In 2007
scientists believed these rays, like their low-energy counterparts, were made from protons, which
were accelerated by super-massive black holes.Alternatively,they may have began life in the
Milky-Way as atomic nuclei expelled by ancient starbursts.
Where Did Saturn's Rings Come From?
Stretching over 73,000 kilometres the rings around Saturn have been the source of
disagreement for decades.One theory states the matter circling the planet is the debris of a moon
which could have collided with an object or been torn apart by the planet's tidal stresses.
However others believe that the rings are constantly being replenished. This is supported by the
discovery that one of the rings, known as the E-Ring is frequently refreshed by material spewed
out by cryovolcanoes on a nearby moon.
Where did galaxies come from?
There are two theories as to how the galaxies began.One suggests that stars and planets
formed individually, before gravitating into groups to form galaxies.And the other states that
huge areas of gas and dust condensed into galaxies, before fragmenting into smaller groups
which eventually became separate galaxies, including our Milky Way.Though telescopes show
us the early days of the universe, in order to answer this mysterywe would need an instrument
able to capture the universe just 1 hundred million years into being.

NEW DISCOVERIES and NEW TELESCOPE TECHNOLOGY

How did we get here?6
In order to understand how the universe has changed from its initial simple state following
the Big Bang (only cooling elementary particles like protons and electrons) into the magnificent
universe we see as we look at the night sky, we must understand how stars, galaxies and planets
are formed.
We now know that our universe has a "foamy" structure. The galaxies and clusters of
galaxies that make up the visible universe are concentrated in a complex scaffold that surrounds
a network of enormous cosmic voids. However, in addition to the "normal" matter that makes up
the visible parts of the universe, scientists have discovered that there are vast amounts of unseen
matter. This so-called, "dark matter" makes up roughly 27% of the matter-energy content of the
universe, while the visible pieces account for only about 5% of the total. Clearly, if we hope to
understand the structure of the universe and the processes by which it formed and evolves, we
must first understand the distribution of this important but unseen dark matter and the ways in
which it interacts with and influences normal matter.
Though astronomers have been studying stars for thousands of years, it is only in the past 35
or so years that they have been able to employ instruments that detect light across the entire
electromagnetic spectrumfrom radio waves to gamma raysto peer into the dusty clouds where
stars are born in our own Galaxy. If we are to comprehend how the universe makes starsand
planets that orbit them todaywe must continue these studies with ever more powerful
telescopes.
God Particle' Higgs Boson
In 2012, scientists confirmed the detection of the long-sought Higgs boson, also known by
its nickname the "God particle," at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle
accelerator on the planet.
The recently discovered Higgs boson, which helps give particles their mass, could have
destroyed the cosmos shortly after it was born, causing the universe to collapse just after the Big
Bang. But gravity, the force that keeps planets and stars together, might have kept this from
happening, scientists say.
Latest Secrets of Mars
These days ,in theirs search for life in the universe NASA confirms evidence that liquid
water flows on todays Mars.New findings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day
Mars.Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated
minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks
appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during
warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when
temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder
times.
Our quest on Mars has been to follow the water, in our search for life in the universe, and
now we have convincing science that validates what weve long suspected, said John Grunsfeld,

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics

10

astronaut and associate administrator of NASAs Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water is flowing today on the
surface of Mars7
NASAs Space Telescopes
The Hubble Space Telescope is a large telescope in space NASA launched Hubble in 1990.
Hubble is as long as a large school bus. It weighs as much as two adult elephants. Hubble travels
around Earth at about 5 miles per second. That is as fast as driving a car from the East Coast of
the United States to the West Coast in 10 minutes.
Hubble faces toward space. It takes pictures of planets, stars and galaxies. Hubble has seen
stars being born. Hubble has seen stars die. It has seen galaxies that are trillions of miles away.
Hubble also has seen comet pieces crash into the gases above Jupiter.
Scientists have learned a lot about space from Hubble pictures. The pictures are beautiful to
look at too.Hubble has helped scientists learn about our solar system. The telescope observes
comets and planets. Hubble even discovered moons around Pluto that had not been seen before.
The telescope has helped scientists understand how planets and galaxies form. Galaxies contain
billions of stars. A picture called "Hubble Ultra Deep Field" shows some of the farthest galaxies
ever seen. Pictures from Hubble help scientists learn more about the whole universe. Because of
Hubble pictures, scientists think the universe is almost 14 billion years old.
Hubble has spotted black holes. Black holes suck in everything around them. They even suck
in light. And Hubble has helped scientists learn more about explosions that happen when huge
stars burn out.
In 2009, astronauts flew to Hubble on the space shuttle. This was the fifth time astronauts
went to Hubble. They went to fix parts. They also put new parts and cameras in the telescope. So
it is working very well. Hubble will not be fixed again.. In 2015, Hubble turned 25 years old.It
still takes beautiful pictures of objects in space
Today NASA is building another space telescope. It is called the James Webb Space
Telescope. It will be bigger than Hubble. Webb will not orbit Earth as Hubble does. Webb will
orbit the sun in a spot on the other side of the moon. The Webb telescope will be able to see a
different kind of light than the light Hubble sees. Webb will help NASA see even more of the
universe

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release

11

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

In the last few years our ideas about the true nature of space and time have been going
through some changes and things that used to seem like science fiction are looking not so farfetched.
Understanding the universe's birth and its ultimate fate are essential first steps to unveil the
mechanisms of how it works. This, in turn, requires knowledge of its history, which started with
the Big Bang. Fourteen (14) billion years ago the universe expanded from a single point in an act
of creation dubbed "The Big Bang". The resulting cloud of hydrogen and helium came together
to form the first stars. In the nuclear fusion of those stars heavier elements such as oxygen &
carbon were created. When those huge stars died in massive supernova explosions they seeded
the universe with the new elements before collapsing in upon themselves to form the first black
holes. Those black holes merged to become the cores of new galaxies. Smaller stars then formed
with planets and moons. In the waters of the earth the new elements came together to form the
first living cell. That first cell replicated. Those cells then came together into multicellular
organisms. The human form and the modern animal kingdom were then molded out of those
organisms in a gradual process over billions of years. Around 50,000 years ago two of these new
creatures awoke with the power of conceptual thought and gave birth to the human race.
Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories showed that the
universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, implying that some day - in the very distant
future - anyone looking at the night sky would see only our Galaxy and its stars The expansion
of the universe is accelerating due to "dark energy". Dark energy is an invisible, non-measurable
force known only by its direct effect on the physical world. It is increasing in strength and will
eventually be all that remains after the universe is destroyed in the "Big Rip".We mention
that,Science has outlined four ways that our universe could meet its doom. They're called the
Big Freeze, the Big Crunch, the Big Change and the Big Rip.

12

BIBLIOGRAPHY & RESOURCES

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (2004) by Brian
Randolph Greene;

A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen Hawking;

A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence Maxwell Krauss;

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum;

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/;

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/solarsystem

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release

http://www.bbc.com

https://www.ted.com/speakers/brian_greene;

http://www.astronomia.go.ro/stiri.html;

http://www.scientia.ro;

http://www.descopera.org/;

http://teostie.ro/stiinta/7-mistere-neelucidate-de-stiinta;

13