Baby Universe

From Big Bang to Big

Crunch!

Author
Mr. Scientific
In the loving memory of my father,
Rajendra Singh

II
 Introduction

For thousands of years, humans have been looking up at the

sky and wondering about their place in the universe. In the
search for answers, we have undertaken many ventures and
even created our personal gods. This book might not answer
how big the universe is, but it will reveal how small we are.
The boundary of the universe is that there is no boundary; the
limit is that there is no finite limit to what we can learn and
explore. Infinity ends nowhere, and the universe becomes more
comprehensive the deeper we look into it. Our understanding
of the universe has gone through a continuous state of variation
since the time of Aristotle. From our research and scientific
advancements, we understand that human knowledge about
the universe is restricted to our own endeavours. Cosmology
might have given us a rough idea regarding our place in the
universe, but it displays a clear picture of our usefulness in the
universe.
All of us are nothing but miniscule observers. We have just
started our journey, trying to understand the complex language
of the universe. The future of this universe was written around
13.8 billion years ago when something exploded and directed
the creation of everything. Today we know a lot more things
about the universe; we have done more research in outer space
then what we have undertaken in the deep seas. We do not
know what lies at the bottom of Earth’s oceans, but we do have
a rough picture describing the beauty of the universe. Over the
last century, none of us have expected the universe to be so vast,

III
gigantic, beautiful, and mysterious. Today we can see a universe
which is at least 93 billion light-years across in diameter.
Modern humans first walked on Earth about 200,000 years
ago. 200,000 is a minimal period. If we were to draw a cosmic
time scale, our entire history would be nothing but a tiny dot.
When we opened our eyes and looked up, the universe had
already gone through most of its transitions, and we would
never be able to see or understand a few of them. Does the
universe have a purpose? What is the origin of intelligence?
Are we alone? What is the meaning of human consciousness?
What is the fate of our universe? Such questions remind us
that when it comes to the universe, the most straightforward
questions are often the most complex ones. We are still on the
hunt for solutions that could describe our questions, let alone
finding their answers.
There is a long list of cosmic lovers who devoted their entire
life trying to unlock the mysteries of the universe. Sir Isaac
Newton helped shape our very first clear picture of the universe.
With his discovery of gravitation, we were able to understand
the physical interactions taking place around us, such as the
workings of our solar system and why the moon does not fall to
the Earth. However, a lot of unanswered questions remained.
That is where our role model, Albert Einstein came in. Einstein
successfully polished our view with his Theory of Relativity,
and even a century later, we continue to use his work.
Cosmology is the oldest branch of all known natural sciences.
It is not just the study of planets, stars, galaxies and the cosmic
background, it is an effort that could finally lead us towards
the origin. For me and many others, cosmology is not a study

IV
at all; it is a lift to the human aspirations and willingness to
know more about ourselves. The study of the deep universe is
the study of our universe’s past. Aliens (if any) living 65 million
light-years away looking at Earth would see dinosaurs ruling
the planet. To understand the outer universe, we created the
Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Telescope, etc., whereas
to understand the inner universe, we created giant machines
like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Today’s advancements
in physics, biology, math, and other areas aim to provide us a
quality life and prepare us for what will prove to be humanity’s
most significant battle, i.e., preserving the very spark of life in
this universe.
Since the beginning, we have had a great interest in the night
sky, and with the invention of the telescope, our willingness
acquired wings because now we were able to look deeper into
the heavens beyond the dark. The earliest telescopes were the
refracting telescopes that originated in 1608 in the Netherlands.
Telescopes have rapidly revolutionized our knowledge of the
universe, which in turn has changed human history drastically.
The Big Bang explosion was the beginning of fundamental
pillars that will support life after billions of years. Life grew in
the lap of the universe; today, we are sure about the presence of
life on at least one planet, i.e., Earth. However, in the coming
future, we can hope to uncover life at many more planets, not
in the form of a little green man with big eyes and a small
mouth but in terms of the type of civilization similar to ours.
This book provides an extensive description of the wonders
of the cosmos in a simple language. You will learn about the
beauty of endless darkness and the questions that have arisen
from our own answers. We will go back in time when the

V
universe was also a small baby. We will explore the beauty of
the early and present universe and also the future it may have.
In simple words, the beauty of the universe is hidden in our
thoughts. Human history is full of wonders because we created
the meaning(s) to our existence. We have created heavens for
ourselves, but we have also created hell. Our journey is not
consistent. It is our destiny to give sensible meaning to our
lives and leave behind a better world for our descendants. That
is something that inspired me to write this book, and kept me
motivated during the long, painful journey.
I am sure this book will make you fall in love with the universe!

VI
 Timeline of History

Event Number of Years Ago

13.8 billion
The Big Bang

13.8 billion (380,000 years after

Formation of Early Atoms
the Big Bang)

Early Stars and Galaxies 13.6 billion

Formation of Sun 4.6 billion

Formation of Earth 4.54 billion

Formation of Moon 4.51 billion

Oldest Rocks Found 4 billion

Beginning of Life 3.5 billion

Oxygenation of Atmosphere 2.4 billion

Complex Cells 2 billion

First Multicellular Life 800 million

VII
Life Moved from Ocean to
530 million
Land

First Vertebrates (Creatures

525 million
with Backbone)

Fish 500 million

First Land Plants 450 million

Insects and Seeds 400 million

Reptiles 300 million

First Dinosaurs 230 million

Mammals 200 million

Early Flowers 130 million

First Mammals 225 million

Death of Dinosaurs (Giant

65 million
Impact)

Primates 60 million

First Apes 15 million

VIII
First Human-Like Creatures 4 million

Primitive Humans 2.5 million

Use of Stone Tools 2.5 million

Domestication of Fire 400,000

Modern Humans (Homo-

200,000
Sapiens)

End of the Ice Age 12,000

Development of Agriculture 10,000

Development of Wheels 6,500

Iron Age 3,000

Invention of Telescope 400

Moon Landing 51

First Black Hole Image 1

Today 0

IX
 Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III

Timeline of History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII

Part I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Origin of the Universe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Before Big Bang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

The Big Bang. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Space and Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Universal Forces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Story of Light. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Time-Travel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Multiverse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

After the Big Bang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Matter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Dark Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Dark Energy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Early Stars and Galaxies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

X
Supernova. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Black Holes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Our Solar System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Part III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Our Planet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Earth’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

The Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Our Evolving World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Types of Civilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

End of Life on Earth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Part IV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Death of the Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Big Freeze. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Big Rip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Big Crunch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Timeline of the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Who is God?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Does the Universe have a purpose?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

XI
Newton’s World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Einstein’s Relativity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

The Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

XII
XIII
 PA RT I

The Origin of the Universe

1
 Before Big Bang

A
bout 13.8 billion years ago, our entire universe existed
in a tiny singularity. After the Big Bang explosion
occurred, space and time came into existence. So,
when we ask ourselves ‘what existed before the Big Bang?’,
we are asking the wrong question because there was no time
before the Big Bang. The terms before and after are bound by
the strict laws of time. Time itself was T=0 at the instance of
explosion and started counting as the explosion occurred. So,
we must be more precise and vigilant when we ask ourselves
these questions.

Our human brain is designed in a way that makes it hard

for us to imagine what existed before the Big Bang. We have
become very used to 3-dimensional space and time that our
collective intelligence cannot comprehend anything beyond
that. Mathematics can help us make four-dimensional and

2
 BEFORE BIG BANG

above structures, but it is almost impossible for a human brain

to grasp it. Maybe we are all wrong; maybe the god said, let
there be light, and there was light. Only time can answer these
questions.
Hawking-Hartle Model

The Hawking-Hartle Model was named after James Hartle

and Stephen Hawking’s explanations of the early universe.
Hawking-Hartle model shows that it is possible to create a
model of the universe in which questioning what happened
before the Big Bang is the same as asking “where is the north
of the north pole?”
This model comes with the mathematical beauty, where time
can be stopped. Once you go before the Big Bang, time does
not exist, and the universe we know becomes pointless in the
absence of time. The absence of time before the Big Bang shows
that time is one of the properties of the universe. However,
there is a lot we need to learn about its original nature. Our
understanding of time is limited to the way we measure it using
our clocks. The universe itself is bound to follow the strict laws
of time. Since the universe has a finite age of 13.8 billion years,
we can only see finite distances and vice versa.
The Big Bang model describes how our universe came into
existence, but it could not describe the region of space beyond
our horizon. It could not describe the last dark, the darkness
beyond our observable universe. In our understanding, there
are three possibilities of what could be beyond our observable
universe.
1. The first possibility is that space-time is different out

3
 BABY UNIVERSE

there. The laws of mathematics that we know in this

universe do not work there. The darkness beyond our
observable universe has its own set of rules. It would be
exciting to see if this is true, because all of our current
laws come from the understanding of this universe.
2. The second possibility is that our own 3-dimensional
space is currently expanding into a much bigger fabric of
space-time. This idea comes from the understanding of
the expanding nature of the universe, and if the universe
is expanding (which it is), then it must be expanding
into something bigger. If that is not the case, and space
is creating more and more of itself every second, making
us feel like we are going through expansion would put to
rest all those questions.
3. The next possibility is that if we want to see what lies
beyond our observable universe, we might have to open
new dimensions. This universe is limited to three physical
dimensions and one dimension of time. We might have
to step out of these limited dimensions and see ourselves
from higher dimensions. That way we would be able to
see if we are expanding into something bigger, or if the
space is just creating more of itself.
Today we have different theories answering the same question.
Scientists speak differently in their own language about the
origin of the universe. When it comes to religion, it speaks a
different language that blows my mind. Most of cosmology
addresses what happened after the creation of the universe, and
only a few of them explain the origin, like Big Bang Theory.
Today the most accepted and influential theory explaining the

4
 BEFORE BIG BANG

origin of the universe is Big Bang Theory. If you have a theory

describing the origin of the universe, it must fit hundreds of
observations and theoretical explanations, and only this theory
has been able to do it so far.
Before we talk about the Big Bang theory and the origin of
the universe, we must talk about some of the early rivals of the
Big Bang Theory. These theories not only challenge the Big
Bang theory, but also provide us with a different perspective of
the universe. Even though there are a large number of theories
explaining the origin of the universe, we will only look at three
of them.
STEADY STATE THEORY

One of the early rivals of the Big Bang Theory, Steady-State

Theory was first put forward by Sir James Jeans in the 1920s
and further revised in 1948 by Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold,
and Fred Hoyle. This theory points out that the universe looks
the same no matter where your point of observation is. All the
different laws of physics and the variations occurring at the
different places are likely to be the same. This theory produces
a map of the universe, which is infinite, with no beginning or
end, and does not change with time.
Steady-State Theory talks about the continuous creation of
matter throughout the universe where there was no beginning,
and there will be no probable fate of the universe. The reason
why the universe goes through a continuous expansion is that
it continuously creates new matter by itself. However, since the
universe is expanding, its overall density remains the same.
This theory gave an initial picture to the expanding universe

5
 BABY UNIVERSE

by pointing out that matter is being created proportionate to

the expansion. As a result, the overall density always remains
the same, which is quite different from the observations. This
theory was popular in the 1950s, but today, it is not accepted
by most scientists as what we have found since then is entirely
different from predictions made by this work. Evidence found
since the mid of 1960 indicates that this theory is incorrect,
and our universe is predicted to have a finite age.
This theory also has no explanation for the Cosmic Microwave
Background Radiations, which maps out the entire cosmos. As
we look deeper into the universe, it shows that the universe is
not the same as it was a few billion years ago, which is quite
the opposite of the arguments made in Steady State Theory.
Further evolution in cosmology and the discovery of Cosmic
Microwave Radiation ultimately ruled out the steady-state
models.

6
 BEFORE BIG BANG

ETERNAL INFLATION THEORY

Eternal inflation is a hypothetical inflationary model of the

universe. It is more like an extension of what the Big Bang
theory states. Eternal Inflation Theory says that after the Big
Bang, the universe went through a rapid expansion for a brief
period called inflation. This theory points out that this inflation
did not stop and that it never will. This inflation will go for an
infinite period of time. We can observe this inflation in the
form of the expanding universe. This expansion is governed
by the forces of dark energy, which we will discuss about later.
This theory also talks about the possibilities of multiple universes
by predicting that new universes are coming into existence in a
complex model called the Multiverse. Our universe is just one
of the infinite number of universes. Those different universes
could have different physical laws and different properties,
different from our known universe. The laws of science that we
know in this universe might fail completely in those universes.
OSCILLATING UNIVERSE THEORY

Let us suppose you have a spring in your hand, and when

you stretch and release it, it oscillates. Once you release it, it
contracts, reaching a minimum amount of tension, and then
expands, which builds more tension and the process continues
for some time. This is what the oscillating model of the universe
states.
According to this theory, our universe is going through an
endless series of Big Bangs followed by Big Crunches that
restarts the same cycle once again. This theory supports the
idea of Big Bang and its occurrence, but it also points out a

7
 BABY UNIVERSE

flaw in the Big Bang model, which is that it does not allow
an endless series of universes. We will study more about Big
Crunch and other fate of our universe in the coming lessons.
Steady-State Theory is a theory of the mid-1900s that has been
ruled out by our current understanding of science. Even though
Eternal Inflation Theory and Oscillating Universe Theory still
hold their position among scientists, neither of these theories
are as successful as the Big Bang theory. Only Big Bang could
successfully explain the new discoveries made in the universe.
Let us have an inside view of Big Bang.

8
 The Big Bang

T
he story of the universe is our own story because we
are the universe. All of us are tiny portions of the
universe expressing ourselves at a much smaller scale.
Let us go back in time 13.8 billion years ago and understand
its origin with the help of the most accepted theory, ‘The Big
Bang Theory.’
About 13.8 billion years ago, everything that was going to
lead us into a future was lying somewhere in a tiny bundle
of energy. This bundle of energy is smaller than an atom and
infinitely dense. This bundle of energy is named as a point of
singularity. The energy this singularity contains is enough to
give birth to an entire universe. All the energy it is going to
give to the upcoming universe (our universe) is lying in the
same point. History is about to be written because this point
of infinite energy is not stable at all.
When this singularity acquired enough extent of randomness,
the Big Bang explosion occurred. It was the biggest of the
biggest explosions that anyone has ever witnessed in history.
This explosion occurred in a tiny fraction of time. With the
occurrence of the Big Bang, our universe’s journey had just
begun, a journey which is going to lead to you, me, and
humanity someday. Just after the Big Bang explosion, the birth
of time and space had occurred altogether. It is considered that
not just space but time itself did not exist before this explosion.

9
 BABY UNIVERSE

Time had begun with T=0, and relativity supports the same
idea. Dimensions used to have no meaning, and space was
nothing before this explosion.

Within a fraction of a second, Big Bang created all the energy

that has ever existed throughout the cosmos. All the energy
that will power the stars, the energy that will fuel the galaxies
to give birth to new stars. All the energy that we are and will
ever consume and all the energy that will work as a powerhouse
for the universe over the next billions of years was created in
just a tiny fraction of a second. The greatest thing about this
energy is that it can be converted from one form to another,
but its purity does not change. If we break matter and convert
it into energy, its purity will be the same as it was 13.8 billion
years ago.
To run your car, you are using the same energy that was created
during the Big Bang; you are using the energy of the universe
itself. Your car is made up of different materials; different
materials that originate from a different form of the same
energy released after the Bang. A car is just one of the many

10
 THE BIG BANG

examples of how humanity has recycled that condensed matter

into different forms.
In the language of the universe, we are all bundles of the same
condensed form of energy, which is what makes us all so unique
and special. The difference between us and any other piece of
other matter is not just the difference in composition. Instead,
the difference is the intelligence and the consciousness that we
have acquired in a long process that took billions of years. A
rock does not contain the intelligence of exploring itself and
the consciousness of knowing the world around itself. All of us
are, in reality, billions of years old as we are made up of a tiny
portion of the matter that was created after the Big Bang or a
tiny portion of the energy released in the Big Bang. The energy
created by this explosion moves into the known universe with
the speed of light.
Getting back to the Big Bang, this explosion was so powerful
that in a short period of time, our universe acquired a size from
smaller than an atom to bigger than a galaxy. Even at that size,
this newly born universe was much denser than what we see
today. As quickly as the universe expanded, the faster it cooled
down, today we see the temperature reach ~2.7 K. When the
idea of the Big bang first came, no one took it seriously for
a long time. However, Hubble’s discovery of the expanding
universe turned it into a serious possibility. Expansion of the
universe also tells us that if the universe is expanding today, it
was smaller and denser in the past.
Just one second after the Big Bang, the ingredients required
to make up an atom were created. In its very early age, the
universe was millions of times hotter than the core of our Sun;

11
 BABY UNIVERSE

it was too hot for those elementary particles to bind up and

form atoms. The universe was not the same as it is today, it was
denser, hotter, and was quickly filled with a uniform glow of
hot fog of hydrogen plasma.
Only the building blocks of an atom can exist at such
temperatures; the higher temperature did not allow them to
combine and form matter. If they do so, they would be ripped
apart spontaneously. The combination of those elementary
particles is the same as putting an ice cube in a furnace and
hoping to make a cold beer in the evening. As we know, ice will
be melted away first into water, then into vapours, and finally
into superheated steams.
As time passed, the universe got colder with its expansion;
the primary ingredients came together and formed electrons,
protons, and neutrons. With further expansion and cooling
down of the universe, these particles combined, forming the
very first atoms.
Why did it BANG?

We do not know yet, we may have some strong evidence that

the Big Bang explosion happened, but we are not sure as to why
it occurred. A question like what caused the instability in the
singularity, which resulted in the explosion, is still unanswered.
Today we have lots of ideas explaining what caused the Big
Bang from the singularity, but there is no way of knowing what
started this process in the first place. The only way of knowing
seems impossible, which is to go back in time 13.8 billion years
ago and observe the singularity. Even if we could travel back in
time, we would never be able to observe the singularity itself
because time and space did not exist back then.

12
 THE BIG BANG

Multiverse theory talks about it to some extent but provides no

practical evidence. The theory says that there is an infinite sea of
pure energy foam, which creates the universes like an inflating
soap bubble, each with its own different laws. Some universes
die at the very instant they are formed while others are stable
like ours. Science does not pretend to know everything, so we
can hope to discover the real cause of the Big Bang in the
future.
FOUNDATIONS OF THE BIG BANG MODEL

Big Bang is the most accepted scenario for the birth of the
universe. It is an effort to explain the birth of the universe. The
Big Bang Model of the entire universe rests on two critical
theoretical pillars.
1. General Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein
In 1916, when Einstein developed the General Theory of
Relativity, he proposed it as a new theory of gravity. He put
forward a very different picture of the universe. Newton’s
gravity is valid only for the bodies that are either in rest or
moving very slowly, and his assumptions restrict us from fully
stretching our legs. The central concept of General Relativity is
that gravity must not be described as a gravitational field, but
rather it is the distortion of space and time itself. Physicist John
Wheeler said, ‘matter tells space how to curve, and space tells
matter how to move.’ General Relativity successfully explained
the bending of light around the planets and the orbit of various
planets that were unexplained.
Albert Einstein said that matter can be converted into pure
energy, giving his most famous equation E=mc^2. This theory

13
 BABY UNIVERSE

also states that energy can also be converted into mass. After
the Big Bang explosion, a large sum of pure energy was released.
The same energy later turned into matter as the universe cooled
down. This relation between Relativity and Big Bang backs the
Big Bang model of the universe.
2. The Cosmological Principle
After the introduction of General Relativity, application of
new gravitational dynamics to the universe was a difficult task.
The distribution of the matter in the universe is a big headache
because it seems to appear the same in every direction,
indicating that the distribution is homogeneous. This is called
the Cosmological Principle. This assumption is being tested, as
we can observe the distribution of galaxies on larger scales. In
addition, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation which
gave the footprint of Big Bang, showing a temperature which
was highly uniform throughout the entire universe. Which, in
turn, tells us about the uniform distribution of gases after the
Big Bang explosion.
Evidence of the Big Bang model:

1. Hubble’s Law: Hubble’s law comes from the observation that

distant galaxies are moving away from us. The rate at which
they are moving away is directly proportional to their distance
from us. When an object moves away from us, its wavelength
appears longer, and the light is shifted towards the red end
of the spectrum. We call this phenomenon redshift. We have
observed this redshift in the spectra of distant galaxies, coming
to the conclusion that they are moving away. As predicted by
the Big Bang model, the universe has gone through a rapid
expansion after the explosion. Hubble’s law strongly supports

14
 THE BIG BANG

the Big Bang model.

2. Abundance of Lighter Elements: Big Bang model states
that after the formation of the universe the lighter elements
came into existence first as they were easy to form. Most of the
ordinary matter in the universe is made up of lighter elements
such as Hydrogen and Helium. The majority of elements in
almost all the stars, including our Sun, are Hydrogen and
Helium.
3. CMB: Cosmic microwave background is the electromagnetic
radiation left over from the early stages of the universe. This
radiation gives us a blueprint of the early universe and tells us
how the radiations were dispersed through the entire universe
after Big Bang.
No theory is perfect. Almost every theory which tells about the
beginning of the universe has its own flaws. Big Bang model
of the universe is no different, and it also has some significant
flaws, such as:
1. The Big bang model states that the universe came from a
singularity, a point of infinite mass and density. Singularity
and infinite energy densities, which are the foundations of this
theory, are mathematical concepts only.
2. The singularity that exploded was once completely stable. Big
Bang theory fails to describe what happened within singularity
which made it unstable. Physicists are still trying to understand
what the possible reason could be. If the singularity of Big
Bang can become unstable and explode, then why doesn’t the
singularity of Black Holes also become unstable and explode
in a similar manner.

15
 BABY UNIVERSE

3. As we know, the universe is going through an expansion.

Soon after the Big Bang, the rate of expansion was very rapid.
The Big Bang model fails to explain what changed the rate of
expansion of the universe.
4. Even though the Big Bang model gives a good picture of
what happened after the Big Bang. It fails to explain what
was there before the singularity. It could not explain how the
universe looked like before the explosion.
Cosmic Microwave Background

It is essential to study the Cosmic Microwave Background

because it confirms the Big Bang model of our universe. CMB
is one of the fundamental pillars on which the Big Bang theory
is based. Apart from other rival theories, Cosmic Microwave
Background (CMB) also strongly supports the Big Bang model.
CMB is the mapping of thermal radiations or the afterglow
radiations scattered over the entire universe after the Big Bang
explosion. It is also called as Cosmic Microwave Background
Radiation (CMBR). In general, the study of CMB is the study
of residual radiations left just after the Big Bang that are still
circulating in the universe.
The CMB was leftover when the universe was around 380,000
years old. It is one of the most significant discoveries we
have made in the era of space exploration to enhance our
understanding of the universe. As we know, rapidly expanding
gas cools down. It is thought that the continuous expansion
of the universe resulted in a lower temperature; it became low
enough to form atoms instead of breaking them apart.
That is something that led the transition from a foggy universe

16
 THE BIG BANG

to a transparent one. CMB gave a perfect picture of the universe

when the temperature dropped enough to allow electrons
and protons to form hydrogen atoms. When these elements
combined in the form of hydrogen atoms, photons and other
radiations were emitted. Today we refer to them as CMB. This
era, when the universe took its early shape, is popularly known
as the Recombination Era.
The CMB radiations are the earliest radiations that we could
detect with the help of our instruments. No matter which
direction we point our telescope, CMB radiations can be
detected everywhere. which also gives us a rough picture of the
early universe. We cannot measure or see these background
radiations with the naked eye because of our limited vision.
The discovery of CMB is considered as a landmark test of
the Big Bang model. In the late 1940s, Alpher and Herman
predicted CMB; it took another 15 years for Penzias and
Wilson to prove the existence of these background radiations.
They stated that if the Big Bang theory is correct, there must
be the background radiation leftover from the recombination
period that we are unable to find. When we figured out the
CMB radiations, it boosted the picture of the Big Bang theory.
That is the moment when the early rival to Big Bang theory,
i.e., the Steady State Theory, put down all its weapons as it
could not explain the CMB. In 1964, CMB was put forward
by these American radio astronomers. They earned the 1978
Nobel Prize for this ground-breaking discovery.
In short, CMB is the residual heat of creation itself that dates
back to about 13.8 billion years. We measured the current
average temperature of the universe to be about 2.725 K, which

17
 BABY UNIVERSE

is the temperature of CMB. However, in the beginning, this

temperature was trillions of degrees. On Earth, we search for
the fossils to explain how Earth might have looked like millions
of years ago, while in space, we search for these radiations with
the same aim. CMB helps us to understand the shape, size, and
geometry of the universe.
The spots on the map correspond to the photon energies
released in the recombination period. High energy areas
are blue while the low energy areas are red, similar to how
the hottest region of a burning candle is the blue region. In
contrast, the coldest and least energetic part is red. Amazingly,
it has been found that the red spots (cold regions) are denser
than the blue ones.
As it takes a long time for the photons to become free from
the Sun’s gravitational shackles, in a similar way, more gas
clouds and space dust was crushed, which would not allow the
radiation to reach us while the blue part is the less dense region.
For the coldest temperature, the density is maximum and vice
versa. When the CMB graph was plotted for the Milky Way
galaxy, it gave a long red line along its centre.

Source: NASA

18
 Space and Time

S
pace and time used to be two very different concepts in
Newtonian physics. Newtonian mechanics state that the
distance of a star from two observers could be different,
but time will always be the same. Einstein said that there is no
such thing as individual/personal time with the same value in
all the frames. It variates with the frame of the observer. To
define these active players, i.e., space and time, he used the
word ‘space-time.’
In a clear night sky, we see the moon, the twinkling stars
several light-years away. For me, in my childhood, asteroids
getting into the Earth’s environment used to be the broken
stars moving here and there. Space is a place holding all these
things, and time is equally governing them in a direction. In
simple words, space allows things to exist, whereas time allows
things to happen. You can move in space and then return to
your initial position, but it does not work with time.
What is Space-Time?

Mathematically we represent the space in the form of a three-

dimensional coordinate system over the plane of the paper.
Generally, we call them the x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis. If you are
sitting in a room, you can observe them by taking a corner as
the origin and the three corresponding planes as the three axes.
Time is not something different, but if you are looking for its

19
 BABY UNIVERSE

physical measurements like matter, there aren’t any. Generally,

space is defined based on a 3-D system where objects are
relative w.r.t each other. Combining the above four dimensions,
we get the space-time, which constitutes the entire universe.
In simple words, space is a place. Space does not change its
properties while expanding. There is just more and more of
it and this formation goes on continuously everywhere, even
though we do not feel this expansion in our daily life. If there is
space, more is forming each second. One theory suggests that
the universe itself is Dark Energy; it generates itself everywhere
as it is. Another theory says the universe consists of particles
that form and destroy each other. The energy of these particles
is Dark Energy enabling a space around us.
Take two points and fill the gap between them; it is 1-D space.
Similarly, four distinct lines (a square) results in the 2-D space
that will look like a plain sheet of paper. Six squares put together
making a cube is 3-D and so on. 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D are as
different as a line, a painting, and a sculpture. Adding up the
dimension means adding up the freedoms. All the freedoms
in 2-D space are available in 3-D but not vice-versa. In short,
both space and time are the mental constructs designed to
take mathematical shortcuts to describe the beauty and the
behaviour of the universe!
Arrow of Time

Earlier space was the only term used to specify the dynamic
universe. As our understanding evolved, one more term called
time was added. Now the universe was static in space and time,
and both Galileo and Newton agreed to that. Later, relativity
played a central role in providing a picture of a relativistic

20
 SPACE AND TIME

universe. When we observed the nature of the universe, we

found that there must be a parameter that can define the value
of time. We discovered the basic unit of time as “second” (in
S.I.). Today one second is well known as the time taken for
9192631770 (~9 billion) oscillations of Cesium-133 atoms.
Taking all this information into account, the motion of all
1-D, 2-D, and 3-D objects can be measured.
Time is something that leads us towards the very next
moment after every present moment; on that basis, we can
distinguish between past and future and also experience the
present. In terms of events, time is something indefinite, an
infinite continuous process of similar events occurring in an
irreversible pattern, leading us from past to present towards
the future. If you are sitting on a photon, you will experience
a near-zero time interval between the instant it started from
the surface of the Sun to when it reached Earth, the time lag is
zero in your frame, but we measure it to be 8 min and 20 secs
from our frame.
The events once occurred means they will never return. Once an
egg is broken, it is broken; once a system has acquired entropy,
the entropy will only increase (the past is always fixed). The
only evidence that time flows and is flowing forward is that
it feels like it is. Various physicists believe that ‘time’ is only
a human construct. Today we have created clocks to measure
this fundamental quantity accurately. Earlier time used to be
measured by marking the position and movements of the Sun
in the sky. This process is the same, stand straight under the
light of the Sun and observe your own shadow, if the shadow
is formed over your foot, it means half of the day has passed,
and it is noon. After the discovery of clocks, it was no longer

21
 BABY UNIVERSE

measured as it used to be. Also, this technique fails during

most winters, and when the Sun is hidden behind the clouds.
The concept of ‘Arrow of Time’ was first given by Arthur
Eddington in 1927. He predicted the one-way direction
of time. According to Eddington, the one-way direction of
time can be determined by studying the constituents (atoms,
molecules, etc.) of matter. Time appears to have a direction
in which the past stays behind, the future stays ahead, and
the present stays with us, this is the Arrow of Time. We have
various basic parameters which clearly defines the time’s arrow
in their manner; some of them are:
1. Firstly, we have the Thermodynamic Arrow of Time. It
rests over the second Law of thermodynamics. It defines
the direction of time as one in which entropy increases in an
isolated system. The change in entropy can be taken as the
primary parameter to distinguish the past and the future. Since
the beginning of the universe, entropy has been continuously
increasing. Based upon the increase in entropy, we can judge
the age of the universe.
2. Another parameter we have is the Psychological Arrow
of Time. As described earlier, it is somewhere related to our
consciousness and mental constructs. Psychological arrow of
time is how we perceive time in our daily lives. It allows us to
know the past, but not the future.
3. The next we have is the Universal/Cosmological Arrow of
Time. It defines the direction to be one in which the universe
is going through the process of continuous expansion. It is
thought that the arrow of time is headed towards the expansion
of the universe. Some scientists predict that after a specific

22
 SPACE AND TIME

interval of time, the arrow of time will reverse its direction

and when it happens, the expansion will also reverse itself. The
universe will end as a singularity.
What if there is no time?

Every present moment we are getting into the next moment

that we call the future. That is how we generally experience
time. The absence of time would be like the absence of fuel in
your car because it cannot move without it. In the absence of
time, everything in the universe along with the universe itself
will get stuck within a single moment. We will get stuck in our
present moment, but we will not realize it, much like the flow
of the river, causing the boats to sail will make them get stuck
at a single place. In the absence of time, we will not be able to
differentiate between the past, present, and future.
Our intelligence, which allows us to understand the universe by
observing the present after every past moment with the help of
memory, will become worthless. However, the 3-dimensional
shape of the universe would remain the same. Suppose you
have created a universe having intelligent species like us. You
opt to stop the flow of time for an hour and upon restarting
it again, the species in the universe will not even realize that
they were stuck within a single moment for the last hour. This
simple thought experiment raises the question if that is already
happening within this universe. If our universe delays with
time; we may or will never know.

23
 Universal Forces

P
hysicists revolutionized human history in terms of
what forces they have discovered. History gives us total
evidence that whenever physicists discovered a new
force, human history has changed drastically. Science has made
more advancements in the last 50 years than any other period
in our scientific journey. There are various ground-breaking
theories and well-known scientists who revolutionized the
world. In just the last 20 years, we have done things that could
not even be imagined in the last century.
Since the discovery of gravity by Sir Isaac Newton and
electromagnetism by Michael Faraday, it was believed that
there are only two fundamental forces of nature. In the 21st
century, we are aware of two more fundamental forces called
nuclear forces, i.e., the strong nuclear force and the weak
nuclear force. This makes up a total of four fundamental forces
of nature so far. All these forces lie at different ranges, with
different properties, but one thing common among them is
that they all originate by the same matter that we are made up
of. Every force acts differently under different circumstances
but has a common root, i.e., matter.
Unification of Universal Forces

Today physicists are trying to unify all these four fundamental

forces of nature. What unification of forces means is that

24
 UNIVERSAL FORCES

there must be a single equation and a single concept that

could express all these forces’ beauty without any exception.
Earlier, Faraday and Maxwell showed us that electricity and
magnetism are the two aspects of the same thing, and they
named it electromagnetism. By the unification of electricity
and magnetism, we got a better understanding of their
effects and applications to the physical world. If we know the
fundamentals, unification could be the next step in getting
some valuable physical outputs.
Origin of Fundamental Forces?

Answer to the origin of all the fundamental forces lies within

the first three minutes of Big bang. If we could go back and
see the era of the combination of the universe, we might
get our answers quickly. Fundamental forces are not just
a property. They are derived by some means. To understand
the fundamentals of fundamental forces, we must turn to the
microscopic level and try to understand the initial picture of
our universe.
Gravitation

Gravitation is the weakest force of nature, having an infinite

range. Suppose you and your friend are standing at the opposite
corners of the universe, both of you would still be attracting
each other with the gravitational force, but its strength would
be near to zero. One of the primary and essential qualities of
gravitation is that it is always attractive.
While thinking about gravity, you might ask yourself what the
cause of this force is. Well, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein
described this force in their own language. Isaac Newton said

25
 BABY UNIVERSE

that objects experience gravity because they have mass. Later,

Albert Einstein made considerable contributions in this matter,
giving a better understanding of this force through relativity.
The idea that the mass of bigger planets distorts the fabric of
space-time and gravitation is just the result of this distortion
changed our understanding forever.
It is also thought that matter has some undiscovered elementary
particles called gravitons. Gravitons act as the gravitational
force carriers and are the reason for the existence of this force.
However, this idea is not widely accepted because gravitons are
yet to be discovered.
Gravitational force not only pushes us towards the surface of
the Earth but also helps to bind the solar system together. It is
the force that is holding all the galaxies together for billions of
years. Since gravity has insufficient strength, the dark energy
overpowers this force, resulting in the universe’s expansion.
Every particle in the universe experiences this force, and every
body attracts every other body with this force. As Newton said,
the force between two bodies is proportional to their mass
and inversely proportional to the square of the actual distance
between them.

26
 UNIVERSAL FORCES

Electromagnetism

Electromagnetic force has lightened up our entire world since

its discovery. When humans discovered electromagnetism, the
era of electronic appliances and wonders exploded. All the
electronic gadgets that we have in our home, such as laptops,
personal computers, lights, T.V., etc. are nothing but by-
products of this force. The electric and computer revolution
would be impossible without the discovery of this force.
Electromagnetism is not just one single force. It is a force of
electricity and magnetism working together. It is the second
strongest natural force with an infinite range. The electrostatic
force is a force acting between two electric charges at rest,
whereas the force acting between two magnetic poles is called
the magnetic force. The electrostatic forces and magnetic forces
are closely related to each other. In simple words, electrostatic
and magnetic forces are inseparable and considered the two
different faces of one general force known as Electromagnetic
force.
With the discovery of strong and weak nuclear forces, our
learning about the matter enhanced very rapidly. We have
discovered these two new forces in the last century. With
the discovery of these forces, our grasp upon the atoms got
stronger and we can now utilize nuclear power, the power of
atoms. We can use the energy of matter itself. Atomic bombs,
nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors are the by-product of these
two forces. Both forces are very short in their range.

27
 BABY UNIVERSE

Strong Nuclear Force

Strong nuclear force holds the nuclei together; it holds the

atoms together. In simple words, a strong nuclear force is
responsible for holding all the ordinary matter in the universe.
The strong nuclear force is the most potent force of nature,
but it is also the shortest in range. Strong forces are carried by
the particles called gluons. Whenever there is an interaction
between two particles with strong force, they are exchanging
gluons between them. It is the gluons that bind protons and
neutrons together inside the nucleus of an atom.
It is impossible to detect this force directly as it works on a
tiny scale. To detect a strong nuclear force, we need an atom
smasher. As an atom smasher smashes the particles together,
it breaks them apart into their constituents. Once a particle is
broken, we can study the trail it left behind and understand
what it is made of.

28
 UNIVERSAL FORCES

Weak Nuclear Force

The weak nuclear force appears only between the elementary

particles involved in a nuclear decay process such as beta-
decay of a nucleus. In beta-decay, a beta particle (an energetic
positron or electron) is emitted from an atomic nucleus. The
weak nuclear force is short in range with a much weaker
relative strength that makes nuclear decay possible. This force
is not responsible for holding the nucleus together. The weak
nuclear force is instead responsible for the radioactive decay of
atoms.
Weak nuclear force plays an essential role in nuclear fission.
One example of a radioactive decay is Uranium. In the nuclear

29
 BABY UNIVERSE

power plants, Uranium is used as a fuel to produce electricity.

Inside the nuclear power plants specifically, neutrons collide
with the uranium atoms, splitting them. This fission of the
uranium atoms releases a lot of energy that heats water. This
hot water produces steam, and the pressurized steam is then
used to spin turbines. The turbines are connected to generators
which produce electricity.

30
 Story of Light

T
he best way to eliminate any kind of fear is to
understand the reality of the situation. During my
childhood, I was afraid of going into dark places.
From an evolutionary point of view, it is natural for us humans
to be afraid of the dark, but science helped me understand that
darkness is nothing but the absence of photons. I am no longer
afraid of darkness.
Before we discuss the story of how the speed of light was
calculated, we need to understand what light is. Light is a form
of energy or electromagnetic radiation carried by photons that
can move around in space at a very high speed. Visible light is
a small portion of the spectrum of light that enables us to see
objects in their various colours depending upon their unique
wavelength. The wavelength of visible light varies from 400
nm (violet) to 700 nm (red).
We have a star as our primary source of energy and light that
we call as the Sun. The presence of light has transformed our
universe into an observable one. In the absence of light, we
would not be able to do most of our space-related experiments,
and most of our gadgets, including telescopes, will become
useless. Our understanding of the nature and speed of light has
also gone through a continuous state of variations. During the
17th and 18th century most of the scientists used to believe

31
 BABY UNIVERSE

that light has an infinite speed, whereas some believed that it

must be limited, and speed of light was a significant part of the
discussion among scientists.
Newton predicted that the speed of light could be changed,
and it is variable concerning the frame of reference. Which
means if you had a torch and you were running in the direction
of an object with a velocity ‘v.’ The speed of light for that would
be c+v and vice versa. However, the man of the century, Albert
Einstein, strongly predicted that the speed of light is invariant
and independent of the frame of different observers. C+v and
c-v were the wrong assumption. It is always c no matter what
frame you are in. An object cannot outpace the speed of light
even if you continue to apply force. Any frame moving with
speed faster than light will sound the same as a cat dying before
it’s birth; you going through all the pages of this book before
even opening it. As soon as a frame reaches the speed of light,
it contracts down to zero length.
Actual speed of light

Prior to the late 17th century, it was thought that the speed of
light is either infinite or cannot be measured with the help of
current instruments. In 1676, astronomer Olaus Roemer was
the first person who did some of the first measurements of
the speed of light, observing the motion of Io, one of Jupiter’s
moons. During his observation, he found that I0 is not at the
position where it should be.
Roemer thought if the speed of light is infinite, then the
positions of Jupiter’s moons must conform to what he predicted
with 100% accuracy, but this was not the case. This idea made
him conclude that the speed of light is not infinite, and it takes

32
 STORY OF LIGHT

some time to reach us from any object. He tested the same idea
by measuring the time interval of eclipses when Jupiter was
close to and far away from Earth. By knowing the predicted
position, the actual position and the distance of Io from Earth,
Roemer calculated that the speed of light is 214,000 km/sec.
It is a little closer to what we have calculated today. After
Roemer, many scientists came forward and calculated the
different speeds of light by their own different methods.
In 1726, James Bradley measured it to be 301,000 km/sec by
using the method of Stellar Aberration. To understand stellar
aberration, let us use the example of falling rain. Suppose you
are standing still in the rain with no winds, the droplets will
fall vertically and hit directly on your head. However, if you
start running, the rain will hit you on the front at a specific
angle, depending upon your running speed.
As we know, Earth is revolving around the Sun, so the position
of distant stars must change slightly due to its yearly motion.
Knowing the speed of Earth around the Sun, Bradley measured
this angle for starlight and found the value for the speed of
light to be 301,000 km/s.

33
 BABY UNIVERSE

In 1849, Armand Fizeau measured it to be 315,000 km/sec by

using the method of the Toothed Wheel. Fizeau used a beam
splitter and focused the beam of light onto a plane where a
spinning toothed wheel was located. Light passing through
the toothed wheel was projected to a mirror located 5 miles
away. The endpoint beam of light was then reflected back to
the point of origin. Fizeau then kept increasing the rotating
wheel’s speed until the returning light from 5 miles away was
entirely blocked by the tooth of the wheel. Knowing the speed
of the wheel and the distance light has travelled back and forth,
Fizeau measured the speed of light to be 315,000 km/sec.

34
 STORY OF LIGHT

In 1862, Leon Foucault measured it to be 298,000 ±500 km/

sec, by using the method of Rotating Mirror. Leon Foucault
made one of the most accurate measurements for the speed
of light in his time. His experiment consists of two mirrors,
one fixed mirror while the other one was rotating. The basic
technique here is to send a sharp beam of light on a path so
that it bounces between a rotating mirror, a fixed mirror, and
right back to the rotating mirror for a total distance of 2D,
as shown in the illustration. As light travels the 2D distance
and comes back, the rotating mirror will have turned very
slightly in angle. This small rotation in the mirror deflected the
beam of light through a small angle θ from its original path,
producing a measurable effect. Using this idea, Foucault was
able to calculate the speed of light to 298,000 ±500 km/sec,
which is very close to what we know today

35
 BABY UNIVERSE

In 1879 and 1926, Albert Michelson measured it to be approx.

299,910 ±50 km/sec and 299,796 ±4 km/sec, by using the
above method of Rotating Mirror.
In 1958, K.D. Froome measured it to be 299,792.5 ±0.1 km/
sec, using the Radio Interferometer method. Interferometry
can also be used to measure the wavelength of electromagnetic
radiation, which can be very useful when trying to determine
the speed of light. At that time, laser technology was not
invented, so other coherent radio sources of light were used by
Froome to measure the speed of light.
In 1973, Evanson Et Al measured it to be 299,792.4574
±0.001 km/sec by using Lasers. It was the most accurate value
to be calculated because lasers are highly monochromatic and
unidirectional.
Finally, in year 1983, the speed of light was accepted by the

36
 STORY OF LIGHT

community of scientists around the world to be 299,792.458

km/sec. Roughly we use it as 3×10^8 m/sec in our mathematical
calculations. The real credit for calculating the speed of
light goes to Olaus Roemer, who could measure its roughly
approximate value by observing the motion of planets even
when the distance between planets was not accurately known.
What is a light-year?

A light-year is misunderstood as a unit of time. Instead, it is

a unit of distance. One light-year is the distance travelled by
a beam of light in 1 year, which is equal to 5.8 trillion miles
or 9.4 trillion kilometres. The diameter of our Milky Way
galaxy is about 100,000 light-years. Which means, if light
starts travelling from one end of the Milky Way, it would take
100,000 years to reach the other end.

37
 Time-Travel

I
s it possible to travel in time? The most straightforward
answer is that ‘We are all Time Travelers.’ Even when you
are going through these lines, you are traveling in time.
Because that is something taking you into the next moment
after every moment of the past. The only difference is that the
universe itself governs this time machine, and the universe has
its own laws and parameters to govern it. We consider time to
be the fourth and last dimension of the universe. We do not
get stuck in the past moment. Equally, we do not stick in the
present moment, and with the passage of every moment we are
heading towards the future moments. That is the arrow of time,
from present to future.
If we are all time travellers, then what is Time-Travel?

Time travel is the most perplexing riddle of the universe

because it is about traveling at a rate faster or slower in time.
Whenever we talk about time travel, the very first picture that
comes to mind is that there would be a complex machine, you
will step into it, and it will send you into the past or future
depending upon the red or green button you have pressed. This
is what we all have seen in comics and Marvel movies, but
reality speaks a very different language.
Traveling into the future by time dilation is a well-known
phenomenon as described by special and general relativity.

38
 TIME-TRAVEL

Relativity says that it is possible to travel in time using space

itself. The twin paradox allows us to travel forward in time
by using a very fast-moving spaceship. But when it comes to
traveling backward in time, the grandfather paradox gives rise
to a large number of unsolved questions.
Grandfather Paradox

Let us begin with a small story, suppose Max is a time traveller.

He travels back in time to the 1950s when his grandfather was
a handsome young man. He steps into his grandpa’s home and
finds that it is the day when his grandfather is going to meet his
grandmother for the very first time. Max meets his grandfather
and somehow stops him from meeting his grandmother. This
way, his grandfather will not be able to meet his grandmother,
which means Max’s father will never be born in the future, and
thus, there will be no Max. In this paradox, Max prevented the
birth of his father and consequently his own. However, this
is untrue when it comes to reality, for Max is already present
in the future. How can two opposite events occur at the same
time? Does that mean we cannot travel back in time?
One of the best examples of why backwards time travel is not
possible is that we do not have any humans from the future.
If it were humanly possible to travel back in time, then why
would the future humans not want to come and share all of
their technological secrets to make things easy for us. But
the counterargument of this argument is that maybe we are
the future humans. Maybe, we are on the front seat of the
cosmological timescale.
One theory suggests that even if we could travel back in time,
we will not be able to influence the future. The future from

39
 BABY UNIVERSE

where you travelled back in time will go on its path without

any influence of time travel. Physicists explain time and
traveling back in time using the example of a river. Time is like
a river flowing in one direction, and we are sitting in a boat in
that river. This way, all of us are experiencing the same time.
Now suppose someone jumps out of the boat and tries to swim
backward, they will not be able to do so.
However, let us suppose they do swim backward, in that case,
what they will do is that they will create a separate timeline. In
that timeline, if Max meets his grandfather and prevents the
birth of his father, not only will he never be born, but also in
that timeline, no one will ever know that a Max is living in a
similar but different timeline.
Some scientists also suggest that it is impossible to create a
separate timeline, and if we somehow travel back in time, we
will not be able to influence it at all. This means that Max will
not be able to stop the meeting of his grandfather with his
grandmother. This idea raises questions against the nature of
the grandfather paradox. Equally, what is even more important
is that why should we travel back if we will not be able to
interact with it or make any influence!
There is one more idea that revolves around the grandfather
paradox. Whenever Max goes back in time and modifies his
past, he is creating a new universe. This way, he stopped the
meeting of his grandparents in a universe where he is unknown.
Backward time travel is not just difficult but also very
confusing, but forward time travel is not that confusing. There
are different ways we can travel forward in time. Some of the
possible explanations for forward time travel are:

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1. High Velocity: This idea comes from the Twin Paradox

of relativity. Suppose there are twin brothers Sam and Leo,
both aged 22. One day Leo decides to enter a very high-speed
spaceship, whereas Sam stays back on the Earth. Leo’s spaceship
is very advanced, and can glide over the fabric of space-time
and reach a speed close to light. Leo enters the spaceship
and programs it to travel towards Proxima Centauri, located
around 4.2 light-years away from Earth. Leo’s spaceship starts
from Earth, reaches a very high speed and after a few years,
it reaches Proxima Centauri. On reaching Proxima Centauri,
Leo decides to travel back to Earth. After a few more years,
Leo returns to Earth. Currently, Leo is in his 30s as he was in
a spaceship for several years. However, when he returns back
to the Earth, he finds that his brother, who was 22 when he
left, has become too old and not able to walk without external
support.

Using this paradox, Einstein tried to explain that once you reach

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a very high-velocity, time slows down for you as compared to

someone in a stationary frame of reference. This significant
difference in velocity between two frames makes time travel
possible. As we get closer to the speed of light, distances get
contracted and time slows down; that is the beauty of relativity.
There is one main problem with using high velocity as our
means to travel in time. We do not have the technology, let
alone a spaceship that can travel to a speed close to the speed of
light. Our fastest spaceships today can reach only a fraction of
the speed of light. The way we have developed our technology
in the last 50 years, we can hope to develop a fast-enough
spaceship in the coming 1000 years, so all the hope is not lost.
Until then, we can only wait and think about more effective
ways to travel in time like, for instance, using a Black Hole.
2. Using Black Holes: The idea of using Black Holes to travel
forward in time comes from our understanding that time
slows down when you are near an object with a very high
gravitational potential. And what in the universe has a higher
gravitational potential than Black Holes?
In this case as well, we can use the example of Sam and Leo, but
let me keep things as short as possible. The main idea here is
that if we take a very advanced spaceship and revolve around a
Black Hole, time will run slower for us compared to the person
on Earth. Do not get confused when I say that time will run
slower. Time running slower does not mean things will happen
in slow-motion for us in the spaceship. Instead, our feeling
of time will remain unchanged, but what will happen is that
after we revolve around a massive Black Hole several times for
one month and return to Earth, several months would have

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 TIME-TRAVEL

already passed on Earth. Our feeling of time and the way we

experience it will remain unchanged, and we might not even
notice that we have travelled in time.
There are two main problems with using a Black Hole as our
time machine:
1. The First problem is that they are mighty and have a
powerful gravitational potential. Most of the Black Holes
hold an ability to suck a complete star system, and so our
spaceship must be fast and powerful enough to escape
out of its potential. Just being fast enough will not work
near a Black Hole, our spaceship should also be strong
enough to stand against the gravity of Black Hole.
2. The next problem is the humans in that spaceship. We
have all grown up on Earth, experiencing a specific
gravitational potential on Earth. If you try to stand on
the surface of a Neutron Star, you will get crushed almost
immediately to the level of an atom. We have already
seen the example of the human body acting differently
in different gravitational fields. The astronauts who go
to the ISS (International Space Station) and spend a
few months in zero gravity, get stretched. Their height
increases by a few centimetres, and they experience this
effect themselves. That is because living here on Earth,
we are continuously pushed towards this planet. When
our spaceship gets very close to a Black Hole and starts
orbiting around it, how would that impact our astronauts?
Would they be able to stay alive while being in such high
gravitational potential?
Both of the above scenarios seem to be impossible to overcome

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not just today but in the coming decades as well. When it is

about Black Holes, our nearest Black Hole is A062000 (V616
Mon) and is located roughly 2800 light-years away, making it
difficult to reach there. Only time will tell how we defy its own
rules and travel forward or backward in it.
Time travel is a part of science fiction today; earlier in 1895,
time travel gained its popularity because of the novel “The
Time Machine,” written by H.G. Wells. Theories like Special
and General relativity provide us the geometry for space-
time and also make time travel possible, as explained in the
twin paradox. Stephen Hawking suggests that the absence
of tourists from the future is an argument against backward
time travel, but it does not mean that backward time travel
is impossible. It could be possible that we are living with the
tourists from the future, but they do not consider themselves
to be from the future.
For some physicists, time travel is a human construct, and we
are playing with the property of space itself, especially when
we are moving forward in time. Time may flow in a definite
direction, we may travel forward in time, but traveling back
seems impossible. It is like a game, once you have taken a
forward step, the doors behind closes.
It seems to be impossible today, but we must not forget that
the future comes with hope. Time travel is not impossible, but
that does not mean it is possible either. Time dilation has been
scientifically proven correct in measurements of atomic clocks.
One of the daily life examples of this paradox is the μ-mesons,
which are unstable cosmic rays formed 10km above Earth.
Their lifetime is about 2×10-6sec, and velocity is about 0.998c.

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 TIME-TRAVEL

The μ-mesons should travel a distance of about 600 meters

before their disintegration, but here comes relativity. Because
of time dilation, their lifetime increases slightly, and they can
be found over Earth.

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 Multiverse

E
arlier it was thought that Earth is the centre of the
universe. This is not surprising at all because when
we look up at the night sky, all the stars appear to be
moving around Earth. It was the natural assumption for the
people 600 years ago with limited knowledge guided by their
religious books.
It was also believed that we are the only living creatures in the
universe, and that there is zero possibility for life on any other
planet. This is still the case because we have not found alien
life yet, but we have found hundreds of planets orbiting in the
habitable/Goldilocks zone of their respective star system. It is
also possible that life could be in a very different form or even
be primarily made up of compounds other than carbon. With
time we have become more open-minded to new ideas, which
include that Earth is not the centre of the universe, and there
could be planets with alien life. Today when we look upward,
we found ourselves to be a small part of our medium-sized
Milky Way galaxy in an endless cosmos.
As per the discoveries made in the early 19th century, our
universe was supposed to be the only one. Everything that we
know and have ever discovered was supposed to be confined
within the boundaries of a single universe. But today we have
theories describing the possibilities of multiple universes, i.e.,

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 MULTIVERSE

a multiverse. The name ‘multiverse’ explains itself as ‘multiple

universes.’ The multiverse is an idea supported by mathematics.
There is a multiverse, a series of multiple universes where our
universe is just one of the finite/infinite number of universes.
Some theories make it possible for multiple universes to
exist, such as String Theory. It says that there could be other
universes out there, and we can move out to other universes.
When two universes collide, they fuse into each other forming
a much bigger universe. In contrast, when a single universe
splits, it creates two independent universes that have their own
laws and properties. Multiverse seems to be strange because
the universe seems to be only one place for us, i.e., our universe,
whereas multiverse deals with multiple dimensions. Multiverse
theories also state that there could be a universe where there
is an exact copy of you and a universe where you do not exist,
giving a solution to the grandfather paradox.

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 BABY UNIVERSE

The idea of multiverse only lies within our books, there are
no practical shreds of evidence that we have found. We do
not know how to check the originality of this theory with the
present technology. We only know selected things about our
own universe in the first place, multiple numbers of universes
come later. We suggested that everything has come from a
point- A Singularity. The idea of singularity proved to be real,
as in the case of Black Holes. In the same way, we are looking
to check the originality of this idea. Some physicists believe
that multiverse is just a vague term having nothing to do with
reality.
If our universe is one of many universes, where did the multiple
universes come from?
It is predicted that our universe is a part of a much larger
picture; we are nothing but a drop in the ocean. We do not
know the easy answer to this question because we have no
ways to go out there and find out for ourselves. Some scientists
believe that multiple universes originate from a larger ocean of
energy foam. Birth and death of a universe in energy foam is
like bubbles coming in and out of existence in a bathtub. Few
of those bubbles break almost instantly, whereas the others
hold for some time. The idea of our universe is in an energy
foam where universes are being born and destroyed seems
fascinating. But it takes us back to the very first piece of the
same puzzle. If our universe is a part of a much larger ocean,
then where is the ocean at? Inside an even bigger entity? Who
knows?
We might not know about the presence of other universes, but
we do know about the presence of one universe, i.e., our own

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universe. Others are yet to be discovered. Now you might ask,

if there are multiple universes, how can we leave this universe
and enter a new one? Well, this is where wormholes come into
play. We can create wormholes to travel long distances not only
within one universe but also between universes.
Wormholes

As explained by Albert Einstein through General Relativity,

Wormholes are also known as the Einstein Rosen bridge.
To understand the working of wormholes, we will use a
straightforward concept. Take a sheet of paper in your hand
and select two points A and B at the different edges of that
page. If you want to travel from point A to point B, you can
take as many routes as you want, but the shortest one would
be a straight line. Suppose the distance between point A and
B is around 15 cm and starting from point A you travel at
the speed of 1 cm per second, it would take you 15 seconds to
reach point B. Now take the same piece of paper and fold it so
that points A and B are sitting at the top of each other. Now
the distance between A and B would become almost zero, and
you can travel from A to B in no time.
Alpha Centauri is located around 4.3 light-years away.
Practically, if we started traveling from Earth in a spaceship, we
would never reach there in one lifetime. Also, our astronauts
will not survive long in a spaceship under cosmic rays and
the lack of survival stuff. So, to travel from Earth to Alpha
Centauri, we can use the concept of Wormholes. We can create
a wormhole whose one end is in our solar system, and the other
end opens near the star Alpha Centauri. This way, we can travel
such vast distances within a fraction of time.

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 BABY UNIVERSE

Wormholes are the pathways/tunnels within one or more

universes. A wormhole is created by gravity by bending space-
time until it pinches and comes out to another side. They are
also considered as tunnels to travel long distances in a short
time. Creating a wormhole would require energy and tools
that we do not possess today. Some physicists suggest that
wormholes can exist naturally in the universe, and if we look
hard enough with the right tools at the right places, we may
even find one. That way, instead of creating a new wormhole,
we can use an already existing one.
With our theoretical understanding of wormholes, it is not
clear if we can pass through a wormhole without splitting into
small pieces and eventually turning into a pure form of energy.
How would a wormhole react when a piece of matter (in this
case, us) is passing through it. We need a better understanding
of such topics.

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 MULTIVERSE

How to create a wormhole?

Physicists suggest that to create or open a wormhole, we
need something called negative energy. The negative energy
is required to hold the wormhole open for long enough so
that matter could pass through it and reach the other end. If
we could not do so, the matter would converge, and we might
never come out of the other end. We should not relate negative
energy with antimatter because antimatter has positive mass.
We all have seen the interstellar movies where they use
wormholes to travel vast distances quickly. An enormous
amount of energy can be used to wrap space in a way that
will result in a wormhole. Today, we are way behind such
engineering. The present technology is unable to create energy/
negative energy at the large extent required for these pathways.
What is the difference between a Black Hole and a Wormhole?
Black Holes are more like a suction device, they take in
anything and everything that comes in their path. Their gravity
is so strong that nothing can escape. Black Holes are caused by
massive amounts of matter that collapse because of their own
gravity and end up as a singularity. Wormholes are shortcuts
between two distinct parts of the universe, instead of ending
up at a singularity, wormholes end up at some other part of
the universe. Today, we have proof for the existence of Black
Holes, whereas wormhole’s existence is yet to be verified.
Wormholes are a hypothetical and theoretical construct. Today
we do not have any sharp shreds of evidence suggesting the
presence of wormholes. However, mathematics allows them to
exist, allowing pathways to exist that can be used as shortcuts

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for long journeys. The reason why physicists think that they
should exist is because they do not violate the laws of physics.
Wormholes are one of the theoretical solutions to the relativity
equations. We have not observed them yet, but that does not
mean they do not exist.
In simple words, there are no laws that prevent their existence.
We listen to what mathematics says not just because it is the
expression of numbers and characters in a transparent manner,
it is the language of the universe itself that can describe its
beauty on a sheet of paper.
Leaving the Universe

‘Leaving the Universe’ is becoming a part of the science fiction

movies where we see some of the most ludicrous ideas coming
to life. The very first question that comes to our mind is where
to go after leaving this universe? For as long as we have existed,
there has been only one universe. We study it, we analyse it, and
we live in it. Today, we have theories describing the possibility
of the presence of multiple universes where our universe is
just one among them. If we can locate their presence, then we
can use wormholes as a tunnel to travel in and out of those
universes.
We have discussed various possible scenarios for the death of
our universe, any of which could be real. So, it is inevitable
that if we do not leave this universe when the time comes,
intelligent life will die. We must leave the universe when it
becomes unstable because of any of those possible scenarios.
We might not be able to hinder the fate of the universe because
we do not play a central role in it. So, leaving the universe is the
best idea. Firstly, we need to figure out the answer to several

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questions such as:

1. Does the next universe support life, or does it already contain
supernatural beings?
2. What would be the nature of the new universe? Would it
accept matter from our universe entering it?
3. If the next universe is made up of antimatter, how would we
deal with it?
4. Would we ever be able to transform into a Type-4 civilization
which has the ability to deal with multiple universes?
The universe is full of immense possibilities, and what we have
seen and observed till now cannot be found in any book of the
early 19th century. Boundaries of the universe increase as we
look deeper into it. Every single day we continue to learn new
things about the universe that no one knew before. We are
doing things that no one thought was possible 100 years ago.
It will take a long journey for humanity to be able to leave the
universe. We must become the master of space and time to
be able to leave our universe. As already discussed, a Type-4
civilization can create and use wormholes as tunnels connecting
the different universes. However, right now we are a Type-zero
civilization, way behind achieving the goal. We have limited
abilities and are very much limited to a single planet. We are
divided in so many ways that it may take even longer than
expected to transform into the next type of civilization. All our
observations have taken us towards the conclusion that we do
not know the future, and we are nothing but small observers
on a tiny planet and trying to figure out the meaning of what
is around us. Today we are not in a position to say that we are

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sure about the fate of the universe because we cannot even

predict the journey we will lead in the next 100 years.
All the above fates of the universe are not possible, only one
would be. Maybe it could be a combination of two, who knows.
Maybe the truth is lying in some other form; the universe never
stops surprising us. History gives the evidence that whenever
we tapped hard about something, nature proved us wrong.
Another possibility is that we will not be here to see the fate
at all.
The above fates described so far are based on the nature of dark
energy and its role observed by us today. Even its nature might
vary as the universe ages. What we know about the physics
of dark energy is that we do not know what it is. We are not
really sure where it came from; only a very little is accurately
known about dark energy. The origin of dark energy is also
lying somewhere in the first three minutes of the universe.
Universe changes with time, and our predictions may acquire
strong shapes or get debunked with time. It is possible that
the known dark energy equation will change, resulting in a
very different universe that will completely change our present
understanding. The description of dark matter and dark energy
remains obscure and hypothetical. The possibilities of their role
within the universe are currently unknown.
How Dark Energy and Dark Matter will react with the coming
universe, how they will react with the universe they are creating
is a point of discussion for us today. All we know about them
are observational constraints in some theory papers. Choosing
one among these rival scenarios is difficult because all these
scenarios are supported by equal observations and are thrown

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back by the same ideas. We can hope that future science will
allow us to choose one of these competitive scenarios.

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Part II

After the Big Bang

56
 Matter

W
e have already discussed how the Big Bang created
the universe. We have discussed what space-time is
and why it helps us in creating a primary picture of
the universe. Now we must understand the elements that came
into existence after this explosion. The universe recombined in
the form of billions of galaxies containing trillions of stars and
planets, all of which came from dust clouds.
What was the by-product of the Big Bang and how did it
dominate the early universe?
To know these answers, we must understand the baby picture
of the universe and discuss the aftereffects of the Big Bang.
Earlier it was thought that our universe consists of matter only.
The matter that we are made of makes up everything in the
universe, and there is nothing in between. As a result, matter
was the only point of discussion among scientists in the early
20th century. It helped us to a large extent because we were
able to discover hundreds of subatomic particles and give birth
to quantum mechanics. As a result, in the 20th century, most
of the Nobel prize winners in physics were the scientists who
had discovered a new particle.
Over time as we looked deeper into the space, our picture of the
universe evolved. We found evidence that there is something
else apart from ordinary matter that is affecting the working of

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billions of galaxies. There is something that we cannot directly

observe playing a significant role in the way galaxies rotate and
hold themselves together. As we found evidence, our doubts
decreased in number, and we knew that matter is not the only
thing in the universe. We named this new form of matter
as dark matter. A form of matter that we cannot see, but it
interacts with us in the form of gravity.
Our quest to know about the cause for the expanding universe
has taken us beyond the milky way galaxy and towards the edges
of the expanding universe. As soon as we found out that the
universe is expanding, we realized that there must be a hidden
force driving this expansion. This new driving force came in
the form of dark energy. On further evaluation, we realized
that this expansion is not constant mathematically; it varies
with time, which means our universe is not only expanding it
is also accelerating.
The presence of matter has introduced us to ourselves. It has
enabled us to say that yes, we do exist. Something dark in the
space that we cannot interact with got its name as dark matter.
Dark energy is a way more complex subject of discussion. There
are many more things about the universe we do not know. Our
entire understanding of the universe could be nothing but a
drop in the ocean, and dark energy proves this point.
Matter Truly Matters!
In order to understand matter and its nature, let us do a simple
experiment. Let us reverse the process of evolution, reverse the
process of formation of matter and go back in time towards the
Big Bang explosion. As we start going backward in time, first,
we will become Apes, then we will see the dinosaurs roaming

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 MATTER

around planet Earth. As we keep going back in time, we will

find ourselves in the ocean in the form of aquatic life, which
happened only 500 million years ago. If we go 4.54 billion
years back, we will see the formation of our planet, but that is
nowhere close to the Big Bang.
As we quickly approach the Big bang explosion, we will find
ourselves in the form of early atoms which are falling apart. As
we keep going towards the very first second of the universe,
our atoms will completely disintegrate into pure energy, and
eventually, we will find ourselves in a tiny singularity. The same
singularity where it all began. At that point, there will be no
space for us, and time will stop, so we would not be able to go
further back in time.
That is precisely what happened in the early universe. The early
universe was so heated that the constituents that make up
electrons, protons and neutrons could not interact with each
other and form atoms. We can imagine the early universe as
a super-hot soup, a soup with all the nutrients that your body
requires, but you cannot drink it as it is too hot.
After a short period after the Big Bang, the universe expanded
exponentially, but with this expansion, it also cooled down very
quickly. Once the universe acquired a specific temperature,
quarks arranged themselves forming protons and neutrons.
With the birth of protons and neutrons, we have the basic
structure needed to make up atoms, i.e., the nucleus. Protons
and neutrons came together, forming the very first nuclei, but
that was not enough because we still needed electrons around
nuclei to complete our atoms.
As the universe kept expanding and cooling down, the

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 BABY UNIVERSE

electrons got trapped around the nuclei. However, this process

took another 380,000 years. That is how the first atoms came
into existence. Our very first atoms were mainly the Hydrogen
atoms because they are small atoms making it easy for the
protons and neutrons to combine and build the structure. This
fact can be observed in the universe even today. Almost all
the stars that we see in the night sky are mostly made up of
Hydrogen. This proves that this simplest possible element was
produced in abundance in the early universe.
After the Big Bang explosion, our universe was like a cloud
of fog. It was filled with a uniform glow of white-hot fog of
hydrogen plasma. One other thing that happened with the
formation of the first atoms was that our universe became
more and more transparent as we see it today. The study of the
early universe shows that matter and energy were distributed
everywhere homogeneously. Now we have a universe that
is not only expanding but also full of Hydrogen atoms. It is
natural to wonder how all the stuff that we see in the night sky
came into existence.
The first atoms formed in the universe are our true ancestors.
Those atoms are essential because the cores of massive stars
in the infant universe will use them to create the rest of the
matter (including us). After the formation of the first atoms,
over the next millions of years, gravity did its magical work.
Gravity combined the unevenly scattered atoms and formed
large gas clouds across the universe. As those gas clouds
became more prominent, they started having their collective
gravity and started attracting more matter. The smaller gas
clouds combined with bigger gas clouds, resulting in the
formation of massive gas clouds. From a distance, everything

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 MATTER

looked normal, but if we went at the centre of those gas clouds,

something else was happening. The first stars of our universe
were being born at the very centre, or we can say in the womb,
of those gas clouds.

Due to the gravitational force of the massive gas clouds

themselves, the hydrogen atoms were forced to come together
and form the very first shining stars. When the temperature at
the core of those stars reached hundreds of million degrees, the
hydrogen atoms slammed together, creating heavy elements
such as Helium and Lithium. In this process of combining
Hydrogen atoms, some energy was released, which gave shine
to our newly born stars. Those early stars were massive, and our
universe was twinkling with their light. However, the bigger the
star is, the more quickly it fuses the matter at its core, reducing
its overall lifespan. Some of those stars exploded in the form
of supernova explosions and gave us heavy elements such as

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 BABY UNIVERSE

Carbon, Oxygen, Iron, Gold, etc. The Carbon in your body

and the Gold jewellery that you wear, all of it were formed at
the core of massive stars billions of years ago. Some of those
stars became Black Holes after the explosion and guided the
formation of early galaxies. That is a point of discussion for
another chapter.
Antimatter

Now we know the story of the matter that we can see, touch,
feel, and observe and also how it came into existence. However,
that is an incomplete story. There is another player in this game
that tried to dominate the universe, i.e., antimatter. Shortly
after the Big Bang, our universe was filled with the neutrons,
protons, electrons, and their antiparticles. These antiparticles
include anti-neutron, antiproton, and anti-electron (also
known as positron). During the first three minutes of creation,
all these elementary particles were created.
Antimatter is composed of antiparticles having the same mass
as ordinary matter but opposite charge. In the early universe,
antimatter particles came together, forming antimatter just
as ordinary matter did. For example, an anti-neutron and
antiproton can form an anti-hydrogen atom with a positron
orbiting around it. It is believed that matter and antimatter
were created in the same quantity in the early universe, so we
can say that the early universe was full of Hydrogen and Anti-
hydrogen atoms. However, there was a problem; matter and
antimatter are rivals of each other.

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 MATTER

Where is all the antimatter today?

If we talk about rivalries, matter and antimatter had the biggest
rivalry in the history of the entire universe. On meeting with
each other, these two annihilate each other leaving behind pure
energy. Just after the Big Bang, matter and antimatter particles
came into existence and started their battle. This rivalry ended
with the matter that we know today winning the race—this
rivalry leftover cosmic radiations behind as their fingerprint,
which we can observe.
If matter and antimatter had eradicated each other, then our
universe would be different today. It would be full of cosmic
radiations and nothing else. There would be no sign of galaxies,
stars, planets or even Black Holes. It would be nothing but a
massive expanding void. This makes me wonder if multiverse
theory is correct, then there must be a universe where there is
no matter and even a universe where antimatter had won the
race.
In the beginning, if antimatter had won the race, our universe
would be just as it is today but made up of opposite particles.

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 BABY UNIVERSE

Our stars would be made up of anti-hydrogen atoms, creating

anti-helium elements at their core. We would be wearing
jewellery that is made up of anti-gold. At the same time, we
would be curious to know what ordinary matter is as we are
about antimatter here.
How did matter defeated antimatter?
We know from experience that most of the matter particles
are highly stable, and they can stay as they are for billions of
years. However, a few exceptions such as Uranium, Thorium
and Radium decay at a slow rate. It is still not clear how matter
defeated antimatter, but one theory suggests that the antimatter
particles are unstable. Antimatter particles decay very quickly,
and the decay process begins at the same instant as they are
born. Even though matter and antimatter were formed in
an equal amount, the decay process resulted in an imbalance
between matter and antimatter. That imbalance helped matter
to win over antimatter.
Today we know that our universe consists of 4.9% of ordinary
matter, which is a small amount. This percentage would be
zero if antimatter were as stable as matter. At the same time,
we would have 4.9% antimatter if matter was as unstable as
antimatter. Just a little disproportion between matter and
antimatter became the reason for our existence in this universe.
Whatever we see in the night sky, whatever we have seen with
the help of giant telescopes, consists of the same matter as us.
If you are still confused about matter, do not worry, just look at
yourself, for you are made up of the same type of matter.

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 MATTER

Higgs Boson

Higgs Boson has a long history because it played a central role

during the formation of our universe. If you are standing on
Moon, your weight is six times less than on Earth, but your
mass remains the same. It does not matter what you weigh
at different places in the universe, but your mass will never
change. Here we are going to talk about what gives matter its
mass.
Where mass comes from is a typical problem because mass
is somehow related to gravity. The current model of particle
physics could not deal with gravity in the way it was supposed
to. Big Bang caused the formation of fundamental particles,
and they combined and formed matter, and matter produced
different varieties of itself by massive explosions, but that still
does not explain what gives matter its mass.
Higgs Boson was vital because it was the only missing piece, the
missing elementary particle of the Standard Model of Particle
Physics not discovered yet. After 50 years of speculation and
spending over 10 billion Euros, physicists finally found the
Higgs Boson. It was detected by colliding highly energetic
photon beams at a velocity comparable to light in the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC). The Higgs Boson is termed as the
missing piece of the Big Bang, and a missing part of the Big
Bang Theory. Physicists believe that in the beginning, the
universe was a singularity. It can be explained as a crystal.
An unstable crystal whose geometry was distorted by the
Higgs Boson particle. causing the impurity in the universe’s
singularity and making it explode.

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In 1964, physicist Peter Higgs developed his theory to explain

what gives everything (matter) its mass. He suggested that
something must have been created during the first second that
gave particles their mass. He suggested that a universal force
field swiped across the entire universe during the first second,
giving particles their mass. Today this field is well known as
Higgs Field. When particles interact with Higgs Field, they
gain their mass. Those particles that interacted more with this
field gained more mass and vice versa. Higgs field is carried by
its particle ‘Higgs Boson,’ also known as the god particle. Higgs
Field is a field lying everywhere in the universe where some
particles can go through it, whereas some particles interact
with it, slow down in the process, and translate into mass. On
December 10, 2013, Peter Higgs and Francois Englert were
awarded the Nobel Prizes in physics for their spectacular work
and contributions in the standard particle physics model.
What does the name God Particle mean?
Leon Lederman was the first to introduce this name in his
book ‘The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer,
What Is the Question.’ Lederman gave this name because
he felt this particle to be crucial for a heavy understanding of
matter. If Lederman had titled the book something else, our
understanding today would have remained the same, but its
meaning would have changed. At first he wanted to name it
as ‘Goddamn Particle,’ but his editor did not allow him to do
so. The term ‘God Particle’ has nothing to do with God, it is
a particle just like the others. However, the primary picture
of Higgs Boson created in the brain of ordinary people does
not clarify the reality. The name was a joke, no doubt, but
unluckily no-one laughed because it was taken too seriously

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 MATTER

with time. Overall, we must be happy about it because it means

that religious people are reading physics today, at least to know
about the ‘God’ particle.
String Theory

In the 1950s, when we started smashing atoms, we got hundreds

of smaller hidden pieces of matter. No one had imagined that
there could be 100s of hidden particles inside an atom. These
different particles have different roles to play. Until the discovery
of Higgs Boson, the model of particle physics was incomplete.
With the discovery of Higgs Boson, particle physicists believed
to have discovered everything inside an atom. However, that is
where String Theory comes into play. String Theory says that
there is one more fundamental piece of matter that is yet to be
discovered. The standard model of particle physics we know is
incomplete, according to this theory.
String Theory suggests that matter consists of small vibrating
strings of energy. This theory has an explanation for dark matter
as well. String Theory says that dark matter also consists of the
same strings, but their vibration occurs at a different frequency
than ordinary matter. As a result, we are not able to see dark
matter or interact with it.
What is the basic idea of String Theory?
String theory has its own way of explaining what matter
consists of. Suppose you have a piece of matter in your hand,
a potato, for example. Put that potato under a microscope and
observe very carefully. When you do so, you would be able to
see the molecules that make up the entire potato. Now take
one molecule and put it under a mighty microscope. What

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you will find is that the molecule is made up of a large number

of small atoms. Now take one atom and put it under an even
more powerful microscope. This time what you will find that an
atom is made up of even smaller elements; those are electrons,
protons, and neutrons. We are not done yet. If you take these
particles and put them under a very powerful microscope, you
will find that these particles are made of even small particles
such as quarks, or you might even observe the Higgs Boson.
This is where the String Theory comes into play. String Theory
says that if you take these particles such as a quark and observe
it even more closely, you will find that it is made up of tiny
vibrating one-dimensional strings of energy. Moreover, these
strings are the fundamental ingredients that make up everything
in the universe. All the other elementary or subatomic particles
are made up of these tiny vibrating filaments, strings.

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 MATTER

Now the question arises that as there are so many subatomic

particles that we have discovered, how does String Theory
explain their presence? According to string theory, one type
of vibration of these strings makes up quarks, whereas the
other type of vibration of those strings makes up Higgs Boson
and so on. All the different types of particles are nothing but
different types of vibrations of the same string. These different
vibrations of strings can be compared with the different nodes
of music.
Now you might ask yourself, how small are these strings?
As explained in this work, strings of the string theory are of
the order of Planck Length, i.e., 10 to the power negative 35
meters. This means if we want to see those vibrating strings, we
must look at them deeper than the Planck length. Searching
for a string inside matter would be like searching for a small
needle in the Atlantic Ocean; that is how small they are. As per
the standard physics model, smaller particles are considered
fundamental building blocks of matter. String Theory gives
us a very different view of the matter. String Theory not only
challenges particle physics but also challenges our current
understanding of atomic and subatomic particles.
String Theory has provided us a different view to look into
matter and gave us its fundamentals to describe the universe.
However, this work is not practically proven yet. We do not
have the capacity to look that deep into matter and see the
vibrating strings. We can hope that one-day the Large Hadron
Collider will prove or disprove the accuracy of this theory.

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 Dark Matter

W
e are aware of ordinary matter and how it came
into existence. It is the time to talk about its dark
side, i.e., dark matter. About 85% of the total
matter in the universe is dark matter, whereas the remaining
15% is ordinary matter. Dark energy makes a large portion of
the universe; namely 68%, with 27% of dark matter, and less
than 5% of ordinary matter.
During the 1930s, when scientists studied distant galaxies and
their motion, their calculations did not fit with the rotation
of galaxies. Based upon the amount of matter present in the
distant galaxies and the speed at which they are rotating, they
must fall apart eventually. The matter that they consist of does
not have enough gravitational pull to hold those galaxies at that
rotational speed. These findings revolutionized the scientific
world and made them wonder as to what could be holding
these galaxies together.
Scientists made various calculations based upon the visible
mass of galaxies. This indicated that there is an invisible mass
in these galaxies whose gravitational pull is adding up with that
of ordinary matter and holding the galaxies together. Scientists
were sure that there must be an invisible form of matter that
we have been missing out on.
So, what is holding these galaxies together and affecting their

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motion?
Our answer came in the form of a missing piece of the
universe that we call dark matter. Dark matter refers to the
exotic matter that interacts with ordinary matter in the form of
gravity. The gravitational pull of dark matter helps in holding
all these galaxies together and affects their motion. Dark not
only means that we cannot see this form of matter, it also
means that it does not emit any electromagnetic radiation that
we can detect. We have no methods or tools of seeing it, which
makes it hard to study and understand dark matter. It does not
interact directly with light except for its gravitational effects,
which makes it invisible.
Dark matter exerts a strong ‘gravitational force’ like other
matter, which means it attracts other matter towards it. In
our galaxy alone, there is so much dark matter that its force
is holding the entire galaxy together. Discovering dark matter
was not difficult, but understanding it is.
Another proof of the presence of dark matter came in the form
of gravitational lensing. When scientists studied the distant
image of galaxies, they often found them stretched and oddly
shaped. Since there was no visible source of matter affecting the
motion of light between us and those galaxies, they concluded
that there must be something invisible bending the light coming
from distant galaxies and affecting the trajectory of the light
beam. Further research showed that dark matter is not only
holding other galaxies together, it is also present everywhere in
the universe, deflecting the path of light as it passes through
it. By detecting the deflection of light in a galaxy, we can see
the presence of dark matter. Through gravitational lensing, we
can trace the presence of dark matter everywhere in our galaxy.

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Distribution of dark matter, its amount, and its position

was revealed and further confirmed by gravitational lensing.
Ordinary matter and dark matter bend light as it passes
through or near to them. As told by Albert Einstein, everything
in the universe is affected by gravity because everything in the
universe causes gravity. By observing a galaxy, we can map out
the distribution of dark matter. By mapping out the galaxies,
our calculations gave the number 26.8 as the percentage of
dark matter. We cannot see dark matter directly, we can only
observe its gravitational effects on our universe.

At first it was thought that dark matter is just a new type

particle of ordinary matter that does not emit light, but
this idea does not fit with any theory. Dark matter is unlike
anything we have ever seen. Dark matter is so powerful that
it has the power to influence the whole galaxy. It affects the
formation and spin rate of a galaxy; it cannot be just a missing
piece of ordinary matter. The presence of this invisible matter

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is everywhere; even if you are currently sitting in your room,

there would be some dark matter passing through your body
right now. We cannot feel it since it does not interact directly
with ordinary matter.
The discovery of dark matter also came with various questions
such as what is it made up of? How do we figure it out?
Scientists are hunting for dark matter all over the world;
some are hunting for it thousands of feet underground. Dark
matter is passing through the Earth billions of particles at a
time but rarely collides with ordinary matter. Scientists are
using a small block of germanium, cooled down to a very,
very low temperature. The idea is that while passing through
the germanium atom, dark matter particles may interact with
its nucleus. Because of this collision, the temperature of the
germanium atom will be enhanced slightly. This increase in
temperature can be measured by the sensors present over the
germanium block. Labs are designed underground because
there could be other particles such as cosmic rays that will
interact with the germanium atoms, hit the nucleus, and result
in wrong data. Hence, to clear all the junk, experiments are
carried out underground. Unluckily dark matter is yet to be
detected by any lab in the world.
By studying all the radiation left over from the Big bang
explosion, we can identify where more of the radiation exists.
More radiation means more matter or even more dark matter.
This way, scientists have identified dark matter across the
universe and created a universal map of where it might be
concentrated most. Here are some possibilities of what dark
matter could be:

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1. It is possible that dark matter could be an undiscovered

particle, but it does not act like any particle we know so far.
We know it is there because of its gravitational influence. If it
is a particle, one thing we know is that it can interact with us
in the form of gravity. What the nature of this particle is and
what it is made up of is a point of discussion. If it is made up
of a different kind of particle, that would open a new branch of
physics for scientists to study.
2. Another possibility is that our existing understanding of
gravity is incomplete. Our current theories break down when
we talk about the gravity of dark matter. Everything we know
about matter comes from the understanding of its gravitational
effects. Einstein explained gravity as the curve in space-time
fabric. Gravity of dark matter supports this idea. But Theory
of Relativity cannot explain what dark matter is. The only way
it interacts with ordinary matter is in the form of its gravity,
so once our understanding of gravity is complete, we might be
able to tell what dark matter is.
3. The next reason why dark matter does not directly interact
with any particle could be that it is not from our 3-dimensional
world. Some scientists predict that dark matter could be a
force field from a higher dimension whose gravity is somehow
leaking into our dimensions. If that is the case, it proves that
gravity can travel between multiple dimensions and connect us
with other higher dimensions. This theory not only opens the
possibility of higher dimensions but also the presence of some
other force fields in them. If dark matter is a force field leaking
from the higher dimensions, then one day we might be able to
trace its footprints to get to the higher dimensions.

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 Dark Energy

O
pposite of gravity, dark energy is the repulsive force
causing the expansion of the universe. We know
about the 5%of ordinary matter, we can see it, feel
it and even touch it. Next, we have the 27% of the dark side
of matter, dark matter. We cannot directly interact with it,
but we can observe its presence via various methods such as
gravitational lensing. So, what is the rest of the 68% of our
universe made of?
The answer comes in the form of dark energy—the energy of
darkness or the energy of vacuum itself. The concept of dark
energy was first revealed by Albert Einstein. However, at
that time, the static model of the universe was more widely
accepted by the scientific community. Theoretically, Einstein
was able to determine that our universe must be expanding, but
that idea did not fit well with the other known cosmological
facts of that time. So, to give a static model of the universe (a
universe that is not expanding), Einstein dropped his idea of
the expanding universe and added a new term to his equations,
the cosmological constant.
In the late 1920s, a talented astronomer named Edwin Hubble
was studying the deep universe. Distant galaxies, stars and
supernovas were his main points of interest. One thing he
liked most were supernova explosions because, with their

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help, he was trying to figure out if our universe is expanding.

After some long observations and studying several supernovas,
Edwin Hubble concluded that our universe is not static at all,
and in fact, it is expanding. With this discovery, Einstein felt
absurd, and he had to drop the cosmological constant from
his equations. This is known as one of the biggest blunders of
Albert Einstein’s career.
With the discovery of an expanding universe, another question
arose: Since the universe is expanding, how fast is it expanding?
At that time, the infinite attractive strength of the gravitational
force was well known. It was obvious for scientists to predict
that if our universe is expanding, then it must be slowing down.
The gravitational force of all the objects in the universe must
be working collectively to stop this expansion. Which gave us
another question: at what rate is our universe slowing down?
In the 1990s, astronomers once again turned their telescopes
towards the exploding supernovae to determine the deceleration
rate of the universe. They were surprised to find that the
expansion of the universe was not slowing down, instead, it
was speeding up at an exponential rate. This discovery helped
astronomers conclude that there must be something in the
universe counteracting gravity, and scientists later named
it as dark energy. Calculating the amount of energy needed
to overcome gravity and expand the universe exponentially,
scientists determined that dark energy makes up about 68
percent of the entire universe. It is a large portion of the
universe, slightly more 2/3rd, but we are not sure as to what
dark energy really is.
If you go back in 1900 and ask the scientists of that time as

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to what empty space means, some would say that they do

not know, whereas most of them would say ‘Empty space
means nothing. There is nothing in-between us and all the
other distant stars and galaxies.’ To them, empty space is
the definition of nothingness. However, today we know that
empty space means something, and it has much more power
than the overall gravity of the universe. Today we know that
empty space has energy, the energy of space itself. We call this
energy as dark energy. Space consists of this energy, which is
causing a one-way expansion of the universe.
It is believed that just like ordinary matter and dark matter,
dark energy was also created just after the Big Bang explosion.
It was here since the very beginning, and we just have figured
it out recently. After the Big Bang, as the universe expanded
rapidly, dark energy took over the force of gravity. As millions
of years passed and new stars and galaxies formed, the strength
of dark energy also increased, creating more space between
those stars and galaxies. The density of matter and dark matter
is very high. Since we are all made up of 5% ordinary matter,
if you take one of your hands and put it on the other hand, it
will rest and not pass through. But dark energy has a very low
density or maybe even no density at all. Even with such little
to no density, dark energy can dominate over both matter and
dark matter.
There is both a positive and negative side of dark energy being
able to dominate the universe. If dark energy were not as strong
as it is, then the gravitational force of ordinary matter and dark
matter would have stopped the expansion of the universe long
ago and would have reversed the process.

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 BABY UNIVERSE

As a result, our universe might have contracted, ending up as a

gigantic ball of matter and energy. That would be a nightmare
for all the species living on this planet, or we might not have
been able to see it happening because the universe might have
contracted much before the formation of our solar system.
Thanks to the repulsive nature of dark energy, we are living in
a universe where galaxies and stars are not getting closer over
time and smashing into each other.
The repulsive nature of dark matter has prevented the grim
fate of the universe, but at the same time, it has opened a
new possibility. Let us try and understand this with a simple
thought experiment. Imagine a classroom with 30 chairs
placed near each other; right now, all the students can interact
with each other and study as a group. However, the problem
with this classroom is that its floor is expanding. The chairs are

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at their consecutive place, but the floor is expanding, increasing

the distance between the students. What will happen after
some time is that students would not be able to interact with
each other as they are getting apart from each other. That is
precisely what is happening in the universe right now. All the
distant stars and galaxies are moving away from us due to the
repulsive nature of dark energy. Our stars and galaxies are at
the same place as they are, but the distance (or space) between
then is increasing continuously. If dark energy continues to
push galaxies apart, there is no doubt that our universe will die
cold, and all intelligent life will freeze to death.
Some scientists believe that this expansion of the universe will
not go on forever. At some point in time, maybe a billion years
from now, the force of gravity will overtake the repulsive force
of dark energy, and our universe will begin contracting. What
happens when we contract is a point of discussion for another
chapter, but looking at the nature of dark energy, we are not
sure if that will ever happen.
From the history of our observations, we can say that the
universe is on a one-way expansion, and not slowing down.
The rate at which other galaxies are moving apart from each
other is directly proportional to their distance from us. This
phenomenon can be observed in the form of redshift, which
means that light has shifted towards the red end of the
electromagnetic spectrum. Suppose you have an alien friend
named Xeto living on an alien planet thousands of light-years
away. If you ask him to glow a green light towards our planet,
then by the time that light reaches us, it would have become
red. However, this is not practically possible because the light
will take thousands of years to reach, and you would be dead

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by then.
Whenever we want to measure vast distances in the universe,
we use this phenomenon. We observe how much light has
stretched and shifted towards the red end of the spectrum
while traveling through the expanding fabric of space. As a
science enthusiast, you might have several questions about
the existence of dark energy. So, I will leave you with three
conclusions of what it could be:
1. Our first possible solution for dark energy is that the
universe is filled with a changing energy field, also known as
“quintessence.”
2. Another possibility is that our current understanding
of gravity is incomplete. Our current model of gravity only
includes the gravity of matter and dark matter. The force of
dark energy could be another part of gravity, just opposite in
nature.
3. The leading theory, however, considers dark energy as a
property of space itself. It predicts that empty space can have
its own energy, and this indicates that as more space emerges,
more energy is added to the universe, increasing its expansion.

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 Early Stars and Galaxies

A
t the beginning of our universe, stars were formed
when a large amount of dust and gases came together.
It is not an easy process for stars to shine and show
us their bright light. Gravity plays a significant role in this
process. The early stars started shining as soon as Hydrogen
started to fuse into Helium due to the gravitational force of the
star. The outside gravitational force of a star not only provides
extra pressure for Hydrogen atoms to fuse into Helium and
other heavy elements but also raises the inner core temperature
of a star, which makes the process easier.
Early stars in our universe used to be very big compared to
our Sun because their formation took place in the early pure
Hydrogen clouds. Due to gravitational forces, some of those
stars kept on adding more and more matter and went on
becoming denser and heavier. As they became big, they added
more matter to their pile. Some of those early giant stars ended
up as a supernova explosion creating heavier elements. It is
believed that most of the heavy elements such as Iron and
Gold that we use today came from the explosion of those stars
that formed soon after the Big Bang. Not all stars exploded
into a supernova, some of them contracted under their own
gravity resulting in the formation of massive Black Holes.
So now we had a universe full of massive Black Holes and

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giant stars; most of which exploded and gave us heavier

elements floating everywhere. Early universe was smaller
and much denser, so those early Black Holes started sucking
more and more matter into themselves, forming a giant disk
of matter revolving around them. Because of their enormous
gravitational attraction, all the matter in a long distance also
found itself revolving around them.
Because of the rotation of Black Holes, the disk’s shape around
them turned spiral, concentrated towards the centre. The
structure of this complete system remained stabilized for the
next billions of years. The surviving matter did not fall into
the black hole due to its distance. Neither did it shatter away
because of the gravitational attraction and kept on steadily
revolving around the Black Hole. As time passed, the matter
revolving around the Black Hole started forming its own stars,
planets, and eventually solar systems. This complete structure
is known as a galaxy. This is why there is a supermassive Black
Hole at the centre of almost every galaxy in the universe.
Galaxies are being formed till this day; it is found that nearly
all the galaxies we see today were formed shortly after Big
Bang. We found that the foggy universe transformed into a
clear sky, and we can see distant parts of the space as a result of
the formation of galaxies. Our milky way galaxy is considered
to be formed at the beginning of the universe roughly 13.6
billion years ago. There are about two hundred billion or more
stars in our milky way galaxy.
We are not sure whether the stars formed first and then
gathered into galaxies or the galactic clouds formed first
wherein the first stars were born. It is possible that the galaxies

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 EARLY STARS AND GALAXIES

formed where the dark matter and regular matter clumped

together due to the irregularities in distribution left over from
the Big Bang. The earliest galaxies we can see are around 13.8
billion light-years away, allowing us to see the earliest pieces of
stuff in the universe and the beginning of the universe itself.
HD 140283

HD 140283 is one of the oldest stars in the universe. It is so

old that it is also known as the Methuselah star. Astronomers
have known about this star for more than a hundred years, but
at that time, we did not have the instruments to measure its
age and distance. HD 140283 is located ~200 light-years away
from Earth in the constellation of Libra. The study of HD
140283 is the study of our early universe. It helps us understand
how the universe looked like soon after the Big Bang. This star
must have formed soon after the Big Bang.
There is a big debate on the age of this star. Some scientists
predict it to be ~14.5 ± 0.8 billion years old, whereas new
research shows that it is at least 13.2 billion years old. If HD
140283 is ~14.5 ± 0.8 billion years old, then our books must
be rewritten because that means our universe is at least 14.5
billion years old and older than our current estimate. Our
current observations show that the universe is 13.8 billion
years old.
Since this star is so far, scientists are not able to determine its
age correctly. Based upon the light we are receiving from it, we
have calculated its age with an uncertainty of 800 million years.
This means HD 140283 could be 13.7 billion years old, which
is younger than the universe and fits our current understanding.
If not, then we must change our understanding.

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 BABY UNIVERSE

GN-z11

It is essential to talk about GN-z11 because it is one of the

oldest, if not the oldest, galaxy found in the constellation Ursa
Major. GN-z11 is also the most distant known galaxy in the
observable universe. This galaxy was first identified in March
2016. Scientists observed GN-z11 as it was 13.4 billion years
ago, just 400 million years after the Big Bang. Sometimes
GN-z11 distance gets reported to be 13.4 billion light-years
away from us, which is wrong. Due to rapid expansion of the
universe, the current location of this galaxy is approximately 32
billion light-years from us.
GN-z11 belongs to the very first stars and galaxies that were
formed after the Big bang. It is one of the very first populations
of stars and galaxies that formed in the universe. When this
galaxy was born, the universe was emerging from a period
known as the Dark Ages. During the Dark Ages, there was
nothing but complete darkness in the universe. Stars that make
our universe shine did not exist. However, that era did not last
too long as new stars and galaxies began to form as soon as the
universe cooled down, and matter came into existence. GN-
z11 does not have a massive size; it is roughly 1⁄25 of the size
of our Milky Way galaxy, or we can say it is 25 times smaller.
It is not much heavier either and has just 1% of the mass of
our galaxy.
All galaxies form new stars at a specific rate, depending on
the amount of gases and dust present in them. But GNz11 is
forming new stars at 20 times the rate of our Milky Way, which
proves that at the beginning of the universe, galaxies formed
stars rather quickly. Since it is forming stars very quickly, it is

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very bright, making it possible for astronomers to detect it.

Observing GN-z11 is a significant step back in time; it is like
looking at creation itself in its earliest form. When we observe
GN-z11, we are observing the very beginning of the universe.
Because light from such a distant galaxy travels vast distances
to reach Earth, when we look at GN-z11, we are looking at it
as it was 13.4 billion years ago.

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 Supernova

W
e all are stardust; we are made out of it. A
supernova is an event that releases an enormous
amount of energy in a short period of time. From
our understanding so far, supernovas are the ones that created
the building blocks required for life. Majority of stars in the
universe are average in size. They are born, they light up the
space around them, and after a few billion years, they become
red giants. After becoming a red giant, their luminosity keeps
decreasing with time, and they fade away. Before fading away,
their temperature reaches so low that you can touch those stars
with bare hands, they are colder than a cup of coffee.
Our Sun itself is an average-sized star and is one of them. It
has been around for over 4.6 billion years and will be around
for the same time, but many things will change in the future.
In about 110 million years from now, our Sun’s luminosity will
increase by over 1 percent. This increase will not make much
impact, but it will threaten life on Earth. In about 1.1 billion
years from now, Sun’s luminosity will increase by 10 percent,
causing average Earth’s temperatures to reach over 45 °C. This
would be a severe threat not just to humans but also to all
life on Earth. By this time, almost all species would have died
on Earth. Earth’s atmosphere will become a moist greenhouse,
and our oceans will evaporate at an alarming rate. No life can
survive in such an environment.

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 SUPERNOVA

In about 5.4 billion years from now, the Sun’s hydrogen supply
will get exhausted at its core, and there would be no more fuel
for fusion to occur. As a result, the Sun will leave as the main
sequence star and begins to evolve into a red giant. Soon after
becoming a red giant, our Sun will start expanding due to which
Earth will receive more light and become hotter every day. Just
within the next few million years, it will consume Mercury. In
about 7.6 billion years from now, the Sun will have expanded
so much that it will consume our home planet.
By the time the Sun is 8 billion years old, it will contract quickly,
becoming a white dwarf star. In this process of quick expansion
and contraction, Sun will lose over 50% of its current mass.
White dwarf stars do not emit as much energy as a regular
star. So, by this time, if somehow our planet survives and does
not get eaten by the Sun, its surface temperature will begin
dropping rapidly. In about one quadrillion years, the Sun will
have cooled to five degrees above absolute zero. It will be so
cold that you would not be able to touch its surface by bare
hands. By this time, the Sun will not be shining at all. It would
be a black dwarf with no emitting light. Its core would also
have cooled down significantly, and the process of fusion would
stop completely.
Most of the stars in our universe are average-sized, so most of
them will die like our Sun, but not all of them. All the stars we
see in the night sky will use all their energy and will be gone
one day. What happens before that depends upon their mass.
As we have described above, stars whose mass is 0-8 times that
of the Sun will die like the Sun.
Stars whose mass is 8 to 20 times the mass of the Sun will have

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a different fate. The process of fusion and converting Hydrogen

into Helium occurs at a much faster rate at their core due to
their massive size. The gravitational force of the star keeps the
pressure at its core; at the same time, the fusion at its core
exerts pressure outwards. This pressure is in equilibrium in all
the stable stars like our Sun. However, by the time stars use all
of their fuel, and there is no more fuel to burn, this equilibrium
gets disturbed.
Stars whose mass is 8 to 20 times the mass of our Sun collapse
into themselves due to this pressure difference and boom. A
supernova explosion occurs. The bigger the star is, the bigger
the supernova explosion it will be. These stars light up the
entire galaxy with their explosion before dying. The effects
of their explosion can be seen in nearby galaxies and can be
detected thousands of lights years away. With their explosive
end, these stars create the building blocks required for the
evolution of life. Our element factory (stars) cannot form
heavier elements like Iron, Gold, etc. on a large scale through
fusion. Their inner core temperature can only fuse Hydrogen
into Helium and some sort of Lithium in massive stars. So, if
we want to create large amounts of heavier elements, we need
a very high temperature and pressure. Nothing can bring this
temperature except when a star collapses into itself and blows
up in the form of a supernova.
Supernova explosion provides enough energy at the core of a
star so it can form the heavier elements. Supernova explosions
gave us different materials; the Carbon that we are made
of, the Iron from which our vehicles are made, and the gold
jewellery that we wear, all of it came from those early supernova
explosions. During the explosion, the inner temperature of the

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star reaches the millions of degrees, enabling nuclei to fuse

into each other and result in heavy metals/elements. We have
Iron in our blood, which is a result of a supernova itself.
Heavy elements are not the only things that these stars leave
behind. Neutron Stars are also born from these explosions.
When giant stars die in the form of supernova explosions, their
cores collapse. This pressure and temperature are unimaginable.
It forces protons and electrons to melt into each other to form
neutrons. So eventually, what we have is a massive ball of
neutrons, which we also call as Neutron Stars.
In simple terms, a neutron star is the remnant core of a collapsed
star born from the explosive death of another, more massive
star. Neutron stars are typically tiny but extremely heavy. They
have a radius of roughly 12 kilometres, but their mass could
be 1.4 to 2.2 times that of the Sun. Neutron Stars are the
tiniest and densest stars ever known to exist. Their density can
be imagined from the fact that one teaspoon of neutron star
material would weigh roughly 10 million tons. Neutron stars
also rotate very fast; they can rotate up to 43,000 rotations per
minute and not fall apart. It has been predicted that our Milky
Way galaxy alone hosts 100 million neutron stars. Most of the
Neutron stars that we have observed are extremely hot, where
their surface temperature can reach 60,000K, comparing that
of our Sun, which is 6,000K.
Pulsars are also born the same way. As we know, almost all
stars rotate about their axis. However, when it goes supernova,
it loses a lot of its mass. So, in order to maintain its angular
momentum, the remaining star, the Neutron star, must spin
faster. When a Neutron star spins that fast, it blasts small

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beams of radiation along its magnetic field lines. When we

observe such stars from the Earth, we see pulsating beams of
light. So instead of calling them average Neutron stars, we call
them Pulsars.
We have talked about small and medium-sized stars. It is time
to talk about stars that are heavier than 20 times the mass
of our Sun. Whenever these massive stars run out of fuel,
instead of collapsing into themselves and then exploding into
a supernova, they simply collapse into themselves, forming a
Black Hole. We will talk about Black Holes in detail in the
next chapter.

Supernova is one of the most extreme events in the universe.

When we talk about a supernova, we talk about a star exploding
into bits and pieces in a small fraction of a second. An entire
star collapses, creating either Neutron stars or Black Holes.
They release more energy in a fraction of a second that our Sun
will release in millions of years. Supernovas are characterized
into two different categories, i.e., Type-1 and Type-2. This
distinction is generally based upon their dramatic way of
explosion and the type of star involved.

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Type 1 Supernova: This type of supernova involves white

dwarf stars. These types of supernovas are rare because they
require a binary star system. White dwarfs are quite stable, and
they do not explode on their own, they need a companion star
to do so. This companion star can be a red giant, a regular Sun
sized star, or even another white dwarf. As the other star gets
closer to a white dwarf, it starts stealing matter from it just like
a Black Hole. As a result, the mass of white dwarf increases
dramatically. White dwarf steals the matter and builds a
blanket of new matter around itself. When this stolen matter
gets too much, more than 1.4 times the mass of our Sun, it
reaches a critical point. Due to this sudden increase in mass,
the white dwarf becomes unstable and explodes as a supernova.
Type 2 Supernova: We have already talked about this type of
supernova, but let us look at it again. Suppose a star is finely
balanced. Finely balanced means that the core’s gravitational
pressure is equal to the pressure generated by the star’s fusion
process. But when the fuel of a star runs out dramatically, the
internal and external pressure becomes unbalanced. Since the
nuclear reactions have nearly stopped the pressure inside the
star, the star starts collapsing into itself. The complete star
collapses into a minimal point and explodes. Everything that
star used to consist of falls apart in a sudden moment. Type-
2 supernovae usually occur in giant stars because such stars
use their fuel very quickly. Our Sun is an average star, so the
chances of this type of end for our Sun are nearly zero.
Supernovae are rare; they are not easy to detect even in our
galaxy. Since the invention of the telescope, we have been able
to observe only around ten supernova explosions in our milky
way galaxy. Astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1604 observed one

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of the first supernovae seen in the milky way galaxy. He observed

this supernova even before the invention of the telescope, with
the naked eye. However, calculations show that there should be
a minimum of three of these explosions occurring in a century
in our milky way galaxy. Now we can only see the dust left
behind by the supernovae. It is possible that the atoms you are
made up of came from a supernova that occurred billions of
years ago in a faraway galaxy. It is also possible that the atoms
you are made of once were once a part of Albert Einstein.
Scientists have used the supernova explosions to measure the
age of the universe, which we know today to be nearly 13.8
billion years. Galaxies that are located thousands of light-
years away, their distance can also be measured by observing
their supernova explosions. The shine and light originated by a
distant supernova are measured, and later this data is compared
with the supernova explosions that occurred in a nearby galaxy.
By comparing the data, we can calculate the distance where
it occurred in a distant galaxy and its distance from us. As a
result of multiple observations from supernovae, we found the
universe is not slowing down at all, it is speeding up, opposite
to what we expected earlier and were looking for. That is how
science surprises us all the time, we were looking for a universe
which is slowing down, but we found the opposite results.
Why didn’t the early universe create heavier elements?
It is natural to ask why the universe didn’t create heavier
elements by itself in the beginning. The universe could have
been forming the heavier elements during its early age when
the temperature was high enough. However, we must not
forget that it was expanding rapidly, causing the temperature to

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lower quickly. Because of this rapid expansion, the probability

of multiple protons colliding under high temperature came
down. Apart from Hydrogen and a little bit of Helium, it is
possible that a minor amount of Lithium was also created at
the beginning. Primarily due to expansion, no other heavy
elements were created.
Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse is one of the shiniest stars of our night sky. When

you are stargazing from your roof, one of the stars you see in
the sky may be Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse is critical to learn about
because it can go supernova anytime in the future. Betelgeuse is
a red supergiant star located 642 light-years away from Earth.
This is a massive star with a diameter of ~1.2 billion km. This
star is very young, roughly 10 million years old, much younger
than our Sun. But due to its humongous size, it is burning its
fuel very rapidly, creating heavier elements at the core. Some
astronomers suspect that this star may go supernova within
the next 100,000 years. One million years is the maximum
estimated time until this red supergiant star explodes.
When Betelgeuse explodes, it will light up our sky for several
months. Its light will be so bright that it will be visible from
Earth even during daytime. At the end of the year 2019,
astronomers noticed that Betelgeuse is dimming in brightness.
Recent high-resolution images show that Betelgeuse is going
through some internal changes; we do not know what they
are. It is fading and changing its shape; instead of a sphere,
it appears squashed into an oval. Some astronomers suspect
that Betelgeuse has exploded already, and we do not have to
wait 100,000 years to see this supernova. But the problem is

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the distance, and Betelgeuse is located 642 light-years away,

which means light takes 642 years to reach our planet after it
explodes. So, all we can do is wait and watch the sky.

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 Black Holes

O
ur universe is full of magical things, and black holes
are one of them. As we spread our arms more in-
depth into the universe, we observe the beauty it is
confined with and witness the impossible things happening
out there. Scientists speak in a different tone when it comes
to a black hole. For some, they could be the pathways to new
dimensions, whereas for others, black holes are nothing but an
ultra-dense space which does not let anything come out. Black
holes contain one of the mysterious places of the universe that
are beyond our reach, a singularity.
Black holes were suggested by the astronomical pioneer John
Michell. He predicted that when a body is so dense that its
escape velocity is close to the speed of light, it will turn into
a black hole. He said that we could only observe them by
their gravitational effects. A few months later, when Einstein
developed his theory of relativity, Karl Schwarzschild found
a solution to Einstein’s equations explaining the gravitational
field of a spherical point mass. Based on the explanation given
by Albert Einstein, the black hole curves the space-time fabric
more than anything else because of their infinite density.
We can say black holes curve space-time, and as light travels
through that curved space, it bends forever and is never able to
come out of that region. It is said that black holes are not really
black, but instead are the brightest objects in the universe; they

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just do not allow the light to reflect.

Our Milky Way galaxy contains more than 100 billion stars,
and we can assume that a minimum of one out of 100 stars has
enough mass to end up as a black hole. According to this rough
approximation, there are more than 100 million black holes in
our galaxy alone. There are 200 billion to two trillion galaxies
in the universe now, you can calculate how many black holes
are there in total. Almost all the galaxies have a host black
hole, located at the very centre. This black hole holds the entire
galaxy together and does not let it fall apart. Our galaxy, Milky
Way, also has a supermassive black hole at the centre known as
Sagittarius A*.
We have already discussed the supernova explosions for small,
medium and massive stars, it will either be a Type-1 or a Type-
2. When a star whose mass is more than 20 times the mass
of our Sun dies, it collapses into itself and finally becomes a
black hole. The star collapses into itself and turns into a point
of singularity with infinite density and gravitational attraction.
In general, a black hole is a place in the space where the
gravitational force is so much that not even light can escape.
The gravity of that space is extremely strong due to matter
being squeezed into a tiny space. Black holes come in different
sizes, depending upon the amount of matter they have sucked
up into themselves and the mass of the star that resulted in
their formation. There are black holes with a diameter equal
to that of an asteroid, while some others are supermassive, like
those found at the core of every galaxy. There are four types
of known black holes, stellar, intermediate, supermassive, and
miniature. We will talk about them later.

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In order to understand a black hole better, let us try and get

into one. Suppose you have a spaceship that can take you to a
black hole within a matter of a few hours using a wormhole.
Now let us find out what will happen as you approach the
black hole. You will get stretched like spaghetti, your body will
break down to atoms, and you will die much before reaching
the black hole in a process called spaghettification. However,
in our case, we are assuming that the black hole’s gravity has
no impact on you.
Accretion disk

As you get near a black hole, you will first encounter the
Accretion disk. Accretion disk is a disc of superheated gases
and dust swirling around the black hole at a very high speed.
This superheated gas produces the electromagnetic radiations
(such as x-rays) that we generally use to locate a black hole.
Matter from Accretion disk falls into the black hole, giving it
more strength. It is like the lunch of a black hole, which gives
it more energy.
Innermost stable orbit

As we move through the Accretion disk towards the centre of

the black hole, the next place we will encounter is the innermost
stable orbit. This orbit is the inner edge of the Accretion disk.
It is generally the last place where we can turn back and come
out safely. Once we cross this point, there is no going back. In
simple words, it is the last stable circular orbit with a minimum
radius for a particle to revolve around the black hole.
Photon Sphere

Just before falling into the black hole, we will encounter the

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photon sphere. The photon sphere is a spherical region around

the black hole where gravity is so strong that even photons
(light particles) are forced to travel in orbits. This means the
black hole’s gravity bends their path, and thus, they are forced
to orbit the black hole until they fall into it or spiral out into
space.
Event Horizon

In simple words, Event Horizon is the point of no return. Once

you cross the event horizon, you are forever stuck inside the
black hole, and there is no way out. Event Horizon itself is the
radius around the singularity, it is a boundary that separates
the black hole from the rest of the space. The escape velocity
for an object within the event horizon exceeds the speed of
light. You must travel faster than the speed light to get out of
the event horizon. Physics says that by traveling faster than the
speed of light, you will get out of a black hole, but practically
it is not possible. Neither is it possible to reach a velocity close
to the speed of light.
Singularity

After crossing the event horizon, we come to the singularity. It

lies at the very centre of a black hole. Singularity is the place
where matter has collapsed into a point of infinite density. All
the matter that falls into a black hole eventually ends up here.
We are not sure about this point of singularity and what it is.
Singularity is still a point of discussion among scientists. We
know all the laws of physics of the current day break down at
the singularity, making it hard to get to a final conclusion.

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Hawking Radiations

Black holes may seem to be stable, but they are not. They
evaporate in the form of Hawking Radiations. The bigger the
black hole, the faster it evaporates in the form of Hawking
Radiations. Stephen Hawking explains it in terms of space and
how it works. Free space does not mean nothing, it consists
of particles and antiparticles that come into existence, soon
after they inhale and destroy each other. This process goes on
continuously and everywhere in space.
The same process of creation and inhalation of particles occurs
near the black hole. But what about at the event horizon?
It is said that at the event horizon as soon as particles and
antiparticles form, one of them gets sucked into the black
hole while the other particles stay out. The other particle may
escape and have no one to pair with. The particles come out
in the form of radiation that we call Hawking Radiation. The
process reduces the life of a black hole, but this process is quite

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slow. Given enough time, the black hole will radiate away its
mass and eventually vanish, but if it continues acquiring more
matter, it will not be effective.
Based upon their mass and how they are formed, black holes are
divided into four categories, stellar, intermediate, supermassive,
and miniature.
Stellar Black Holes

Stellar black holes are the common type of black holes. These
black holes are formed by a stellar death. As stars reach the end
of their lives, most of them inflate, lose mass, and eventually
become white dwarfs. However, as we talked about earlier,
stars whose mass is more than 20 times the mass of our Sun
become a black hole. These black holes are known as stellar
black holes. Stellar black holes can be found in almost every
galaxy and everywhere in the universe. Their mass is generally
5 to several tens of solar masses.
Intermediate Mass Black Holes

Intermediate mass black holes are a particular class of black

holes. These black holes have a mass of 100 to 100,000 times
the mass of our Sun. Intermediate Mass Black Holes are
massive compared to the stellar black holes but smaller than
the supermassive black holes. Several intermediate mass black
holes have been found in our milky way galaxy. By observing
the gas clouds and accretion disk, scientists were able to trace
their presence.
Supermassive Black Holes

As their name suggests, supermassive black holes are heavy.

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They are one of the most massive objects in the universe, only
behind a galaxy itself. Their mass is in the order of hundreds
of thousands to billions of times the mass of the Sun.
Astronomers suggest that supermassive black holes formed
from the collapse of massive clouds of gas during the early
stages of the formation of a galaxy. As a result, supermassive
black holes are generally found at the centre of most galaxies.
More prominent the galaxy is, the bigger its central black hole
must be. At the centre of our galaxy, there is a supermassive
black hole called Sagittarius A*.
Sagittarius A* is located roughly 26,000 light-years from
Earth. It has a diameter of roughly 44 million km and a mass
of 41 million times the mass of our Sun. Sagittarius A* is also
a powerful radio source, giving off strong radio waves, likely
originating from the matter orbiting around it. Astronomers
have not seen Sagittarius A* with a telescope since it does not
emit any light. Instead, they have noticed the motion of stars
around this black hole. They observed that a strong source of
gravity is making other stars move strangely. Only a very dense
object with the mass of millions of times the mass of the Sun
can make it happen. There is nothing like that except a black
hole.
Miniature Black Holes

Miniature black holes are hypothetical tiny black holes. They

have a shallow mass. The concept that miniature black holes
may exist was introduced in 1971 by Stephen Hawking. The
problem with miniature black holes is their small size. Even if
they are formed, they would radiate away almost instantly. Some
scientists predict that miniature black holes can be formed due

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to the high energies available in particle accelerators, such

as the Large Hadron Collider. When this theory first came,
people were worried about the possibility of a miniature black
hole forming inside the LHC and getting bigger by sucking
the entire planet.
First Image of Black Hole

Previously it was thought impossible to capture the image of a

black hole because they do not let even light escape. However,
with the advancement in technology, scientists have made it
possible. We have been studying black holes for a very long
time, but none of us had seen one until very recently. Messier
87 is an elliptical galaxy located in the constellation Virgo. It is
one of the most massive galaxies observed in the universe. It is
located about 53 million light-years away from Earth.
At the heart of Messier 87 galaxy, there is a supermassive black
hole, designated M87* with a mass billions of times that of
the Sun. Astronomers used the Event Horizon Telescope
to study this black hole, and based upon the data gathered
from this source, they have created the very first image of the
black hole. This image contains a rotating disk of ionized gas
surrounding the black hole. Matter continuously falls into the
black hole and keeps feeding it. The disk rotates at a very high
speed of roughly 1,000 km/s. This might seem small, but this
supermassive black hole contains a mass of roughly 6.5 billion
suns.
Until now, we had only seen the indirect evidence of black
holes. We were able to study the high energy jets shooting
straight from them. We were able to study the x-rays coming
from the matter circling the black hole. Not just X-rays, we

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were also able to detect the gravitational waves supposed to be

coming out of colliding black holes. However, the discovery of
an actual image of a black hole in 2019 is one of the biggest
landmarks in human history.
This is what a living black hole looks like.

What would happen if a black hole replaced our Sun?

If a black hole replaced our Sun, many things would happen.
First, we will not even notice it for the first 8.2 minutes because
that is the time light takes to reach us from our star. After
8.2 minutes, everything will get darker since black holes do
not emit any light. What happens to all the planets depends
upon the size of the black hole. If the black hole’s gravitational
attraction is the same as the Sun, then we will not notice
anything significant except darkness. However, our planet
will not become completely dark because the light of distant
stars will still be reaching us. If the black hole is too small and
does not have much gravitational force, planets will drift away

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tangentially into space. If it is too massive, all the planets may

even fall into it.
Suppose the gravitational strength of the black hole is as much
as the Sun. In that case, we will neither fall nor shoot away
into space, but we will have to find a suitable place to keep us
warm. After the first 24 hours, Earth’s temperature will start
dropping significantly, and the planet will start cooling down.
Within the first month, all the plants will die in the absence of
sunlight, which is required for photosynthesis. In the absence
of plants, all the Herbivores will die out, and in the absence of
Herbivore all the Carnivores will die too. The planet will get
so cold that our oceans will start freezing. Humans will move
towards hot places such as volcanoes to become warm and stay
alive, but due to the lack of resources, they will not survive for
too long.
If black holes are black, how do we know that they are actually
there?
A black hole cannot be seen directly because of its strong gravity
pulling all the light towards the singularity. Scientists can
observe the effects of Black Hole’s strong gravity on the stars
and gases that are orbiting around it. If a star is continuously
orbiting a point in space and it is not clear what it is orbiting
around, we can study its motion and see if that point is a Black
Hole. Generally, high-energy light is produced when a star and
black hole are orbiting closely.
A black hole’s gravity can sometimes pull the outer gases of a
star. However, that gas does not directly fall into it; some of it
does, but most of it starts orbiting around it in the Accretion
disk. As the gas from the accretion disk orbits the black hole,

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it gets heated to the point that it starts releasing x-ray light in

all directions. Space telescopes can measure this x-ray light.
Usually, astronomers use this information to learn more about
the properties of a black hole.

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 Our Solar System

I
n the most straightforward language, a solar system is
nothing but an arrangement of one or more planets around
a star. For us, the star is our Sun, just look upwards while
it is daytime and you will find out for yourself. The journey for
the formation of our solar system started more than 5 billion
years ago when there was a massive dust and gas cloud, mostly
containing hydrogen gas. At the very centre of that gas cloud, a
new star was being born, and that was our Sun. Five billion years
ago from today, there was no sign for a thing called a planet, let
alone a blue planet. However, as the solar dust cleared, gravity
began to cause bits of matter to clump together, forming a
large number of planets, and there was a beautiful structure
around this newly born star. In the beginning, there were 100’s
of planets in our solar system, but not all of them had a stable
orbit. Some of them collided with each other forming bigger
planets whereas others fell into the Sun.
With every impact, planets grew. The planets moving faster,
having large orbits and not too far from the Sun, grew rapidly
because they swiped more matter while revolving around the
Sun. Jupiter is an excellent example of that. Mars also could
have been a massive planet, but it could not get enough matter
in its orbit. It is hard to believe that dust clouds combined
forming planets in a process that took millions of years. Not to

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mention that our Earth was made in the same way.

Most of these planets were nothing but a hot ball of lava, whose
surface temperature was close or more than 1000’s of degrees.
Those planets had an atmosphere full of CO2, Nitrogen, and
other harmful gases. Planets were a boiling ball where volcanic
activity was widespread. These were the inner planets of the
solar system; for the other planets of the solar system, things
were totally different. Almost all the outer planets of our solar
system are gas giants whose density is so low that if you stand
over their surface, you will descend forever and stop at their
core.
The Sun

We have already discussed how the Sun will die, but there are
certain things that we must know about our host star. Sun
dominates the solar system with around 99.8% of total mass.
Our solar system is an average 27,000 light-years away from
the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. Nearly 3/4 portion of the
Sun is pure Hydrogen, approx. 1/4 portion of Sun is Helium,
while there is a negligible amount of heavy elements such as
Oxygen, Carbon, Iron, Neon, Nitrogen, etc. The core of our Sun
is millions of degrees hot, where the process of converting light
elements into heavier elements occurs. Sun orbits at a speed of
~220 km/sec around the centre of the milky way galaxy. Our
entire solar system also moves at the same speed, but we do not
notice any of it because we live in the protective atmosphere
of Earth. If we compare our central star with Earth, it has 109
times the radius and around 333,000 times the mass of Earth.
The escape velocity from the outer surface of the Sun is also
very high, around 617 km/sec, 55 times that of Earth.

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The rate at which stars use their fuel in the form of fusion to
convert lighter elements into heavier elements depends upon
their mass. A massive star has more pressure at the core, thus
converting more mass and vice versa. Being an average-sized
star, the rate of energy consumption of the Sun is very low. The
Sun we see today is likely the same as it was 4 billion years ago
and will be the same for the coming 2-3 billion years, except
that its luminosity will increase with time. The distance between
our Sun and Earth is used as a parameter (astronomical unit or
AU) to measure the various solar distances. The average distance
between Sun and Earth is about 150,000,000 km or 93 million
miles, while one astronomical unit equals 149,597,870 km.
We have a stable future because we have a stable host star
supporting life on Earth with its light. All the plant life uses
the same light for photosynthesis and gives us Oxygen to
breathe. The amount of sunlight we receive here on Earth is
meagre, it is just a small fraction of the energy that the Sun
releases every moment.
We might feel unique about ourselves, but our solar system
is not unique at all. In fact, it is just one of the billions of
solar systems in the universe. However, something it contains
makes it unique, i.e., life. The solar system’s arrangement comes
with eight planets surrounding the Sun. Not just the planets,
but all other objects are also centred about the Sun. The
massive gravity of our Sun is holding all the planets, comets,
asteroids and dwarf planets of the solar system together. As
you are reading this book, our planet is not just rotating; it
is also revolving around the Sun. Our Sun is orbiting around
the centre of the Milky Way galaxy, which has its own moving
speed in the universe. This is mind-blowing to think about.

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Our Sun is essential because its heat keeps us alive, and its
energy enables plants to do photosynthesis. Billions of years
ago, where there was no oxygen in the atmosphere, the Sun
provided energy to the Stromatolites, which later filled our
atmosphere with Oxygen. In the absence of the Sun, our oceans
would freeze, and no signs of life will remain on Earth. Today
we know of 8 major planets and many other minor planets that
were not in the list of planets destroyed by the Sun. Let us go
beyond the Sun and explore what is there:
Mercury

The very first planet from the Sun is also the smallest planet
of our solar system, Mercury. Mercury has a rocky surface
with a large number of craters on it, much like the dark side
of our Moon. These craters show that brutal bombarding that
happened for billions of years after the formation of Mercury.
Mercury is one of two planets of our solar system that do not
have a moon, neither does it have a healthy atmosphere like
Earth. It has a fragile atmosphere, which consists of Hydrogen,
Helium, Oxygen, sodium, calcium, potassium, and water vapor.
Being the closest planet to our Sun, Mercury has a high surface
temperature, which can reach above 420 degrees Celsius.
Mercury is tidally locked with our Sun in a 3:2 spin-orbit
resonance. This means that relative to the Sun, it rotates on
its axis three times for every two revolutions it makes around
the Sun. The side of Mercury which faces the Sun has a very
high temperature, whereas the opposite dark side has freezing
temperatures. The scenario can be understood by imagining
that you are standing on Mercury. You bring your one hand
directly to the sunlight and put the other hand in the dark,

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one hand will be burned due to the intense heat, whereas the
other hand will freeze. As a result of this dramatic temperature
variation, there are no chances to survive on this planet.
Mercury takes only 88 Earth days to complete one revolution
around the Sun, making it the fastest planet to do so in our
solar system. Most of the parts of Mercury are metallic, which
gives it a high density of 5.51 g/cm³. Its density is slightly
lower than Earth, making it the second most dense planet in
our solar system.
Venus

The next planet is Venus. Venus is very similar in physical

characteristics such as size, mass, gravity, etc. to Earth. Due
to this fact, Venus is also called Earth’s sister planet. The inner
core conditions of Venus are also supposed to be the same as
Earth. Venus has an atmosphere mostly consisting of carbon
dioxide, about 96% carbon dioxide, and more than 3.5%
Nitrogen. Being closer to the Sun, Venus receives much more
sunlight than Earth. Most of the Sunlight gets trapped by the
carbon dioxide in its atmosphere and is unable to leave. This
raises the overall temperature of Venus, which can reach up
to 460 degrees Celsius, making it the hottest planet revolving
around the Sun.
Venus has clouds of Sulfuric acid, so whenever it rains, sulfuric
acid drops from the sky, which is a very horrifying scene to
imagine. The presence of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere and
the high temperature makes it unsuitable for life. Also, Venus
has a massive atmosphere giving it a surface pressure of around
93 times as that of Earth. Venus takes around 224.7 days to
complete a single revolution around the Sun. After the Moon,

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Venus is the second brightest natural object in the night sky.

It looks like a small bright spot when observed with the naked
eye.
Earth

The third planet from the Sun is our home planet, Earth. Just
look down at the ground, that is Earth. Earth is neither hot
nor cold; it is perfect for the growth and well-being of life.
Earth is the only planet we know today that supports life. We
will briefly discuss this planet in a later chapter.
Mars

The fourth planet is Mars. Because of the abundant presence

of iron oxide in its atmosphere, Mars is commonly known as
the red planet. Mars is smaller than Venus and Earth, but it
is much larger than Mercury. Mars has a fragile atmosphere
consisting of CO2 and Oxygen. The presence of water as ice
over a large part of Mars makes it an exciting planet that could
support life in the future with the help of some equipment.
Discovery of water as ice on Mars directly points out that
this planet may have supported life in its past, but due to the
solar storms and lack of magnetic shield, Mars not only lost its
atmosphere but also the oceans of water on it. Mars is the next
target of NASA and many other space research organizations
to land a person on its surface after the Moon. Humans could
not land on its surface, but our rovers have already reached
there, and Curiosity rover is one of them.
After Earth, Mars is the next planet that has its own Moon.
The beauty of Mars is enhanced by its two moons, Phobos
and Deimos. Its moons are not as big as our Moon is, nor are

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they round like ours, but they are beautiful. Because of their
dramatic structure, scientists believe that these two moons
might be some captured asteroids. They might have come from
the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Asteroid Belt

The asteroid belt is located between the inner and outer planet
of our solar system, i.e., Mars and Jupiter. It contains a large
number of asteroids orbiting the Sun just like other planets.
There are hundreds of thousands of asteroids in the asteroid
belt, but almost half of its mass is made up by 4 significant
asteroids. These are Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. Among
these asteroids, Ceres is the only asteroid that is also designated
as a dwarf planet. This means it is neither too small to be a
proper asteroid nor too big to be considered a planet. Ceres
has a diameter of about 946 kilometres. Asteroid belt is a part
of various solid asteroids, comets and irregularly shaped bodies
where some objects are as small as a particle, whereas others
are over 900 kilometres wide.
There are two leading theories as to what made the Asteroid
belt. The first theory is that it is just as it was at the beginning
of the solar system. When our solar system was forming, gas
and dust combined forming small asteroids and comets, but it
could not form a proper planet. It would make a good small-
sized planet if we collect all the mass of the asteroid belt. Since
asteroids were not able to combine, they are as they were since
the beginning. If that is the case, then it must be much denser
with many more asteroids and comets in the beginning. Every
now and then, we observe asteroids and comets leaving the
asteroid belt in the influence of the gravitational force of either

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Mars, Jupiter, or even its own objects. Those asteroids and

comets either fall into the Sun, or they leave our solar system.
This also raises many questions whether we are safe from the
objects or not; we never know when the next asteroid or comet
will face towards our planet.
The second theory is that in the beginning, there were two
small-sized planets between Mars and Jupiter. But the problem
was that somehow their orbits intersected with each other. As
a result, a massive collision between those planets occurred,
forming an asteroid belt. A large amount of debris either fell
into the Sun or escaped the solar system after this collision,
and only a few hundred thousand objects remained in the
asteroid belt.
Jupiter

The fifth planet from the Sun is Jupiter. Jupiter is not only
the biggest planet but also the second biggest object of our
solar system after the Sun itself. Jupiter has no surface, it is
mainly made up of gases. Since there is no land on the surface
of Jupiter, if you try to land your spacecraft on Jupiter, it will
get sucked towards the centre of Jupiter. As your spacecraft
will go down, the heat and pressure will increase. Eventually,
your spacecraft will melt before reaching the centre of Jupiter,
and you will die.
It is thought that Jupiter might have a solid core mostly made
up of metals because of its tremendous pressure. However,
we have no substantial evidence supporting this prediction
because we cannot go there and look down, it is all gas as far
below we can see. Jupiter has nearly 79 known moons circling
it, and most of these moons are very small. Jupiter also has

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some of the largest moons of our Solar System. Ganymede

with a diameter of 5,262 kilometres is one of Jupiter’s 79
moons; it is even bigger than planet Mercury. If Ganymede
were not orbiting Jupiter, then it would be a planet by itself.
Jupiter is not as cool and calm as we see it in pictures from
Earth. There are terrible storms on Jupiter, which are bigger
than the biggest storm ever seen on Earth. One of its storms
can be seen from the surface of the Earth. It is known as the
giant red spot, and this storm has been going on for the last
200 years. This storm is so violent that the speed of winds can
reach over 270 miles per hour.
Saturn

After Jupiter comes Saturn, another gas giant. Saturn is the

most beautiful planet to observe through a telescope. It is also
the farthest planet that can be seen from Earth with the naked
eye. Saturn is famous for its beautiful rings. These rings are
thought to be solid, but they are made up of rocks, ice, and
other star dust. It is still not clear how old Saturn’s rings are.
Saturn’s rings may have been around for 4.5 billion years, which
is the beginning of our Solar System. Another possibility is
that Saturn has gained its rings recently by the collision of 2
or more of its moons. Whenever a moon gets too close to its
host planet, it can be ripped apart by its gravity. That could be
another possibility for the formation of its rings. Icy moons
such as Enceladus have been found orbiting Saturn so it will
not be surprising if Saturn has got its rings by ripping apart
one of its moons.
Saturn is the least dense planet of the solar system with a
density of 0.68 g/m³. If you put Saturn in a giant tub of water,

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it would float. Saturn has more than 60 known moons orbiting

around it, and some moons are the same size as Mercury.
Another thing that makes Saturn interesting is one of its
moons called Enceladus. Enceladus is a small ocean world
fully covered in ice. We cannot see what is below the ice sheet,
but scientists have predicted that there could be vast oceans
of water below the ice sheet. Scientists are looking forward to
sending underwater drones to Enceladus and check if it has
underwater aquatic alien life.
Uranus

After Saturn, we have Uranus, the seventh planet from the

Sun. It is a much smaller planet than Saturn and Jupiter. It
is tilted so much about its axis that it seems to be spinning
sideways. Uranus has small rings around it, much smaller than
Saturn. We usually do not see them in the images coming
from NASA. It is the coldest planet of our solar system where
the lowest temperature can reach -224.2 ℃. Since Uranus is
so distant from the Sun, it takes a lot of time to complete one
orbit around the Sun, roughly 84 Earth years. With an average
density of 0.687 g/cm3, it is the second least dense planet.
Uranus has 27 known moons. Uranus’s upper atmosphere is
covered by methane gas, which gives it a beautiful blue colour.
We do not have much information about this gas giant because
it has been visited only once by Voyager 2.
Neptune

The eighth and most distant planet from our Sun is Neptune.
Neptune is another gas giant with similar compositions as
Uranus. Neptune also has methane in its environment like

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Uranus, giving its blue colour, but it is a darker blue for some
reason we are unaware of. Neptune has 14 known moons.
The average space between Neptune and the Sun is around
30 astronomical units. Neptune takes a very long time to go
around the Sun, close to 164.8 Earth years. Most (80%) of
Neptune consists of Hydrogen and Helium (19%).
Pluto

Discovered in 1930, Pluto used to be listed as the ninth planet

of our solar system. However, Pluto is too tiny to be considered
as a planet, even smaller than many moons we know today.
Later, when people started discovering other objects bigger
than Pluto and demanded their object to be given the status of
a planet, Pluto was removed from the list of planets. In 2005,
Eris, which is much bigger than Pluto, was discovered. In 2006,
after 76 years of being listed as a planet, Pluto was declared as
a dwarf planet. This means that it is like a planet but too small
to be called a planet in our Solar System. There are at least
five known official dwarf planets in the solar system discovered
after Pluto, and there could possibly be many more. Pluto takes
248 years to complete one revolution around the Sun.
Kuiper Belt

The Kuiper belt is a circumstellar disc located in our outer

Solar System. It is very similar to the asteroid belt but is much
more massive and broader. It contains several more objects as
compared to the asteroid belt. For us, this place is not only
mysterious but also very cold and dark. The Kuiper Belt is
smaller than the Oort Cloud, but it is still one of our solar
system’s most massive structures. Since this region is so far, The

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Sun’s heat and light does not reach there effectively. As a result,
both the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt are thought to be the
sources of comets that we receive in our solar system.

Astronomers believe that the icy objects, mostly comets of

the Kuiper Belt, are remnants of the solar system’s formation.
If Neptune did not exist with its gravitational influence, the
Kuiper Belt might have formed a planet. That way we would
have nine planets in our solar system right now. However,
Neptune’s gravity has stirred up this region and prevented
them from forming a new planet.
Oort Cloud

Oort Cloud is basically a shell of icy objects located in the

outermost region of our solar system. Oort Cloud surrounds the
Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 astronomical
units. Some astronomers believe that Oort Cloud has not
existed there forever. Instead, our Sun might have captured the
material of Oort Cloud from the outer disks of other stars
forming in our nebula.

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It is hard to study Oort Cloud because of its distance from

the Sun. However, it is predicted that it contains more than 2
trillion icy objects, comets and asteroids. In a way, Oort Cloud
completes our solar system. It gives us a boundary to which we
can look and say that this is how big our solar system is. Since
it is way too far and way too complicated, astronomers are yet
to study most of its bigger objects and predict their trajectory
around the Sun.
Solar system cam can be differentiated as an inner and outer
solar system depending upon our position in it. The first four
planets including Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, are the
inner planets composed of rock and metal. The massive planets
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are the gas giants mainly
composed of Hydrogen and Helium, and are also called the
outer planets. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn are our
nearest planets, and in a clear night sky, all of them can be
viewed with the naked eye.

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Part III

Our Planet

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 Earth’s Story

E
very single planet in the solar system has its own
story, and Earth is one of them. To understand Earth’s
story, we must follow the tracks left behind since the
beginning of our planet. Even though the early solar system’s
dramatic conditions have destroyed almost all the evidence,
a few of them are still here. The earliest rocks give us the
fingerprints of volcanic activity that occurred in the beginning
and the transitions our planet has gone through. Geologists
hunt for such rocks to reveal the baby picture of the Earth and
how it looked back then. At the beginning of the solar system,
a large number of planets were born. Some planets destroyed
themselves and others as well, some kept on growing by adding
more mass to their pile. As smaller planets came into their
path, they became their moons. In our case, Jupiter has over 79
known moons; most of them were captured by its gravity.
When Earth had just begun forming 4.5 billion years ago, it was
in a molten state. There used to be nothing except the oceans
of lava. At that time, if you stood on Earth, you would get
submerged in lava and die instantly due to the heat. Earth was
getting bombarded by a large number (millions) of asteroids,
comets, and meteoroids every day. That was one of the reasons
preventing Earth from cooling down quickly. Because of this
molten state of Earth, most of the heavier elements such as

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iron, steel, gold (most of the metals) moved towards the centre.
Even today, the majority of metals are stored in the very core
of our planet.
At the same time, lighter elements such as clay, sand, etc.,
stayed at the top of Earth, which we commonly see everywhere
on the ground. The moving of elements due to Earth’s molten
state is the reason why we have a solid core made up of heavy
elements. Today, the temperature at the boundary of Earth’s
inner and outer core is estimated to be 6,000 degrees Celsius,
equal to the Sun’s surface. One of the big reasons our planet’s
core is still hot is that it is surrounded by a vast amount of sand
and clay, and secondly, it is made up of heavy metals. A long
time after the Earth’s formation, its surface was still like a giant
ball of lava orbiting around a newly born star, Sun. There was
no sign of life since the ordinary temperature was over 1000
degrees Celsius.
The vacuum of space is cold, its temperature is near absolute
zero, -273.15 degrees Celsius. The vacuum of space was cold
enough to make Earth cool down. As soon as our planet
started cooling down, it began from the outer surface, the same
surface that we stand on today. It took more than 1 million
years for Earth to become cold enough to cover its surface
with solid lava. Rocks of that time are very hard to find today,
so geologists generally use meteoroids and date them to get
Earth’s actual age. Meteoroids can be found on Earth, and they
tell us that Earth is over 4.5 billion years old.

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This is how Earth looked like 4.5 billion years ago.

Earth changed slowly. After millions of years of formation, the
scene was different. Our planet was not as hot as it is today, and
it had started to take shape and form. As the surface cooled,
all the lava oceans turned into hard surfaces. Even though it
might have seemed that our planet was calm from outside,
a lot of volcanic activity was still happening there. Millions
of volcanoes erupted, sending tons of dust, gases, and mainly
CO2 into the atmosphere. Even after 100 million years of its
formation, Earth was not suitable to support life. Now that
Earth had a solid surface, volcanic activity was also slowing
down with time, but there was one more ingredient that our
planet needed to harbour life, water.
How did Earth acquire water?
For many scientists, it is still a mystery how Earth acquired all
of its water, but some scientists believe that they have found
an answer. The answer to this question lies in the Meteoroids.

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When scientists studied the meteoroids falling on Earth from

outer space, they discovered small droplets of liquid water
in them. It is believed that as the universe cooled down, the
water present in meteoroids became ice and stayed there in
outer space. Meteoroids that collided with our planet brought
water with them. Millions of meteoroids were colliding with
our planet every day, adding water to Earth drop by drop.
This fundamental idea comes from the scientific observations
explaining how water came from outer space.
It seems impossible to believe that small meteoroids can bring
so much water to our planet and fill a large number of oceans.
However, it looks possible when the bombarding of meteoroids
occurs for millions of years. We are lucky that the water did
not cover our entire planet. 3/4th of our planet is underwater,
whereas the other is solid land where we build our homes and
live with our families. If too many meteoroids had hit Earth
covering the entire planet with water, there would be no sign of
us today. Only aquatic life would be thriving on a blue planet.
Every drop of water that we have on Earth is billions of years
old. It is possible that the water we drink today might have
travelled billions of kilometres in space to reach our planet
inside a meteoroid. This reminds us of how lucky we are to be
born and have a life on this planet. I hope this fills you with
gratitude for Mother Earth as well.
Earth spins at about 1000 miles an hour at the equator, but this
number was much higher in the beginning. Not only was our
planet spinning faster, but the Moon was also very close to the
surface. Today we see tides on our oceans due to the impact
of the Moon’s gravity, but when the Moon was much closer,
and Earth was spinning faster, the Moon used to create huge

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tides, probably 100 meters or more in height. As time passed,

Earth’s rotation slowed down, the Moon moved away from
us, and the waves calmed down. After 700 million years of the
formation of Earth, life-giving water covered its surface. The
lava busted over the oceans and cooled down quickly resulting
in the formation of small islands. In the future, these islands
will join to form continents.
Volcanic activity filled Earth’s atmosphere with Carbon dioxide.
Nitrogen gas makes up 78 percent of the air we breathe, and it
is thought that most of the nitrogen was trapped in primordial
rubble that formed the Earth. When they smashed together,
nitrogen was released. Once the Earth was covered with water
and land was emerging through the volcano, one more crucial
thing required for the growth of life was left, an oxygen-rich
atmosphere. Where did the Oxygen come from?
Every minute we inhale and exhale several gases 20 times.
About 21% of that gas is Oxygen. Early Earth had none of the
oxygen that we inhale today. The atmosphere was poisonous for
life. A substantial volcanic activity filled Earth’s environment
with a mixture of methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and
even some amount of sulfuric acid. We humans will not be
able to stand even a minute over a surface with such a hostile
environment. However, as we know, life does exist. So how did
it happen?
A one-word answer is, stromatolites. Stromatolites made it
possible for Earth to contain such a large amount of Oxygen in
an environment where there were nothing but poisonous gases.
Stromatolites are found underwater, they contain microbes
called cyanobacteria. Even a small piece of stromatolite may

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have millions of cyanobacteria present in it. What makes

these cyanobacteria unique is that they can produce Oxygen.
Cyanobacteria changed the history of Earth with their ability
to produce Oxygen. The process of cyanobacteria producing
Oxygen is very slow, so it took another millions of years of
continuous pumping to fill Earth’s atmosphere with Oxygen.
If we go close to a cyanobacteria underwater, we can see it
forming bubbles of Oxygen and eventually releasing them into
the air. They take water and sunlight to produce Oxygen. Life
evolved and grew under the atmosphere that cyanobacteria
made. Stromatolites can be seen even today in the depth
of the oceans and where the water has evaporated. Living
stromatolites are very rare to find on the Earth. Stromatolites
are the example of how microbial life dominated early Earth.
Without stromatolites and cyanobacteria, Earth’s geology
would be very different. Water and a toxic environment would
be there, but you and I would not.

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Story of life

In the beginning, life was not as sophisticated as we see it today.

It was simpler. Life started as a single cell, or it can be said that
it started all alone. Single cells acted as the most prestigious
building blocks of life. Humanity came into existence just
200,000 years ago, but the building blocks that lead to this
are working for billions of years. So, what is there that makes
us humans? What is the meaning of intelligence, and how
did it originate? Is it possible for life to have intelligence and
consciousness in some other forms of matter at some other part
of the universe? To know these answers, we must understand
the journey of our planet because the journey of Earth is
somehow the journey of humanity towards consciousness. It is
a journey where some part of the matter is going to look back
towards its own origin. It is a journey where the universe gives
birth to itself and can understand itself.
After the Big Bang explosion and the formation of the universe,
the origin of life was the second most significant thing that
happened. The journey of life on Earth is just as complex as the
journey of the formation of the universe. From being nothing
but some chemicals to becoming a single cell organism and
eventually becoming such a complex machine that we are one
of the greatest subjects to study. When we look at the human
body, the most complex structure we have is the human brain.
The way it handles several emotions and the way it perceives
various senses, such as the sense of touch, smell, vision, hearing
and taste is magical. Medical science, to this day, is trying to
understand how the human brain works. In short, the brain is
the place where you exist. You can ask yourself, who am I? But

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even the answer lies within the brain itself. Our brain’s ability
to question itself has given us tremendous powers over other
species.
We have a vivid sense of memory that helps us remember what
happened years ago and still feel the same emotions. Not just
the past, our brain can simulate what will happen in the future.
It can imagine things that have never happened or will never
happen. Even though sometimes it can give us anxiety, but that
is something that makes us humans. It has been estimated that
our brain can perform over 10,000,000,000,000,000 operations
per second, and we never notice it.
Being a physics lover, talking to my mom is the ability of a
condensed matter to interact with some other part of the same
matter. But why is this limited to living organisms only, why
can’t rocks interact with each other. Well, they do not carry
something which we do. The matter we consist of obeys some
specific quantum laws, whereas the rocks do not. As far as we
know, planet Earth is the only liveable place in the universe; it
is the only planet we know that supports life! We have found
many planets orbiting in the Goldilocks zone, but we have
not found the signs of intelligence there yet. Early evolution
was the period when life originated and grew in the lap of the
sea, and after a specific interval of time, it finally came out of
water. To understand the spark of life, we must understand the
evolution of our planet but with reference to life.
In the beginning, life was in the form of single cells, or it can
be said that all the bricks required to build complex structures
were starting to evolve. Moreover, when they came together,
the Earth’s atmosphere and the surrounding environment

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cemented for those building blocks to stay arranged and evolve

further to form more complex structures. The contribution of
our Sun also cannot be forgotten; if Earth worked as a backbone
for life to stand, then Sun acted as the primary source of food
for life to nourish. Whenever life seemed to be in danger, it
was the nearby environment that acted as a sword to protect it.
After 700 million years of Earth’s formation, the life-giving
water covered its surface, and tiny islands appeared. Meteoroids
that hit Earth and covered its surface with water also came
with one more crucial thing, minerals. As the meteoroids
dissolved, they released their minerals into the ocean water
and transported carbon, proteins, and amino acids from outer
space to the bottom of the oceans of Earth. These minerals
were necessary for the formation of single-cell organisms, so
we must be thankful to these meteoroids.
Amino acids are the building blocks of life, they are present
in each living organism. These amino acids can be found in
the meteoroids that enter Earth’s environment. This is one of
the most significant discoveries ever made, explaining how life
grew in the very early ages and how it was supported by the
amino acids taken to the Earth by the meteoroids. Meteoroids
came with water, amino acids, and metals. Most of the
ingredients we see today in the lap of nature are taken by these
meteoroids billions of years ago. How did these meteoroids
get these minerals? The meteoroid got the minerals from some
early supernova explosions that occurred shortly after the Big
Bang.
Three hundred meters under the Earth’s surface, it is entirely
dark. Sun’s radiation cannot reach there, and it is nearly

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freezing. All the minerals that meteoroids brought in created

a chemical soup, and somehow these chemicals came together
to create life! They formed the single-celled bacteria that are
considered as the earliest form of life on Earth. This was the
defining moment for the formation of life; the microscopic
life was on its way. This is how life originated and spread its
very first fragrance underwater. From this soup of chemicals,
various kinds of bacteria came into existence, and one of them
was cyanobacteria, who filled Earth’s atmosphere with Oxygen.
3.5 billion years ago, life was growing in the seabeds in the
form of small mountains called stromatolites—each consisting
of a large number of bacteria, usually cyanobacteria. Over time
these bacteria learned to turn sunlight directly into food by a
process we call photosynthesis. These bacteria used sunlight,
carbon dioxide and water, and turned it into glucose, a simple
form of sugar. This magical transformation released the life-
giving gas, Oxygen, as a by-product. Underwater these bacteria
filled oceans with Oxygen, and most of this Oxygen was
released into the outer environment.

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 The Moon

I
f we look at the entire human history, the object which
has had the most profound impact on human lives is the
Moon. From the tales of grandmothers to the rising tides
of oceans, the Moon has always impacted our lives. When I
was a child, my mother used to tell us many tales about the
Moon and called it ‘Uncle Moon.’ Little did I know that what
I am calling ‘uncle’ is nothing but a large and dense piece of
matter circling Earth. In the future, whenever humanity will
talk about the history of space exploration, the one thing they
will talk in common about will be our Moon.
Earth is unique because it has a special moon, which is also
the brightest object in the sky after the Sun. The story cannot
be completed without taking the Moon into account. Since its
birth about 4.51 billion years ago, the Moon has influenced
Earth and the lives of its beings. The Moon not only influences
living systems but non-living systems too.
Just like any other relationship, the Earth-Moon relationship
is also theatrical. The distance of the Moon from Earth has not
always been the same as it is today, it has changed over time.
Since its birth, the Moon has been slowly slipping away from
our planet’s gravitational grasp. The rate at which the Moon
is getting away from us currently is roughly 3.82 cm per year.
However, this rate has not been constant since the birth of

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the Moon, and it will not be constant in the future. Moon

orbits, on average, 384,400 kilometres from Earth; if you blast
a torch towards the Moon from Earth, it would take about
1.28 seconds for light to reach the Moon. With a diameter
of about 3,474.2 km, the Moon is the biggest natural satellite
revolving around Earth. The Moon is not only the fifth largest
but also the second most dense natural satellite after Jupiter’s
Io in our solar system.

Moon is tidally locked with the Earth. Which means it shows

only one side to Earth. The force of gravity between the Earth
and Moon causes some fascinating effects. The most obvious
is the tides. Moon’s gravitational attraction is maximum to
the side of Earth closer to the Moon and minimum on the
opposite side. This effect of the Moon’s gravity can be seen over
the seas of Earth. Not being perfectly rigid, the Earth’s oceans
are stretched out along the line towards the Moon; in the same
way, the Sun’s gravity also does its work, and as a result, we

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see two little bulges. One towards the Moon and one directly
opposite and towards the Sun, as shown in the picture. This
gravitational effect is much more influential on ocean water
than on solid crust. Since Earth rotates much faster than the
Moon, the bulges move around the Earth once a day, giving
two high tides per day.

There are many predictions describing the origin of our Moon,

but we are still trying to know the real truth behind them.
There are four major theories/hypotheses describing the origin
of the Moon. These are:
1. Sister Theory
2. The Capture Theory
3. The Daughter or Fission Theory
4. Impact Theory – The most accepted theory

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1. Sister Theory

Sister theory suggests that during the formation of our solar

system, the Moon formed as a separate object near Earth. The
formation of Earth and the Moon took place at the same time.
The material that formed Earth also gave birth to the Moon.
As a result, in the beginning, we had two planets, one bigger
(Earth) and the other smaller (Moon), and it was a ‘double
planet system.’ However, there was a problem with this system,
Earth took out more material from the raw disk of the solar
system and acquired more mass, whereas the Moon could
not do so and stayed small. After the formation of these two
planets, as Earth was bigger, it had more gravitational force.
So, Earth’s gravity attracted the Moon, and it ended up falling
into an orbit around Earth.
Flaw in the Sister Theory

Even though this theory seems very satisfying, there is a

significant flaw in it. The problem revolves around the density
and composition of Earth and the Moon. When scientists
studied the density of Earth and the Moon, they found it to
be different. Earth’s density is around 5.5 g/cm³, whereas the
Moon’s density is around 3.3 g/cm³, which is way too different.
If Earth and Moon had formed as a double planet system
and they formed side by side from the same interplanetary
material, their density must be the same. The essential physical
characteristics of the Moon, such as the density, does not allow
us to say that both originated together.
2. Capture Theory

Now, as we know that Earth and Moon density are not

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similar, that must mean the Moon was not formed anywhere
near Earth. This is precisely what Capture Theory suggests.
According to this theory, the Moon was formed far away from
Earth, somewhere outside the orbit of our planet. However,
the problem was that it did not have a stable orbit to revolve
around the Sun. As a result, the Sun’s gravity pulled the
Moon towards itself, and the Moon started falling into the
Sun. While the Moon was moving towards the Sun, it passed
near Earth and got captured. Since then, the Moon has been
orbiting Earth. If there were no Earth, then the Moon would
have either fallen into the Sun or would have collided with
Mercury or Venus in the way.
Flaw in the Capture Theory

The main problem with Capture Theory is the abnormal mass

of our Moon. For us, Earth might seem like a big planet, but in
the scale of the solar system, it is tiny. If the Moon was formed
away from the Earth, it must have a very high momentum
while passing near Earth, making it hard to capture for our
small-sized planet. This way, either Moon would have escaped
Earth’s gravity or would have destroyed Earth with a huge
impact. There are many chances for a big object like our Moon
to alter the stable orbit of Earth if moving with considerable
momentum. As a result, it would have caused both Earth
and the Moon to fall into the Sun together. The computer
simulations done to check this theory’s credibility show that
such a capture would be physically impossible due to the
Moon’s high mass.
3. Daughter or Fission Theory

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This theory suggests that the Moon is the daughter of Earth,

and it originated from Earth itself. As we know, during its
formation, Earth used to spin at an immense speed. This speed
slowed down with time, but it is still spinning at the rate of
1,000 miles per hour on the equator. According to the Fission
Theory, due to the fast spinning, a large portion of Earth was
expelled out of it. However, that expelled matter did not leave
Earth’s orbit and fall into the Sun, and instead started orbiting
our planet. As time passed, that orbiting matter started colliding
with space debris and became bigger and bigger. After millions
of years of collisions, all that matter came together and formed
our Moon.
Flaw in the Capture Theory

Fission Theory has the same major flaw as the Sister Theory.
Both the Earth and Moon have different compositions. Moon
might have the same composition of some essential ingredients
as we see on Earth. But the overall density is not the same as
Earth, which becomes a big reason for the failure of Capture
theory.
4. Impact Theory

Impact Theory suggests that the Moon was formed by the

collision of a Mars-size planet named Theia with Earth. Theia
was about the size of Mars, with a diameter of about 6,102 km
(3,792 miles). According to Impact theory, at the beginning
of the solar system, a planet named Theia formed in our solar
system. Evidence published in the year 2019 suggests that
Theia might have formed in the outer Solar System rather
than the inner Solar System. Since Theia did not have a stable

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orbit, it was pulled towards the Sun. While on its way to fall
into the Sun, a small part of it collided with Earth. Such types
of collisions were prevalent in the early solar system.
It was not a direct face to face impact; both planets touched each
other and continued moving on their path. This impact was so
horrible that millions of tons of matter acquired the escape
velocity and escaped into outer space, while the rest stayed in
orbit around Earth. The impact increased the spinning rate of
Earth; a day took just six hours for completion. This collision
resulted in the formation of a lava belt around Earth. As time
passed, the lava belt assembled, resulting in the formation of
two moons around Earth. However, there was a problem with
the velocities of these two newly formed moons; they did not
have the same velocity in the same orbit, which means one more
impact. Both the moons collided with each other, resulting
in a single moon around Earth. The computer simulations
primarily support this theory. Computer modelling provides
us the evidence for the possibility of the above scenario and
further proves this theory.

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Evidences of Modern Impact Theory

In the beginning, Earth was a super-hot ball of magma due

to which most of the heavy metals moved into the core. Thea
collided with the outer part of the Earth, and there was no
effect on Earth’s inner core. The primary physical evidence
came in the form of rocks brought back to Earth by the Apollo
missions. On examination, it was found that the rock contained
a meagre amount of iron. As expected, it proves the idea that
the Moon may have been formed from the outer portion of
Earth’s surface, which got into orbit after collision with Theia.
Another evidence is that the samples brought back to Earth
from the Moon indicates that the Moon’s surface was once
molten. But over time, it cooled down and became solid rock.

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L
ife was easy, I used to know all the answers, and then I
learned Cosmology.
When I was a child, we did not have an AC or cooling
devices, so our family used to sleep at the rooftop like most
other people in our village during the summertime. The sky
used to be very clear with many distant twinkling stars. My
mother used to tell me that all these twinkling stars are our
relatives. When people die, they become a star in the sky. My
mother used to point out different stars and tell us, ‘this star
is your grandmother, and all the rest are other relatives.’ In
my village, people believed that Earth was supported by the
horn of a cow, and earthquakes occurred when the cow shifted
Earth from one horn to another.
My parents used to force me to pray to God every day, which
I had to. I used to ask for good marks from God, but I never
got them. This could mean two things: Either God does not
exist, or maybe God was not happy with the way I was praying.
For me, like all my family, there used to be someone in the sky
who created us and controlled everything. Lightning used to
mean that God was angry, and rain used to mean that God
was happy with our prayers. The term ‘god’ also used to apply
to multiple beings based on their abilities and power, and our
destiny used to be either heaven or hell, depending upon the

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role we play on Earth.

All of us have experienced different stories like mine throughout
our childhood, but all of them have one thing in common,
our stories point to someone in the sky. But does that hold
true? Our world is limited, but the universe is beyond those
limitations. Our picture of the universe is personal and changes
depending upon our religion and understanding. The meaning
of the Moon and distant twinkling stars differ depending on
the teachings they have received. Most people believe there is
someone who created the universe, but he does not allow us to
ask who created him.
Today our view of the universe is evolving rapidly, proving our
childhood stories to be wrong. This is not the failure of our
grandmothers, this is the failure of religion. Religion cannot
prove science wrong, but science can do that to religion.
Religion restricts us and confines us within a box, but science
has no restrictions. Religion has boundaries, science is beyond
these limitations. It shatters my heart to know that all the tales
told by my grandmother about the Moon and stars are mere
fiction. Simultaneously, we should not forget that science has
proved itself wrong time and time again and has gone through
a continuous evolution. We know that our understanding of
gravity and time might change entirely in the next 100 years.
So, we should not hold our grandmothers accountable. She did
the best of what she knew.
Not only God, but we have also created the different demons
for ourselves. However, all that was necessary because it
provided us with an initial view of the universe. It has provided
us a base upon which we can build and further improve our

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understanding by looking deeper into space.

Earlier, when horses were used to travel long distances, the
meaning of life was different, and the purpose of life was
confined within boundaries. Getting our basic needs completed
was sufficient. Cosmology has opened infinite doors for us
even while talking about God. Cosmology has shown us that
there is no heaven and hell up there above the clouds, except
some asteroids and meteoroids. Sometimes I wonder where
precisely the heavens are. A man standing on the north pole
of Earth would look up and pray, whereas a man standing on
the south pole would also look up and pray. In this scenario,
both men are looking at opposite directions, so where are the
heavens exactly. We will talk about God in detail later.
Our enlightened world is the direct evidence of our
achievements in science; cosmology has provided us a broad
view. The invention of the telescope was a milestone in this
race. The previous telescopes were not as good as the ones
we have today, but they opened many ways for us to explore
the universe. Everything we know about the universe today is
because of the invention of telescopes.
Research Organizations like National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), Russian Federal Space Agency
(ROSCOSMOS), European Space Agency (ESA), Indian
Space Research Organization (ISRO) are some of the
onlookers who give us the experimental evidences over the
theoretical proofs. Which further changes what we know
about the universe.
We must understand a few things which are noteworthy about
this fast-changing world.

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1. The Next 100 years

2. Hubble Space Telescope
3. Large Hadron Collider
The Next 100 Years

The coming 100 years are going to be the most crucial time
of the entire human history. What we will do in the next 100
years may or may not decide our place in the universe, but it will
ensure whether humanity survives in the universe. According
to Frank Drake’s equation, 10,000 years is the estimated
lifetime of any technical civilization. If we make it through
the next 100 years, the possibility of us making through the
next 10,000 years will increase dramatically. Thinking about
the next 100 years gives us a rough picture of how science will
shape our world into a better one.
Today we are developing at a faster and faster pace. Just imagine
where the world was 50 years ago. Those massive computers
that not everyone could afford. Those big mobile phones that
only the rich used to contact other rich people. In just the last
50 years, we have taken a significant leap in technology and
science. If you go back 50 years and say that 50 years from now,
you would have thousands of times of technological capability
in your pocket than these giant computers, no one would
have believed you. Today we have smartphones with those
capabilities. Our smartphone is thousands of times faster and
capable than the computers used by NASA to put a man on
the Moon in 1969.
With the help of science, we have shaped our giant computers
into small laptops. Our large 50-kilogram TVs have become

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LCDs, we have shaped our large telephones into small

smartphones. I am not sure whether we would be able to design
airplanes using the principle of anti - gravitation. However, I
am sure that with this speed of continuous evolution, we would
be able to transform ourselves into a type-1 civilization in the
next 100 to 200 years.
So, how would the year 2100 look like? What technological
advancements would we have then? How would normal life
function with the use of technology? Let us have a closer look:
1. Future of Artificial Intelligence: There is no doubt that
Artificial Intelligence is our future. The ability of AI to learn any
task by doing it repeatedly is something that makes it unique.
AI will open many doors for us and take control over things we
struggle with in our daily lives. The ability of ordinary matter
to acquire such intelligence without having any consciousness
is something beyond this world, but we have already made it
happen. Today, AI can manage a home; Mark Zuckerberg took
one year to develop an AI capable of handling most things at
his home. It can turn off the lights, play the music, entertain
the kids and many other things. It cannot assemble its parts
into an Iron Man as Mr. Stark did in the movie; it is limited to
the screens only. We can hope that one day AI would be able
to do that as well. Future AI will be smarter, you will not need
to pay your chef and gardener their salaries, AI would handle
that. You will not even have to drive your car because it would
be able to take full control of your car and drop you at your
destination.
Some people fear that AI will take over humans and rule
this planet. Well, I do not think humans are dumb enough to

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build a machine that will have the capacity to take over their
lives and make them do whatever it wants. We would like to
develop it but at the same time make sure it does not cause any
harm. The harmful use of AI would be people or governments
using it against each other. Some people fear that AI will take
over their jobs, and they would have no work to do. This is a
grave and genuine concern. However, as we are developing in
terms of technology, our means of generating revenue is also
changing. Now more and more people are working sitting on
a chair compared to those doing physical work. Who knows,
maybe the stock market and crypto will become a new currency,
and we would not have to do anything at all. Only time will
tell.
2. Control of Mind Over Matter: No matter how advanced
Artificial Intelligence becomes, it will always have some
limitations; after all, it is artificial. Due to the evolution of
millions of years, the human brain is beyond those limitations.
Our intelligence is beyond the limits of Artificial Intelligence.
Once we are done with AI, we would start looking at the
possibilities of the human brain gaining control over matter.
Using small chips implanted in the human brain, we would be
able to gain control of all the things around us. Scientists are
not sure how we have such a sophisticated brain.
What kind of brain you have determines how you experience
the world? Brain of an average human weighs around 3 pounds
and contains more than 100 billion neurons. Neurons are the
cells that carry information from one place to another. Having
a cell phone in our hands enhances our capability to a large
extent. We can reach out to anyone anywhere in the world.
Imagine what wonders a human would do with enhanced brain

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capabilities. By implanting a chip in your brain, you would be

able to do most of your tasks by just thinking about it.
Right now, if you want to go somewhere, you tell the driver
your destination. When AI comes, it will drive your car, but
you still have to tell it where to go by inputting the destination.
However, by implanting a chip in your head, you would not
need to tell anyone anything. Just sit in the car and think about
giving instructions to your car and it will take you there. The
same chip will control not only the car but most of the things
of your daily life. Your TV will start, your pizza will be ordered
to your location, and you would be able to shop for any item
from any store just by thinking about it. You will be able to
contact anyone anytime just by using your brain. There will be
no need to carry a 6 inch smartphone.
3. Space Travel: Space Travel opens the door of new possibilities
and a new future. Over time, the speed of space exploration
will be boosted. I am not sure that we would be able to use
wormholes or warp drives to travel vast distances till 2100, but
we can hope for the same in the future. In 1000 years from
now, future space shuttles will use the power of stars to power
themselves. These giant ships would then take us anywhere in
the solar system with a speed close to that of light. We would
be able to harness the energy of space itself to travel vast
distances. The future spaceships would work with the power
of an atom; they will use nuclear reactors to power themselves
up. Our current thrusters will become old enough to put in a
museum by then.
4. Computers: In the late 20th century, having a cell phone
used to be a sign of wealth and well-being. When Steve Jobs

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announced an iPod with 1000 songs in your pocket in 2001,

people went crazy. They had seen nothing like that. In less
than 20 years, everyone is holding a smartphone with access to
unlimited songs through the internet. That is how rapidly our
world is changing. In the beginning, computers used to weigh
multiple tons, it used to take an entire team to operate them.
Doing some small calculations that we can now do in our
calculators was the best use of computers. Today our phones
have a much better computing power than the computer used
by NASA in 1969 while landing the first man on the surface of
the Moon. Today all those computers are a part of Museums.
I am sure that until 2100, today’s laptops and computers will
become a part of Museums as well. You would no longer need
to carry a smartphone and a 2-3 kg laptop in your backpack.
Using the chip implanted in your brain, you would be able to
turn any piece of paper into a computer and do the work that
you usually do. That chip will also store the data for further
use. The difference between a smartphone and a computer will
come down to nothing.
5. Civilization: Till 2100, we can hope that our civilization will
transform into a type-1 civilization—a planetary civilization
with no boundaries. We will talk about it later.
6. Colonies on the Moon: By 2100, we will have colonies on the
Moon. Our colonies will include many dome-like structures
to protect the astronauts or engineers up there from solar
radiation and to provide them with a comfortable atmosphere.
The Moon has no atmosphere, and it is very calm. The only
thing we would need to take care of is the food, water, air and
solar radiations. Colonies on the Moon would become a big

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tourist attraction. People from different countries would be

able to sign up for the Moon tour. A rocket from Earth will
take them directly there. In general, there will be two types of
tourists on the Moon. One who will land on the surface and
explore everything, and those who will fly by the Moon and
return to Earth. This will become normal. Only the wealthy
people would be able to afford the Moon tour. Rockets that
will take you there are costly, so a ticket to the Moon will be
very costly. An entire tourism industry for tourism in Earth’s
orbit and the Moon will get established.
What will be the use of the Moonbase?

A base on the Moon can be used for many things. Firstly, we

can build a giant telescope on the far side of the Moon and
observe the universe at our will. NASA is already planning
to do so, but no physical work is done so far. Our Moonbase
will also serve as the base for travel to Mars. When rockets
take off from Earth, they burn most of their energy trying
to get out of the Earth’s atmosphere by acquiring the escape
velocity. By having a base on the Moon, we would not have to
waste that much energy. Also, the escape velocity of the Moon
is significantly low. So, we would not waste much fuel in the
beginning. If we want to land on the surface of Mars and then
also be able to return home, we need rockets with lots of fuel,
not only to travel to Mars but also to leave its atmosphere later.
Thus, the Moonbase will serve as a good launching point. It
is predicted that the first person to step foot on Mars would
be a female. Nothing else could be more empowering for the
generations of females.

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Hubble Space Telescope

Since the beginning, humanity has looked up at the stars

and have wondered about their place in the universe. In the
beginning, we were dependent upon our eyes, and all we knew
came from observations made via the naked eye. Once we
started looking deeper into the universe, having a telescope on
the ground was not enough. Ground telescopes can observe
nearby stars and galaxies, but they tend to produce blurry
images and are not useful for looking at distant space objects.
As light from distant stars and galaxies enters our atmosphere,
it gets distorted by the variation in temperature and density of
our environment.
The presence of vast amounts of dust and other impurities further
lowers the quality of the image. We see the stars twinkling
at night not because they are twinkling but because the light
coming from them has to pass through our atmosphere before
reaching our eyes. If you go outside the atmosphere and look
at those same stars, they would not be twinkling and would
instead look brighter and shinier. Another problem ground-
based telescopes encounter is that the atmosphere blocks/
absorbs specific wavelengths of radiation like ultraviolet,
gamma and X-rays before they can reach the telescope.
Clearly, ground-based telescopes are not fully efficient. So, to
solve this problem, the idea of a telescope in space orbiting
Earth was put forward by Hermann Oberth in the year 1923.
By being outside Earth’s environment, this telescope would be
able to get better images and other scientific data. A telescope
outside the Earth’s environment is the right and only solution
to the problem that ground-based telescopes must face every

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day. On April 24th, 1990, a telescope named ‘Hubble’ was

launched from Kennedy Launch Centre.

Launch of the Hubble Telescope was the beginning of a new

era in space exploration. Now we were able to see distant stars,
clusters, galaxies, and other objects in space with more accuracy
than ever. Hubble was one of the most/first significant scientific
instruments placed in space until 1990. Scientists have used
Hubble to observe some of the most distant planets, stars, and
galaxies of the universe. Not just outside space, scientists have
also used the telescope to study our solar system.
The Hubble telescope has a length of roughly 13.25 meters
or 43.5 feet with a maximum diameter of 4.2 meters or 14
feet. Hubble has many scientific instruments on board, which
increases its weight to more than 24,000 pounds or 10,886
kilograms. It orbits at an altitude of roughly 340 miles. It
orbits Earth at a very high speed of 17,000 mph or 27,300
kmph, completing one orbit only in 95 minutes. Hubble uses
its primary mirror to take most of the images, which has a
diameter of roughly 2.4 meters or 94.5 inches.

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Hubble has two large solar panels that extend to 25 feet in

direct sunlight and powers six nickel-hydrogen (NiH) batteries,
which is the leading powerhouse of this telescope. It has been
three decades since Hubble started to work continuously in
space. Since then, more than 1.3 million different observations
have taken place based upon which scientists have published
thousands of research papers. It is something that makes it
even more special. The very first image that Hubble took was
on May 20th, 1990; it was of a star cluster called NGC 3532.

Source: NASA, STScI, and ESA

There are many instruments placed on this telescope, which
work as the eyes and heart of this telescope. From time to time,
astronauts have gone up and replaced the older instruments of
this telescope. They have also installed some new instruments

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for better observations. Here are some of the critical instruments

present on Hubble in space:
1. Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer:
The Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer
(NICMOS) is Hubble’s heat sensor. These sensors are highly
sensitive to the infrared light produced by the vibrations of
atoms and molecules. We humans cannot detect them, but its
absorption causes the heating effect and they have another
name, Heat Waves. Many objects are hidden in interstellar
dust, and NICMOS enables us to see them. One of the primary
examples of such objects are stellar birth sites. When new stars
are born, they are usually hidden in the cloud of dust and gas.
NICMOS measures the heat of that star, and based upon the
heat, scientists can further calculate its geometry.
2. Advanced Camera for Surveys; The Advanced Camera for
Surveys (ACS) can see visible light. The excitation of electrons
in atoms generally produces visible light. By measuring the
visible light, we can get most of the information about that
object. By looking deep into space, scientists study some of the
earliest activities of the universe. Using ACS, scientists have
measured some of the most distant objects in the universe. ACS
also helps us map out the distribution of dark matter across the
universe by observing the gravitational lensing, which is the
distortion caused by dark matter towards photons. Search for
small or big planets around the stars is done by using ACS.
3. Wide Field Camera: The Wide Field Camera (WFC) can
detect the spectrum of three different kinds of light. Near-
ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared. It is one of the most
technologically leading instruments of Hubble. WFC is

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also being used to study dark energy and dark matter. This
instrument generally observes galaxies that are beyond the
vision of Hubble.
4. Cosmic Origins Spectrograph: The Cosmic Origins
Spectrograph (COS)acts like prisms. COS works in separating
the light coming from the deeper universe into its constituents.
By separating the light into its constituents, scientists can
measure the temperature, density and chemical composition
of objects in space.
5. Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph: The Space Telescope
Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) is a spectrograph that sees
ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. STIS is generally
used to observe the larger objects of the universe. These larger
objects include Black Holes, massive stars and clusters.
6. Fine Guidance Sensor: Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS) are
devices that help Hubble in keeping track of its direction. It
helps in pointing Hubble towards the right direction. Hubble
must point in the right direction when observing some sudden
phenomena in the universe. Distance between the stars and
their relative motions can also be measured by using this device.
All of the given Hubble’s instruments are powered by sunlight.
Hubble is useless if not powered by the sunlight. Hubble uses
large solar panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity.
During its orbit around the Earth, when Hubble is in dark
shadow, these batteries keep the Hubble running. Another
option that scientists may use to keep the Hubble running is
to use a nuclear reactor, but that is risky and costly. Pictures
taken by the Hubble telescope will always make us remember
Edwin Hubble, the man who changed our view of the static

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universe to a dynamic one.

Over 15,000 research papers have been written based upon
the data received from Hubble telescope. We cannot list all
of them, but here are some of the most surprising discoveries
made by Hubble:
1. Age of the universe: One of the Hubble’s significant findings
is the age of the universe. Based upon the data gathered from
Hubble, we know that the universe is 13.8 billion years old.
By capturing the image of some of the most distant objects
and measuring how long and fast the universe is expanding,
Hubble was able to determine the universe’s age.
2. Black Holes: Theoretically, everyone knew that supermassive
Black Holes should exist, but there was still a lot of confusion
and discussion about whether they exist in space. Hubble
showed us that there is a supermassive black hole at the centre
of almost every large galaxy.
3. Dark Energy: Edwin Hubble discovered the expanding
universe, but he was not able to determine the precise rate of its
expansion. The Hubble telescope calculated that the universe
is not just expanding but also accelerating. The culprit behind
this expansion is dark energy.
4. Dark Matter: Dark matter is invisible to the instruments on
Hubble, but it has one weak point. Dark matter reveals itself in
the form of gravity. Scientists measured the distortion caused
by dark matter’s gravity on moving light and constructed 3-D
maps of where and how much dark matter is distributed.
5. Gamma-Ray Bursts: Gamma-ray bursts are one of the most
powerful explosions in the universe. They release an enormous

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amount of energy in a short period of time. They release more

energy in a few seconds that our Sun will release in its lifetime.
It was still a mystery how these explosions occur, but Hubble
helped us understand that these explosions occur as a result of
big supernova explosions.
For the last 30 years, Hubble has been working day in and
day out, showing us the way into the universe. However, this
machine also has its deadline. After this particular period, it
will retire and most likely burn up in the atmosphere. Hubble
could last until 2030–2040. After Hubble, its successor will be
the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST), scheduled to be
launched in 2021. JWST would be able to see what Hubble
could not. With an improved sensitivity and resolution, JWST
would be able to see some of the most far away objects in
the universe, such as the formation of the very first stars and
galaxies.
Large Hadron Collider

We can say that we know everything about the universe, but

we must accept that we are all just beginners. It has been
predicted by scientists that 95% of the entire universe is still
unknown. When we are talking about the universe, we are not
only talking about the distant stars and galaxies, we are also
talking about the universe at the atomic scale. We have made
significant accomplishments in the last 100 years, trying to
understand both the types of universes. The Hubble telescope
has helped us understand the universe that exists billions of
light-years away, whereas the Large Hadron Collider has
helped us understand the universe within an atom.
If we must list the profound accomplishments of humanity

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in the last 100 years, then the list would include computers,
smartphones, humans on the Moon, the use of the internet,
nuclear power and the Large Hadron Collider. LHC is one of
the most revolutionary machines of all time. This machine has
revolutionized the world of particle physics. It has shown us a
different world that exists at the level of atoms and below that
was far beyond our reach. Large Hadron Collider is the by-
product of human achievements in the last 100 years.
LHC is the machine created to understand the universe inside
the atoms. By revealing the mysteries of matter, LHC has
taken us closer to the Big Bang and what happened during the
first 3 minutes succeeding it. Higgs Boson, a particle which
gives matter its mass, is one of the most significant discoveries
in human history made by this giant machine. The CERN
council approved the 1994 LHC project, but the final decision
came two years later, and the construction of this giant machine
began.
Thousands of tons of steel, iron, and thousands of mile-long
wire was used to build it. LHC also created cooperation
between scientists from different countries. When it was first
designed, hundreds of scientists and engineers came from
different countries to work together on this project. The total
tunnel circumference of its tunnel is 27 kilometres, with a
tunnel diameter of about 3.8 m, buried under a depth of 70 to
140 meters.

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Source: CERN
How does the LHC work?

This machine is vast and complex, but its working is

straightforward. LHC is designed to smash the two counter-
rotating beams of particles at a very high energy. The powerful
magnets guide these beams of particles in this machine. Inside
LHC, two-particle beams are made to travel close to the speed
of light (99.999999%) before they smash into each other.
This collision recreates the conditions of Big Bang for a small
fraction of a second. Scientists have mounted various sensors
where these collisions occur. Those sensors carefully record the
data of colliding beams, which is later analysed by the team of
scientists. Through collisions, physicists hope to find answers
to questions such as – What is inside an atom? What did the
universe look like just after the Big Bang?
LHC is undoubtedly the world’s most powerful particle collider.

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It was first switched on in the year 2008. Many research papers

have been published based upon the data received from LHC.
This machine is still active and working, and who knows what
it might find next.

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 Types of Civilization

H
istory of humanity tells us how a continuous evolution
made us what we are today. From being a single-
cell organism to the most sophisticated biological
machines on this planet has been a long journey. From what we
have learned so far, the process of evolution never ends; even
today, we are going through an evolution. However, we do not
notice it because it is prolonged and steady. Today we proudly
call ourselves the most intelligent beings on this planet, only
due to the continuous evolution. If the evolution had stopped
6 million years ago, all of us would still be apes living in the
forest.
Not just humans, but the universe itself is going through
the process of evolution. We calculate it in terms of entropy,
the extent of increasing randomness. However, that is for
another part to discuss. In this chapter, we will discuss future
possibilities and where this evolution will lead us in a thousand
or, perhaps, millions of years.
When it comes to our planet, we do not have total control over
it. We have controlled many things up to a specific level, but
there is a lot more to achieve. We have dug massive mines to
extract coal, huge wells to take extract oil that lay buried for
millions of years. However, there are still many things that we
have yet to take control of, such as the floods, volcanic eruptions

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and hurricanes that kill thousands of people every year. So, we

are not inevitable, not even on this planet. At least not yet.
When it comes to the solar system, we have not even reached
our closest planet. We have stepped on the Moon, but it was
over 50 years ago. It seems like we forgot our way to return.
Undoubtedly, Voyager 1 has crossed the solar system and
reached interstellar space, but that small accomplishment alone
took us over 40 years. In simple words, even after hundreds of
years of trying to explore space, we are still stuck on this one
planet that we call home.
When it comes to the Milky Way galaxy, we find ourselves on
a distant edge orbiting a medium-sized star. We do not even
know with precision how many stars there are in our galaxy.
Some astronomers predict that this number could be between
100 to 400 billion, but that is a very rough estimation. It tells
us how ignorant we are about our own galaxy. In the pursuit of
trying to discover our place in the universe, we have built large
telescopes. Those telescopes have allowed us to look billions of
light-years deep into space.
When it comes to the entire cosmos, we do not know where
we stand today. We have observed distant galaxies and have
mapped out what our place could be. Human civilization may
seem too advanced, but it is not. We find ourselves as beginners
when we look deeper into the night sky. I think it is better to
say that we are like a small ant that came out of its home with
a determination to explore the entire Earth. Overall, it would
be better to say we do not know that we do not know.
In 1964, Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed a
scale popularly known as the Kardashev scale to classify the

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different types of civilizations living in our galaxy and the

universe. This scale was made to create a distinction between
the types of civilizations based upon the amount and form of
energy they can use. How we control different things, how we
are using our resources for a better future, and how far we can
reach today are the tools that will define our position on this
scale.
We live in a very old galaxy that was formed soon after the
creation of the universe—so based upon the calculation, our
galaxy could be hosting multiple civilizations, including type-
zero and type-1. Our universe, which is 13.8 billion years old,
could be hosting type-zero, type-1, type-2, and even type-3
civilizations. There is one more category, the type-4 civilization;
a super-smart, unstoppable immortal civilization beyond
physics, but it seems a bit exaggerated. What these different
types of civilizations are, let us discuss.
Type-Zero Civilization

Today we can pat ourselves on the back and say how advanced
we are. However, on the Kardashev scale, we are still a Type-
Zero civilization. A Type-Zero Civilization involves how life
preserves itself under the dramatic conditions of a planet. How
life sails through the floods, hurricanes, and various natural
disasters and still come out unharmed at the end of the day.
We will remain a Type-Zero civilization until we can control
all these natural calamities around us. Since the beginning
of time, the entire human history can be marked as a Type-
Zero civilization because we are still struggling to fight with
nature to preserve ourselves. When life was in the water, it had
its challenges, such as small creatures getting eaten by bigger

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creatures, and for bigger creatures, it was necessary to have a

particular diet every day. When life came out of the water, it
had its own unique challenges because now it was living in a
unique environment.
Today we drive our cars on the road, but we never realize that
we are using the energy of dead plants and animals that comes
in the form of oil. Us still using coal as one of our primary
sources of energy is an example of how backward we are. We
are not even an intercontinental civilization because we have
divided ourselves in the form of small countries and have
different laws. The division of humanity in the form of countries
protected by borders has its advantages and disadvantages. One
of the advantages is that the growth of a country is directly
linked to its people’s overall growth, but it also limits us in
several ways. This division prevents us from calling ourselves a
planetary civilization working together for the betterment of
all humanity.
The division in the form of countries is fine because countries
can have relations with each other and work together as
friendly nations, but we have further divided ourselves. The
introduction of religion, caste, and race had its advantage
1000 years back. Race, case, and religion had brought people
together in the form of groups, and now they were able to
relate with each other with a common god or with a common
caste. However, in the modern world, these things prevent us
from taking a step forward. Whenever there is a significant
scientific discovery or breakthrough, religious people often say
that look it is already written in our book. This shows how
eager we are to protect our limited religious identity. We are far
away from accepting a universal identity.

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We might have differences, religious or otherwise, but in the

last 100 years, we have taken some bold steps towards becoming
a Type-1 civilization. The creation of the European Union in
1993, which is greatly admired, is just one of them. It is not that
human beings do not want to come together and work as one.
We have proven that we can act as one, but it usually happens
in extreme situations when we feel that there is no other way.
In the 1980s, when we came to know that the Ozone Layer is
depleting due to the excessive use of Chlorofluorocarbons, the
entire world came together and signed the Montreal Protocol
to limit their use. Today we can see that the Ozone hole is
healing slowly and will recover fully in the next 50 years.

These shackles bind a Type-Zero civilization (that we are). It

still follows the path shown by its ancestors 1000 years ago and
hesitates to do something different. However, if we want to
become an advanced civilization and move towards becoming
a Type-1 civilization, education is the only tool to make it
happen. Modern education has its flaws; most of it is limited
to remembering dates, names, and other data with no logical

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thinking. So, we should think about that as well.

We are living in a world that is evolving rapidly. If we go
100 years back, we would see bullock carts on the streets, but
within the next century, we have developed fast cars that can
reach over 300 mph and have even developed fighter jets that
can challenge the speed of sound. This is a clear signal that we
are transforming from a Type-Zero to Type-1 civilization even
though we are decades back from actually doing so. This is one
of the most decisive times that we are living in. Our children
are not only able to see this transition, but becoming a part
of it is a significant achievement for us. We can hope for the
complete transition of this civilization in the next 100 to 200
years. It is not clear that we are going to make it based on the
challenges we face. However, let us be positive and suppose that
we make it. It will be one of the most prominent achievements
of humankind.
We are divided so much in so many ways that this transition
becomes the most dangerous and crucial one. The religious
division can work its way out; the division based on caste will
fade away as we educate our children, but one of the most
dangerous divisions is the political division. Some of the most
developed countries, such as the United States, are primarily
divided due to the politics and policies their leaders choose.
These divisions put a question mark on whether we are going
to make this transition. It is our fight against ourselves. It is a
race against the multicultural fabric that makes it necessary but
also extremely dangerous at the same time.
Other than religion and politics, several other factors are
also preventing this transition. We have weapons of mass

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destruction, biological weapons, nuclear weapons, advanced

nuclear intercontinental missile systems that can wipe out
humanity. We also have the problem of terrorism and various
terrorist groups that are preventing this transition.
This transformation might seem difficult, but it is not impossible.
In just the last 100 years, we have connected ourselves in such
a way that was never thought to be possible—the use of the
internet to chat with somebody living on a different continent
and the use of a telephone to get in touch with our loved ones
anytime and anywhere are some excellent examples. On top
of everything, we have adopted English as our international
language. Today people from different parts of the world can
communicate with each other effectively. English is the world’s
most accepted second language, which is a positive sign towards
becoming a type 1 civilization.
Type 1 Civilization

We have already discussed what a type zero civilization is and

how we are slowly transitioning into a type 1 civilization. It
is time to understand what being a type 1 civilization would
be like. A type 1 civilization is a planetary civilization. This
civilization can use and store all of the energy available on its
planet. In simple words, this type of civilization can control
everything happening on the planet.
A planetary civilization has the power of an entire planet in
their hands. It can control earthquakes. It can use the energy
bursting from the volcano. It has the technological power to
stop the hurricanes from causing massive damage to human
lives. Instead of burning coal, petroleum and destroying
nature, a type 1 civilization can harness the energy that falls

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on a planet from its parent star. It would not just be able to

collect the energy of its parent star but also be store it to meet
the increasing demands of the population. This ability will
further revolutionize our industries and technological era. This
civilization will have a robust defence system in space that will
deflect any asteroid that can potentially harm the lives of its
inhabitants.
There will be large-scale use of nuclear power. A type 1
civilization will use the energy of atoms itself through fusion
and use it to power their industries. Being able to harness
Earth’s energy would also mean that we would have total
control over all the natural forces. We would be able to use the
energy of wind, construct more dams on flowing rivers, and use
the energy of ocean waves.
For us humans, as a type 1 civilization, the language we
will speak will be English. Everyone in the world would
require knowing English as their first or second language to
communicate with everyone else on the planet. This type of
civilization will be very open to new ideas. Religion will no
longer exist, or at least the majority of people will not consider
themselves religious. Instead, they will consider themselves
seekers, trying to understand their existence. This civilization
will no longer have a limited identity, limited to their caste,
religion, or nation. Their identity will be cosmic or at least a
human. Borders still might exist between countries, but they
would have very little significance due to the equal distribution
of economic wealth around the planet. Today we see free
movement among the European Union countries, that is how
people’s movement would be.

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The Internet is a planetary communication system. We can

contact anyone from anywhere, except for a few countries who
like to be secretive. In a similar way, there will be a planetary
flow of knowledge and culture without any restrictions. By
the time we become a planetary civilization, we would have
several human missions on Mars, and we would have multiple
colonies on the Moon. It is not clear if we would be able to
transform and colonize Mars, but colonizing the Moon would
be a great start. Most important of all, a planetary civilization
would have complete knowledge of the Solar System. We
would know if there is alien life living underwater on Europa,
Titan or Enceladus. Our probes would be almost every planet
and their Moon in the solar system, exploring the presence of
life and the nature of the atmosphere. We would have started
mining asteroids for metals and other important ores.
We are no doubt progressing, but we are currently another 100
to 200 years behind. Carl Sagan thought we are currently at
0.7 of the way to become a type 1 civilization.
Type 2 Civilization

After becoming a type 1 civilization, we will most likely leave

Earth. We will look for other energy sources from other parts
of the solar system. A type 1 planetary civilization can harness
the energy of a planet, but a type 2 civilization would require
energy directly from its mother star. A type 2 civilization is
also called a stellar civilization that can use and control energy
at the scale of its entire solar system. The energy of a planet is
not enough to fulfil their needs so they will look up-to their
mother star and use the power of their star to power their huge
machines.

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In order to harness the energy of their mother star, type 2

civilization will use the concept of the Dyson Sphere. A Dyson
Sphere is a device that would encompass every single inch of
the star and gather almost all of its energy. This energy will be
transferred to a planet and stored there for later use. Type 2
civilization will use this energy to power their giant machines.
They will use it to power their giant spaceships, which would
have the potential to travel to nearby stars.
Dyson Sphere is just one of the many ways a type 2 civilization
can use its star’s energy. This civilization would use star lifting
to meet its energy needs. It is a process where they would be
able to remove a substantial portion of a star’s matter in a very
controlled manner without affecting the inner core fusion of
the star or disbalancing its inner and outer pressure and use that
matter for other purposes. Not only our star, this civilization
would also utilize the hydrogen of nearby gas giants. They
would drain their energy using the orbiting reactor and bring
that energy back to their home planet for further use.
A type 2 civilization would have not only transformed but also
colonized Mars. It would have colonized almost every place in
the solar system wherever possible. A type 1 civilization would
be able to deflect large asteroids from hitting their home planet,
but a type 2 civilization would be able to do something more.
If a giant asteroid starts traveling towards their home planet,
they would be able to use high energy machines orbiting their
planet and vaporize that asteroid entirely long before it reaches
their planet. However, let us suppose it cannot vaporize the
asteroid due to some problems, then it would be able to change
the orbit of their planet so that the collision does not happen.
Not only their planet, they would be able to move other planets

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in the solar system as well.

This civilization would use the energy of Antimatter and
would be able to create and handle it without any concerns.
This civilization would be able to send multiple rockets into
the galaxy that will explore further life. They will not only have
the complete knowledge of their entire solar system but will
also be ready to move to the galactic scale. Life as a type 2
civilization would be about technology and science, not about
family and friends. Many people have this question in mind
that if there are millions of habitable planets in our galaxy alone,
then why don’t we see the aliens here on Earth? Why doesn’t
alien life come here and visit us? Well, maybe we are not that
interesting to them. Maybe they know we are here, but they are
letting us live comfortably and not disturbing our daily lives.
The reason for that could be that we are not technologically
advanced enough. So, they are choosing to ignore us. Another
possibility is that there is alien life out there not in the form of
a little green man who can sit in his oval spaceship and travel
anywhere in the universe. Instead, it is in the form of a type
zero or type 1 civilization that has not travelled beyond their
solar system. Maybe they are hoping that one day we will find
them as our part of space exploration.
Some scientists predict that if we ever encounter alien life or
alternatively, if there is ever a time when aliens visit us, then
it will be as a type 2 or type 3 civilization. Because only that
civilization has the capability to travel vast distances between
solar systems and reach us. However, we see no shreds of
evidence of alien life visiting us. We are trying to find a type
zero civilization in our solar system on the moons of different
planets.

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When you become a type 2 civilization, you are immortal.

There are no known forces in the universe that can destroy
your existence. Even if their mother planet gets destroyed
by accident, this civilization will fly to another planet in the
solar system. Even if a supernova explosion occurs nearby
destroying almost all its life, this civilization can still enter its
giant spaceship and move towards other stars and solar systems
where they could survive.
Right now, as a type zero civilization transitioning into a type
1, we are creating small probes and sending them to nearby
planets and moons within the solar system. However, a type
2 civilization would be able to create an army of bionic robots
and send them to nearby stars so that they can start life on
nearby solar systems. These bionic robots would be able to
transform themselves according to the planetary situations, so
the environment is not a big concern unless it is way too hot
or way too cold.
Sometimes you go to bed, and you forget to turn off the lights.
So, with a sleepy mood, you get out of bed and turn off the
lights. This type of civilization would be able to control most
of the things mentally. They would not have to walk towards
the switch and physically turn it off. Their brain would have
enough power to do so. Suppose you want to talk to your
relatives, what you do is take the phone out of your pocket, dial
their number and talk to them. In our case, our smart-phone
works as an extension of our intelligence and lets us do many
things. This civilization would not have to do all this work to
contact someone. Their brains would have enough power or
would be wired in such a way that they just have to think about
something to make it happen.

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A type 2 civilization is a big jump in capability and intelligence.

How close are we to becoming one? Well, it will probably take
1000-2000 years to reach that point.

Dyson Sphere
Type 3 Civilization

A type 3 civilization is a galactic civilization. It is a civilization

that can possess the energy of their galaxy. In simple words,
a type 3 civilization would have access to power equal to the
energy of an entire galaxy. If humans ever become a type 3
civilization, then our humanity would be left much behind in
the process, and we would become a cyborg (beings with both
biological and robotic abilities).
A type 3 civilization would use all the tools and methods that
it learned as type 2 civilization and apply it on a galactic scale.
Type 3 civilization would be able to build Dyson Spheres all
over the Milky Way galaxy and harness the power of as many
stars as they want. They would use this energy to do the things
that appear in science fiction today. They would use the energy

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of stars to travel at speed close to light. By traveling at a speed

close to that of light, they would be able to travel in time, as
explained in the twin paradox.
The remarkable quality of this civilization would be that it
will not be one planet or multi-planet centred. Instead, it will
spread its arms around the milky way galaxy and try to live on
as many planets as possible. Black Holes would become just
another source of energy for them. They will use the energy
of not just stars but also be able to harness the energy of black
holes to power their giant machines. They would be able to
withstand the high gravitational potential of Black Holes, and
that way would be able to travel forward in time. By using the
vast energy of black holes, a type 3 civilization would be able
to create wormholes and travel inside the galaxy or in-between
the galaxies within a short period of time.
For this civilization, there will be no boundaries to science.
They will have the ability to prevent supernova explosions.
They would use the strong magnetic field of neutron stars for
their benefit. A type 3 civilization would not be limited to one
galaxy only. As soon as a type 2 civilization became smart and
capable, it tried to reach other solar systems. In the same way,
a type 3 civilization would not just rule a single galaxy, and
instead will try and reach out to other galaxies.
Once this civilization becomes intelligent enough, it would
not need to steal energy from stars or black holes. Empty space
does not mean nothing, it has the power of dark matter, dark
energy, radiations and particles popping up and going out of
existence. So, this civilization would be able to use the energy
of space itself and travel as long distances as they want. In order

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to boost their rockets, they will use the energy of space. There
are vast distances between galaxies, so the use of the energy of
space would allow them to travel between the galaxies in case
wormholes do not work out. By doing all these things, this
civilization will play with the laws of nature to its fullest—
something that we want to do right now, but due to the lack of
technology, we cannot.
Not just regular black holes, they would be able to snatch
energy from the supermassive black holes which exist at the
centre of almost every galaxy. We humans are afraid of gamma-
ray bursts because they release an enormous amount of energy
in a short period of time. For a type 3 civilization, a gamma-ray
burst would be a source of pure energy coming directly from
a black hole.
A type 3 civilization would have the knowledge of everything
which will help them become the masters of space and time.
Dark matter would no longer be a riddle for them, and they
would be able to use the power of dark energy for their benefit.
This civilization would be able to create colonies of cyborgs
capable of self-replication and send them to nearby galaxies
for exploration purposes. Their population might also increase
rapidly in millions as every cyborg would be able to self-
replicate and colonize every star that comes in its path.

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A type 3 civilization would probably have the highest order of

evolution. We are nowhere close to that. For us, it would take
100,000 years or maybe longer to get there.
Type 4 Civilization and more

A type 4 civilization is a universal civilization that can control

all the laws of the universe. Kardashev believed that no
civilization could become a Type 4 because the capabilities and
power it will have are almost god-like. Kardashev also believed
that humans or any alien creature would not be able to cope
with such powers. Many scientists believe that it is possible for
such a civilization to exist, so types 4, 5, and 6 civilizations have
already been proposed.
One of the big reasons why it is almost impossible for a
civilization to become a type 4 civilization is because our
universe has a limited age and will die one day. Which means we
have limited time to transform ourselves into beings of higher
capabilities. This civilization does not abide by any known rules

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or laws of the universe. A type 4 civilization would be able

to harness the energy of the universe itself. This civilization
would be so intelligent that it would open the singularity of
black holes and even live inside supermassive black holes.
The type 3 civilization has exploited almost all known sources
of energy, so a type 4 civilization would have to tap into sources
of energy unknown to us. They must discover or generate new
laws of physics and govern the universe however they want.
A type 4 civilization would be able to teleport themselves by
various means; wormholes are just one of them. They would
be able to create wormholes in this universe that open in a
different universe. That way, they would be able to travel
between universes and discover different kinds of scientific
laws. They might find a universe where everything is made
up of Antimatter. They must be careful while entering that
universe because they are made up of ordinary matter, and
Antimatter will not get along well with them.
Our current science parameters cannot describe this type of
civilization because it is beyond all the parameters and rules we
know of. Their mental abilities are beyond the grasp of science.
This civilization would have unlocked all the mysteries of the
universe. One more important thing that we would know is
whether we are living in a simulation. Since they can travel
between different universes, they must know these answers.
Today we know about three dimensions of space and one
dimension of time. However, theories are suggesting that there
could be many more dimensions beyond our reach. A type 4
civilization would be able to travel to higher dimensions and
even to dimensions that are as small as the size of an atom.

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A type 5 can do the same thing in a multiverse that a type 4

civilization can do in this universe. They can even create their
own universes with their own unique laws and parameters.
What a type 6 civilization would do, we cannot even imagine.
Maybe it will discover something completely unknown yet
as it goes through the foam of the multiverse and creates its
universes. Only time will answer these questions as we progress
in this journey.
Humans are far behind from reaching something like this.
The first obstacle we have in our path is the transition from a
type zero civilization to a type 1 civilization. If we do not blow
ourselves with the various kinds of weapons we have created
and successfully pass this transition in the next 200 years, it
would be a good start towards this goal. If we want to achieve
this goal quickly, we must be focused on science instead of war
and rough politics.

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A
famous man once said, ‘Two things are infinite. The
universe and human stupidity, and I am not so sure
about the universe.’ Humans might be the brainiest
species of this galaxy, but they do not know how to handle
power with responsibility. Humans splitting the atom and
discovering a whole new world inside it was a tremendous
success, but at the end of it, what we did was build nuclear
bombs, which can destroy the entirety of humanity once and
for all if placed in the wrong hands.
During the Cold War, there was a nuclear arms race between
the Soviet Union, the United States, and their respective allies.
By the 1980s, there were over 70,000 nuclear weapons, enough
to destroy this planet several times. As the Cold War ended,
both countries agreed to reduce their stockpile significantly.
Which I consider to be one of the best decisions taken by
our past leaders. Even though both countries did not agree to
reduce their stockpile to zero, the number came down below
14,000.
Some people might not agree, but nuclear weapons have
played a significant role in keeping world peace. After World
War 1 and World War 2, these weapons of mass destruction
came into existence on a massive scale, and we have not seen
a major war since then. Nuclear weapons are handy when it

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comes to threatening other nations and make them align with

your terms. Powerful nations have been using this tactic for
decades. Some people argue that why don’t we nuke terrorist
organizations to end them, but we cannot do so. Because
doing so will spread silence over that region and thousands of
innocents will die as well.
Today 9 countries in the world possess a total of 13,870-13,910
nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia account for 91
percent of them. Many countries have given up their deadly
weapons and nuclear programs in the past 30 years, whereas
some others have tried to acquire them. There have been many
instances when people questioned the existence of humanity.
There are various ways in which humanity could end one day.
We will focus on the five more realistic ways this could happen.
Let us take a closer look.
Nuclear Warfare

Nuclear Warfare is one of the biggest and realistic threats

that can wipe out entire humanity. Nuclear warfare which is
also called thermonuclear warfare or atomic warfare. It refers
to the use of nuclear weapons to destroy and damage the
enemy for resolving political strategy or conflict. In contrast
to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare is highly destructive
and damaging. A nuclear weapon can release a large amount
of energy in a short period, which could have a long-lasting
impact on humanity, environment, soil, and almost everything
else.
On July 16th, 1945, the United States tested its first nuclear
bomb in New Mexico. After this test, the world entirely
changed within three weeks, because on August 6th, 1945, the

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United States dropped this weapon of mass destruction on

Hiroshima, a city of Japan. It wounded many people and killed
approximately 130,000 people. Three days later, another city of
Japan, Nagasaki, was bombed. This blast instantly killed 74,000
people. There was chaos, fear, and terror on the entire planet
after these two explosions. These tremendously powerful blasts
also resulted in the end of World War II.
What would happen if global nuclear warfare occurred?
The effects of a nuclear explosion will be similar to
conventional explosions but on a vast scale. The shock wave
produced by this explosion can directly injure humans by
rupturing their eardrums, and many fatalities occur because
of collapsing structures like buildings and flying debris. In
contrast to conventional explosions, a single nuclear explosion
can generate such a powerful pulse of thermal radiation that
it can set fire and burn skin over large areas. Fire ignited by
these explosions in some cases can change into a firestorm,
preventing the escape of the people who survived the direct
explosion. It is difficult to predict accurately, but according to
nuclear experts, thermal effects from a nuclear explosion will
be the significant cause of deaths.
When a nuclear blast occurs close to the ground surface, soil
particles mix with the highly radioactive fission products from
the nuclear bomb. This debris may get transferred from the
detonation site to other places by the wind and fall back to the
Earth. A nuclear war could cause instant casualties, injuries,
infrastructure damage from the blast and heat of detonation,
and long-lasting radiological effects from both the initial
nuclear radiation and the radioactive fallout that settles after

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the first event.

There will be long-term effects on the people that come in
the contact of these radiations. These effects include cancer
development, gene mutation, and genetic damage. The
survivors of the nuclear detonation and the population of
contaminated areas will be at high risk of such effects. Not just
humans but all the animals will also get affected equally with
these radiations. Wherever there is a large amount of radiation
such as at old nuclear test sites, no life can survive there. If it is
underwater, no aquatic life can survive as well.
The thought of nuclear war may create images of emerging
mushroom clouds, duck and cover drills, or local radiation
fallout. These instant effects are terrifying, but experts say the
fallout of a nuclear war would likely last well beyond the initial
explosions. The aftereffects of a nuclear explosion are more
damaging than the initial explosions.
Nuclear winter is a severe and durable global cooling effect
which is supposed to occur after extensive firestorms following
a nuclear war. The hypothesis is that such explosions can eject
soot into the Earth’s atmosphere, blocking Sun rays from
reaching the Earth’s surface. According to scientists, if all the
Russian and American nuclear weapons were used in a conflict
today, we could expect a dreadful drop in global temperatures,
very less precipitation, and a lot less food to go around.
In such wars, nuclear particles will be transported between the
hemispheres within two weeks. Global temperatures would
then sink by around 9 degrees Celsius over the next year. This
decline could continue to another 1.6 degrees Celsius. In many
regions across North America and Europe, even summer will

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be a frozen hellbent some 20 degrees Celsius chilled than it

is now and at least for a few seasons. Those who survive by
running and bunking down for four or five years will then need
to worry about starvation.
What is the use of Nuclear Weapons?
We may never use nuclear weapons unless we decide to destroy
ourselves. However, there are some hypothetical scenarios in
which these weapons can be beneficial. Suppose a 1 km wide
asteroid is heading straight towards the Earth. Right now,
we do not have any space defence mechanism to deflect or
destroy that asteroid. So, we can use our nuclear weapons to
destroy it in space long before it reaches us. Some of you might
be thinking that it would create even more small pieces of
asteroids that will fall on Earth. You are right. However, it is
better to get hit by 100 pieces of asteroids which are 10 to 50
meters in diameter than getting hit by a 1 km giant asteroid.
Those 100 pieces might destroy 100 different cities and end
up killing up to 1 million people, but a 1 km wide asteroid can
destroy a nation as big as India, killing billions of people.
Not just one nation, its impact will risk sudden climate change
that will make other countries suffer for decades to come.
Other than that, we can use our nuclear weapons against extra-
terrestrial threats whose chances are almost negligible but not
zero.
Climate Change

Another realistic threat that humanity is facing even today is

our slowly changing climate. In simple words, climate change
is the constant change in the condition of wind, rainfall,

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temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and other such

elements on this planet’s surface. When these usual conditions
show drastic changes over a period only then we can say that
climate change has taken place. Climate change can be due
to natural or human actions. Earth has seen various dramatic
climate changes over its history, including the last Ice Age.
Climate change through human actions includes actions like
population explosion, deforestation, excessive use of fossil fuels,
automobiles, industrial waste, and hazards.
The history of climate change is based upon the scientific
discoveries that began in the early 19th century when
natural climate changes were first suspected, and the natural
greenhouse effect was observed. Today these effects are much
more apparent. We can feel the change in our atmosphere,
we can observe the winters getting colder and the summers
getting hotter. Some countries have even seen large scale heat
waves in summer in the last few years. Every year we see a
drop in the amount of ice present on the north and south pole
of the planet, which is clear evidence that our planet is slowly
heating up.
During the summer, rising temperatures around the world
create a fear among people and climate activists, which is
genuine to have. In March 2020, the average temperature in
Europe was 2 degrees Celsius above average of 1981-2010.
Temperature results were much more unpleasant in other
countries such as Russia and Ukraine. Some parts of the
world experienced temperatures up-to six degrees higher than
average over the course of months. We should not forget that
year 2016 was recorded as the hottest year since we started
recording temperature. Experts fear that as the climate

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continues to change, the chances of new infections, diseases,

and outbreaks could increase significantly.
In the next 20 years, our planet’s average temperature could
increase by about 0.2°C per 10 years. The rise of greenhouse gas
ejections and the increase in carbon dioxide worldwide would
cause a further rise in global temperatures and other climatic
changes in this century. It is expected that the temperatures
could rise by over 4 °C by the end of this century. With the
increase in temperature, the sea levels are expected to rise by
18 cm to 59 cm. Other expected changes include reduced snow
cover and sea ice across the planet, acidification of our oceans,
more frequent heat waves, intense tropical cyclones and more
frequent floods.
The long-term effects of climate change are even more
horrifying. Sea level rise and global warming caused by human
activities will continue for centuries. As that happens, there will
be even more floods across the coastal regions, and more people
living in those areas will migrate to safer places. If warming
exists over many centuries, it could lead to an increase in global
sea levels by over 7 meters. It is scary because if that happens,
many countries such as New Zealand will be the worst hit by
its side effects. We could also see a complete melting of the
Greenland Ice sheet that would further add water to the rising
oceans.
We cannot stop climate change completely, but we can at least
prevent it from getting much worse. We can slow down its
pace and get more time in our hands to be able to handle this
problem. The simplest thing we can all do is to put pressure
on the government to act urgently and teach its importance

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to our younger generation. Almost all the people reading this

book will be gone by the end of this century, but the coming
generation will have to face the consequences of climate change
caused by our actions.
A Pandemic

The world has seen many pandemics throughout history. A

pandemic is nothing but the spread of a new disease around the
globe. The most recent COVID-19 outbreak around the world
is the best example of a pandemic because its virus has reached
almost every continent. In the 14th century, the human race
faced a dreadful pandemic, which is estimated to have killed
75 to 200 million people, which was approximately 40% of
the total population at that time. That pandemic is popularly
known as Black Death. Other well-known pandemics include
smallpox, tuberculosis, Spanish Flu, and COVID-19.
The influenza pandemic (Spanish Flu) 1918
Spanish Flu was one of the deadliest known pandemics
of modern history. It infected almost 1/3rd of the global
population and killed over 50 million people within the short
interval of January 1918 to December 1920. This pandemic
impacted people from every age, unlike COVID-19, which is
more deadly for sick and elder people. Young, old, sick, and
even healthy people became infected, and over 10% of them
could not make it.
Spanish Flu arose in the US Midwest. As World War 1 was
going on at that time, soldiers shipped to the front lines took it
to Europe with them. Countries like Britain, Germany, France,
and America kept it secret in the beginning, in a bid to keep

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the morale of their forces high during World War -1. When
the disease became a pandemic, it seemed to have emerged in
Spain. Hence, it was named “Spanish” flu.
This pandemic occurred in two different phases—a milder
form in early 1918, which affected mainly sick and older
people. Most people who died from it either were already
sick or were too old to fight against it. Spanish Flu was first
suspected around March 1918. Throughout April and May of
year 1918, the virus spread like wildfire in England, France,
Spain, and Italy via the army troops during World War 1. The
second wave of this virus began in August 1918, and it was
much more deadly compared to the first wave. It affected the
immune system of younger adults. In late August 1918, the
fatal severity of Spanish flu’s “second wave” was caused by a
mutated strain of virus spread by wartime troop movements.
As a result, more people were killed in the second wave of this
virus than the first one.

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During this pandemic, people were struck with blistering fever

(104 degrees), malaise, nasal haemorrhaging, and pneumonia.
The patient would drown in their fluid-filled lungs and were
not able to breathe properly. The major cause of its high
fatality was pneumonia and other respiratory complications
which were brought by the Flu. As WHO did not exist during
World War -1, the situation was uncontrollable. Nobody had a
clear idea of what to do with this pandemic, and there was no
organization to direct other countries to take concrete steps to
control its spread.
Worldwide, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed more
people in a year than what the Black Death killed in a century.
It killed more people in just 24 weeks than AIDS killed in
24 years. In India, it is referred to as Bombay fever. The death
toll in India was estimated to be 10-20 million, whereas the
US death toll was 0.6 million approximately, which made
India the worst-hit country. A large percentage of the Indian
population died due to this pandemic. 1911-1921 is the only
census period in which the Indian population fell.
If countries take proper measures, then such pandemics can
be stopped. World has become more globalized than ever,
and there is far more travel between countries in the form of
tourism and work than it ever has been. This makes it easy for
a virus to spread quickly and effectively. The COVID-19 has
reached every continent within 3 to 4 months because people
coming from other countries brought it with them. Next time
a pandemic occurs, the first step should be to completely freeze
the global travel and quickly learn more about the virus.

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Supervolcano

Any volcano whose volcanic eruption is higher than 1,000

cubic kilometres by volume is called Supervolcano. Volcanic
eruption of a supervolcano is a thousand times greater than
the typical volcano. Examples of supervolcanoes that have
volcanic eruptions greater than 1,000 cubic kilometres include
Long Valley in Eastern California, Yellowstone, Taupo in New
Zealand, and Toba in Indonesia.
There are few Supervolcanoes on Earth; globally there are
about 20 known supervolcanoes. Supervolcanic eruptions
occur very rarely, only once every 100,000 years on average, but
when they do erupt, they have an unpleasant impact on the
atmosphere and climate. The last time such A volcano erupted
was Yellowstone Caldera, about 650,000 years ago. Nowadays,
it is a famous Yellowstone National Park in the United States.
This eruption ejected over 1,000 cubic kilometres of lava and
ash into the atmosphere, which was large enough to bury
an entire city several feet under the ashes. The effect of such
eruptions is comparable to holding a volleyball underwater.
When you release it, the air-filled volleyball is forced upwards
by the high-density water around it. As a result, we see a quick
and violent eruption.
Yellowstone Volcano

The Yellowstone volcano is one of the biggest known

Supervolcanoes. The standard view of this volcano is not like
the other supervolcanoes. It is so big that one can only see its
shape from the ground. Even its aerial view would not look
like a typical cone volcano like Mt Rainier. The magma of

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Yellowstone volcano is very explosive, thick, and almost paste-

like. Once this type of magma comes near the surface, the gas
it contains expands and explodes violently. If you think the
magma chamber of Mt Saint Helens to be the size of a pea,
then the magma chamber of the Yellowstone volcano would be
the size of an apple in comparison.
What if Yellowstone Volcano Erupted?
Yellowstone is not just an American fortune, it is one of the
world’s oldest national parks, established in 1872. Yellowstone
spreads across 8,987 square kilometres in multiple states.
Nearly 3 million people visit this park every year to enjoy a
stunning natural landscape that includes a plethora of hiking
trails and old faithful geysers, hot springs, and mountain peaks.
Below the surface of this park lurks another natural wonder,
one with the power to wipe the park off the map.
This volcano has a massive source of magma. Although there
is no possibility of its eruption anytime soon, a full explosion
would be bad for nature lovers and people anywhere near the
park. If this volcano were to erupt, heat rising from within
the Earth’s core would begin to dissolve the molten rock
below the ground’s surface. That will create a mixture of rocks,
magma, vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases. As the mixture
accumulates and rises over thousands of years, the pressure will
push the ground upward into a dome/hemisphere shape and
create cracks along the edges. As that pressure is released via
the cracks at the edges, the dissolved gases will explode, quickly
emptying the magma across the park.

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Its eruption may kill as many as 100,000 people instantly

and spread a 3-meter layer of molten ash as far as 1,600
kilometres from the park. Rescuers probably will have an
extremely difficult time getting in there. The ash would block
all points of entry from the ground and spread gases and ash
into the atmosphere that would stop most airflow, just as it
did when a much smaller volcano erupted in 2010 in Iceland.
The aftereffects of its eruption are equally as frightening as the
‘nuclear winter.’ It could put a blanket of ashes and dust over
the United States and other regions of the world. The good
news is, an eruption of this large scale is unlikely to happen in

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our lifetime. Yellowstone last erupted about 650,000 years ago,

and the United States geological survey says the probability of
it blowing its top again is minimal.
Asteroid Impact

The word ‘asteroid’ means ‘star-like.’ Asteroids are those

mineralized space rocks, smaller than planets, that are mainly
found in the asteroid belt rotating around the Sun. Not to get
confused with comets that are made up of dust and ice. Comets
remain icy as they orbit far away from the Sun. If they get too
close to the Sun, its intense heat will melt them.
Undoubtedly, asteroids are smaller than planets, but some are
big enough to create destruction at a massive level if they hit
our planet. If a giant asteroid hit the landmass, there would be
a tremendous amount of soil and dust particles thrown into
our atmosphere, resulting in air pollution and animal and plant
loss. It can be compared with the nuclear winter caused by
many nuclear explosions. If an asteroid hits the oceans, there
will be water vapor in the atmosphere, resulting in landslides
and destructive floods. There might be tsunamis, hurricanes,
and earthquakes in coastal regions due to the release of a large
amount of energy.
How to prevent an asteroid impact?
We cannot prevent its destructive impact if we do not know
the exact location of the asteroid. So, finding the exact position
of any threatening asteroid is the first and foremost thing
in preventing its destructive impact. Today we have many
observatories around the globe just for this work, which have
calculated the trajectory of thousands of asteroids. After

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finding its position, the first option we have is to change its

orbit so that it does not hit our planet. We are doing superbly
in locating and finding asteroids big enough to cause a global
disaster. However, many attempts are yet to be made to locate
and find smaller asteroids which are threatening and capable
of a regional disaster.
Asteroid Destruction: We can use several techniques to destroy
an asteroid long before it reaches our planet. Techniques like
nuclear disruption can be used for destruction. If we can
destroy an asteroid in tiny pieces, we would not have to worry
about it even if it comes our way. As those small pieces enter
our atmosphere, they will burn up long before reaching the
surface. This technique can be used only in the case of small
asteroids. If a giant asteroid with a diameter of 1 kilometre
was approaching Earth, we should instead choose to change
its trajectory.
Target Change: To prevent small and regional disasters, we
can change the hitting target of the asteroid. This could be
one of the most effective and danger free techniques. Suppose
there is an asteroid, 1 billion kilometres away heading straight
towards the Earth. If we change its trajectory by just 1 meter,
it will make enough change over time that would prevent its
crash with Earth. By the time it travels 1 billion kilometres,
its trajectory would have been changed by hundreds of
thousands of kilometres.
How many asteroids are there nearby?
Most of the asteroids are found orbiting within the Asteroid
Belt located in between Jupiter and Mars. There are millions of
asteroids present in this belt. A small percentage of them are

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larger than one kilometre in diameter whereas the majority are

smaller ones. Most of these asteroids come nowhere close to
our planet and orbit in the asteroid belt. Those asteroids which
cross Earth’s orbital path are called Earth-crossers. Those who
come close to our Earth are called Near-Earth asteroids and
are estimated to be about 10,000 in number.
Out of these, over 861 asteroids are thought to be larger
than one kilometre, which can pose a significant threat. The
total number of asteroids that are potentially hazardous and
could be threatening is around 1,400. Apophis is a near-earth
asteroid with a diameter of 370 meters and an average orbital
speed of 30 km/s. In December 2004, it caused a brief period
of concern because initial observations of scientists indicated
a probability of up to 2.7% that it would strike Earth on April
13th, 2029. This probability has come down significantly as we
are learning more about this asteroid.
What if Apophis hits Earth?
On April 13th, 2029, Apophis will pass very close to Earth,
roughly 31,200 kilometres above Earth’s surface. It is
calculated that it will most likely pass our planet. Its bypass is
almost safe, but if it goes in the wrong way and strikes Earth,
then the probability is that it would plunge into the Pacific
Ocean, and the strike may spark a Tsunami. Apophis is not big
and threatening enough to cause extinction-level events for
entire humanity, but it is big enough to threaten many small
countries. A sea or land strike would cause massive devastation
and could potentially kill millions of people. This asteroid is
approximately the same size as the Empire State building. The
impact of this asteroid would be equivalent to hundreds of

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Nuclear bombs being dropped at the same time.

How often do large asteroids hit Earth?
Asteroids having a diameter of one kilometre or close to one
kilometre hit Earth every 500,000 years on average. Larger
Asteroids having a diameter more than 5 km collide with Earth
approximately once every twenty million years. Even though
we have observed many potentially hazardous asteroids, the
chance of them hitting our planet is significantly low. An
asteroid larger than 1 kilometre has almost zero chances of
hitting earth in our lifetime. Astronomers have mapped out
the trajectories and future near-Earth fly-bys of almost all
known big asteroids, so we are safe so far.

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Part IV

Death of the Universe

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H
uman history tells us about the continuous evolution
humanity has gone through. Our present tells us
about the path we are headed on for tomorrow.
However, the future does not speak. The future gives us no
evidence or information about the end of a journey that started
13.8 billion years ago with a giant explosion.
Different scientists predict our future differently, predicting
a finite and even an infinite age of the universe. However,
everyone cannot be correct. The death of our universe is one of
the significant subjects of discussion among scientists today. It
has been a part of debates between some of the great minds for
decades. From what we have learned so far, we can confidently
say that the death of our universe comes under physical
cosmology and is directly affected by the role dark energy and
dark matter are playing and are going to play as the universe
ages. It took 13.8 billion years for the universe to grow and
become what it is today.
We all know one absolute rule of life—everything comes to an
end. This rule not only applies to humanity, but our universe
also falls under its strict restrictions. Because one day, there will
be no light to define the beauty of this endless dark.
The fate of our universe not only includes the death of all the
stars, solar systems and giant galaxies, but also involves the
death of all life, including that on Earth. It involves the death
of intelligence and the death of the consciousness that took
billions of years to grow in the lap of the universe. We are lucky
that we can understand ourselves, which tells us that we are
conscious. It makes it even more essential for us to understand
the death of the universe because it means the death of all

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those efforts we have done to understand the nature of the

universe so far.
When our universe dies, history is going to be written again,
but there will be no one to witness it. Since Edwin Hubble
pointed out that the galaxies are moving apart from each other,
the cosmological era exploded, and various scientists predicted
the fate of the universe. All the theories about the death of
the universe are somehow related to what Edwin Hubble had
predicted, or better it can be said that most of those ideas are
the by-product of what Edwin Hubble had figured out. Now
let us consider the different ways our universe could end:

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 Big Freeze

B
ig Freeze is also known as the ‘future of the ever-
expanding universe.’ It is one of the most accepted
scenarios for the death of our universe. It is a scenario
in which the universe’s continuous expansion results in a
universe that approaches absolute zero temperature. Absolute
zero is the minimum possible temperature of a body, taken
as -273.15 ℃ and nothing can cool below this temperature.
Various scientific observations also suggest that this expansion
of the universe will continue forever.
Today we do not know what dark energy really is, but the idea
of Big Freeze comes from what we have understood so far. As
we know, the universe is going through a one-way expansion
where dark energy is the leading force. We cannot control
this expansion as it is beyond our grasp. So, the universe will
continue to expand, but with the expansion, dark energy will
get even more potent accelerating the expansion further. With
this acceleration, the universe will expand so rapidly that some
of the galaxies will break the light barrier and will never be
seen again.
There is a limited amount of gas and dust clouds in galaxies,
which is needed to form new stars. In about 1 trillion years
from now, no gas or dust clouds will remain as galaxies would
have used them for the formation of new stars. As soon as the

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galaxies run out of gas and dust clouds, the formation of new
stars will end. At that point, there will be a finite number of
stars remaining in the universe. As we know, stars will not stay
there forever, they have a limited lifetime due to the limited
amount of fuel in them. So, at first, the more prominent stars
will run out of fuel resulting in supernova explosions. After
them, the smaller stars will run out of fuel, becoming white
dwarf stars. At this point, the universe will become dim, and a
limited amount of heat and light will remain in the universe.
Stars are the powerhouses that light up the entire universe.
In the absence of these stars, our universe will start cooling
down rapidly. Even the white dwarf stars themselves would
start cooling down. They will get so cold that you would be
able to touch them with bare hands. The fusion activity at their
core will stop entirely, and the core will also freeze. With no
new source of heat and light, our entire universe will turn cold
and dark and reach an absolute zero temperature. Black Holes
would still be there, but they are not a good source of heat
and light. The advanced civilizations (if any) would want to
get closer to the Black Holes and use their gravitational force
to generate heat and electricity. It would be difficult to survive
near a black hole because they would have minimal resources.
They might survive a few years with the leftover resources
but not forever. Almost all life in the universe will die at the
absolute zero temperature, and no creature would be able to
make it in the cold universe.
Some scientists suggest that gravity can prevent the expansion
of the universe caused by dark energy. However, there is not
enough matter in our universe that could overpower the
expanding force of dark energy. Matter makes up just 4.9% of

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our observable universe due to which the overall strength of

gravity is weak. Only a miracle can save our universe from this
expansion. Due to this weaker attractive gravitational force, the
stars will continue to move away from each other and galaxies
will continue to drift apart from each other. This movement
will only speed up with time.

Most scientists believe that the Big Freeze fate of the universe
is inevitable. No matter what we try and do, it will happen one
day. There is no known force in science which can stop this
expansion. Right now, research is going on about the nature
of dark energy. Maybe as we learn more about the repulsive
nature of dark energy, we can find a way to prevent this fate of
the universe. Right now, there seems to be no hope for a future
that is not as cold as absolute zero.

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 Big Rip

B
ig Rip is the extension of what we have learned in the
Big Freeze death of the universe. Big Rip is a scenario in
which the universe will keep on expanding and expand
so rapidly that everything in the universe will be ripped apart
and turn into pure energy. We see the fate of the universe in the
form of Big Rip because dark energy overpowers gravity. The
universe consists of just 4.9% matter, whereas the percentage
of dark energy is 68.3.
As we know, the universe is expanding at an increasing rate.
With this expansion, the strength of dark energy is increasing,
causing even faster expansion. This theory states that the
universe will keep expanding at a faster and faster rate. The
Big Freeze theory states that galaxies will move apart, but the
galaxies themselves will remain intact. However, the Big Rip
theory suggests that the galaxies themselves will also expand,
and this expansion of galaxies will only increase with time. All
the stars that we see in the night sky are from the Milky Way
galaxy, and all of them are within a few thousand light-years.
As the expansion happens, nothing will remain in the night
sky except for a few stars, which are also moving away from us
and speeding up continuously.
Alpha Centauri, our nearest star, can be seen moving away from
us but not for long because very soon it will break the light

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barrier. Everything in the universe will be pulled apart, even at

the scale of solar systems. The distance between Sun and Earth
will increase, and all the planets of our solar system will start
moving away from each other. Amazingly, this expansion will
act on an atomic scale as well. Over the atomic scale, the atoms
will swell. The distance between the electrons and the nucleus
will increase. Because of the continuous expansion, electrons
will not be able to orbit the nucleus. Protons and neutrons,
which make up the nucleus of an atom, will not be able to
hold each other together and will get pulled apart. Protons and
neutrons will be dissipated into their constituents and will not
be able to interact with each other anymore.
Now it is becoming horrifying because all of us are made up of
atoms. When it happens, we would feel our body swelling and
the length and width of our body increasing. Of course, that
would cause tremendous pain in our body. However, we will
not be able to bear it for too long. Our arteries will rupture, and
most of our body organs will stop working when their atoms
get pulled apart. Eventually, everything in the universe will rip
apart and turn into pure energy, just like at the beginning of
the universe.
If we see this expansion from the point of view of String
Theory, nothing will remain in the universe, except for the
vibrating strings. However, the strings themselves will be
pulled in the ever-expanding universe, so only one type of
particle will remain in the entire universe. This is scary, but it
seems to be possible when we consider the force of dark energy.
While dark energy is causing the expansion of the universe, it
is not only fighting with the attractive force of ordinary matter
but also the attractive force of dark matter. If dark energy

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can successfully dominate over these two types of matter and

accelerate the expansion of the universe, it will have enough
power to rip us apart into pieces.

As predicted, the density of dark energy is increasing with

time. With the increase in density, it is getting more powerful,
causing a faster rate of expansion. As a result, all objects in the
universe, be it galaxies, solar systems, stars, or no matter how
small it is, will disintegrate into loose elementary particles and
radiation.
What will happen to the Black Holes?
It is interesting to see this fate of the universe from the point of
view of black holes. We have already talked about the Hawking
radiations and how they slowly kill a black hole. All the black
holes, including the supermassive black holes, radiate energy
in the form of hawking radiations. With the expansion of the

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universe, the rate of Hawking radiations will increase. As the

universe expands exponentially, Black holes will get weaker
and weaker, and eventually radiate completely. However, this
process will take longer compared to the disintegration of
ordinary matter. Once a black hole has completely radiated
away, an un-curved and expanding space will remain at their
place.

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 Big Crunch

B
ig Crunch is a bit different from what we have learned
so far about the fate of the universe. It is the opposite
of what we have discussed in the Big Freeze death of
the universe. This theory assumes that the mean density of the
universe is enough to stop the rate of expansion by overpowering
the expansion caused by dark energy. According to this theory,
the universe is expanding at an exponential rate due to the
effects of the Big Bang, but as time passes, this expansion will
slow down. As the expansion slows down, matter and dark
matter will take over the force of dark energy, and the universe
will begin contracting. As the contraction begins, the attractive
gravitational force will dominate the universe.
Because of this contraction, all the galaxies in the universe will
start coming closer to each other. The universe’s diameter will
decrease, and matter will get closer. All the stars of our night
sky would be seen becoming brighter and brighter. The planets
of our solar system would come closer and closer to each other.
The Sun will become bigger and hotter every day, due to which
Earth will receive more heat, and all the oceans will evaporate.
Life as we know it will not be possible on this planet then.
All the galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets and everything
else in the universe will come closer, and with time the rate
of contraction will increase. With this increase in the rate of

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contraction, the universe’s overall density will increase, and the

amount of dark energy will decrease. Eventually, the entire
universe will become a hot ball of plasma and collapse into
a dimensionless singularity. Gravity will pull everything back
together into one point again, as it has already been done
with the previous form of our universe. The universe will get
squashed together into a gigantic ball, and the Big Bang will
probably occur once again!
This theory allows the Big Bang to occur immediately after
the Big Crunch of the preceding universe. This theory gives
us an idea for the series of formation, expansion, contraction,
and the Big Bang explosion with the universe. This idea
constitutes a cyclic model of the universe, which is also known
as an oscillatory universe. If that is the case, our universe could
consist of an infinite sequence of finite universes, with each
universe ending with a Big Crunch and resulting in a Big Bang
for the formation of the next universe. This theory also answers
the question of what existed before the Big Bang.
Current evidence indicates that the universe is not a closed
system. It has caused cosmologists to abandon the oscillating
universe model. Big Crunch will result in the heat death of the
universe which is totally against all of our current observations.
Current observations have shown that the rate of expansion
of the universe is neither slowing nor constant; instead, it is
increasing with time, which only means that the power of dark
energy is somehow increasing. With the increased power of
dark energy, there is no way that our universe will end up in
the form of a Big Crunch. Big Freeze and Big Rip are the more
acceptable scenarios in today’s cosmology.

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Is there sufficient matter in the universe to slow its expansion?

No. There is not enough matter in the universe to slow this
expansion. The amount of ordinary matter is less than 5
percent, whereas the amount of dark matter is around 27
percent. Without the role of dark matter, this theory is not
possible, the combined percentage of matter and dark matter is
much lower than that of dark energy. Something magical must
happen to prevent the expansion of the universe, which makes
this theory less valid.
Big Bounce is another model of the universe that strongly
supports the idea of Big Crunch. It suggests that this cyclic
model or oscillatory universe is possible. In this model, every
Big Bang is the result of the collapse of a previous universe.
Some scientists predict that dark matter is not from our
dimensions; instead, it is a part of higher dimensions and is
currently leaking into our universe, causing its gravitational
effects. So, if a large sum of dark matter suddenly leaks into
our universe from higher dimensions, that could significantly
increase the hold of gravity and make this scenario possible.
Apart from that, there is no hope for this particular fate of the

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universe.
Other Fates

Eternal Inflation: Eternal inflation is the model of a

hypothetical inflationary universe. It is an extension of the Big
Bang theory. Big Bang successfully explained the birth of the
universe, but could not properly explain its fate. According to
eternal inflation theory, our universe is like an inflating bubble.
All the matter in the universe, including our planet is on the
skin of the bubble. This bubble is expanding since the Big bang
explosion, and it will expand forever. There is no known force
in the universe that can stop this expansion.
Eternal inflation theory supports the Big Freeze model of the
universe, where our universe will eventually freeze to death.
Hubble’s law also supports the future of the universe to be
inflationary, where inflation is going to lead us towards an
absolute zero temperature. However, this theory contradicts
the Big Rip model of the universe, where everything will fall
apart into pieces. The expansion will never occur at the atomic
scale.
False Vacuum: This theory points towards a vacuum consisting
of an unstable universe. In short, we all are floating over a
massive wave in the universe, which is willing to acquire a state
of minimum potential. Consider a bubble full of air. The air
is filled inside the bubble by an outside force, and the bubble
seems very stable. The air is not leaking out of the bubble, and
it is staying right where it is. However, that is not the reality.
In reality, this stability is only an illusion caused by the surface
that holds the air and does not let it pass. If you pop the bubble,
the air will come out and acquire a state of minimum potential,

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which is equal to the atmospheric pressure in our case.

Some scientists believe that the universe we live in might not
have reached its lowest and most stable potential yet. When
that happens, it will end our entire universe. Maybe we are still
inside the balloon, and if it pops, we will never see it coming.
Today, we are here because dark matter played a significant
role within our galaxies. When this fate of the universe occurs,
the very fabric of space-time will fall apart into pieces. All the
known forces of the universe will become obsolete and the
universe as we know it will end.
Whenever we talk about the fate of the universe, dark energy
seems to be the dominating factor. There are three different
scenarios explaining the fate of the universe, depending upon
the probable role of dark matter.
1. The very first scenario is that there is enough dark matter to
prevent the expansion of the universe. One day, dark matter
and ordinary matter will take over dark energy. This scenario
is the same as the predictions made by the Big Crunch model
of the universe. If that is the case, our universe is definitely
oscillatory; it comes and goes out of existence. In this scenario
our universe has a very limited age as compared to the Big
Freeze and Big Rip model where the universe has an infinite
age, but the matter within does not.
2. Another scenario is that at some point, dark matter, ordinary
matter and dark energy will acquire a state of equilibrium.
After a particular expansion, the universe will become static
as predicted by Sir Isaac Newton. Everything in the universe
will come to a standstill. All the stars and galaxies that we see
moving away from us will no longer do so. It supports the Big

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 BIG CRUNCH

Freeze model of the universe because after a specific interval of

time, stars will run out of energy.
3. The third model says that neither will dark matter and
ordinary matter be able to overpower the force of dark energy,
nor will they be able to acquire a state of equilibrium. There
will never be enough dark or ordinary matter that can compete
with the force of dark energy. Instead, as the universe ages, their
overall strength will reduce. The universe is expanding in one
way and will expand forever in the same way. This model puts
beauty in the Big Rip Model, where this force will dominate
not only the galaxies but also the fundamental particles.

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Timeline of the Future

Event Number of Years

Halley’s Comet Visit 49

Colonies on the Moon 80

Antares Explodes into a

10,000
Supernova

95% Probability Humanity

10,000
Going Extinct

Niagara Falls Erodes Away 50,000

VY Canis Majoris explosion 100,000

Humans Will Terraform Mars 100,000

Supervolcanic Eruption on
100,000
Earth

Wolf–Rayet star WR 104

300,000
Explodes into Supernova

Earth Likely Hit by 1 km

500,000
Asteroid

Pyramids of Giza Erodes Away 1 million

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 TIMELINE OF THE FUTURE

Humanity Will Colonize

1 million
Milky Way

Earth Likely Undergone a

1 million
Supervolcanic Eruption

Gliese 710 Will Pass Within

1.4 million
9,000 AU

Grand Canyon Will Erode 2 million

Phobos Collision with Mars 50 million

Saturn Loses Its Rings 100 million

Sun’s Luminosity Increase by

110 million
1%

A Day on Earth Becomes One

180 million
Hour Longer

Solar System Completes One

240 million
Galactic Year

Formation of a Possible New

250 million
Supercontinent

Nearby Gamma-Ray Burst 500 million

CO2 Levels Too Low for

700 million
Photosynthesis

Death of All Plant Life 800 million

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 BABY UNIVERSE

Earth’s Oceans Starts

1 billion
Evaporating

Sun’s Luminosity Increase by

1.1 billion
10%

Earth’s Oceans Evaporate

2 billion
Away

Death of Most Life on Earth 2 billion

1 in 100,000 chance of Earth

3 billion
Ejecting into Space

Sun Expands into a Red Giant 4 billion

Andromeda Collision with

4.5 billion
Milky Way

Sun Destroys the Earth 7.9 billion

Sun Becomes a White Dwarf 8 billion

Moon Might Collide with

65 billion
Earth

Universe Likely End Via Big

1 trillion
Crunch

Peak Habitability in the

10 trillion
Universe

Formation of New Stars Ends 100 trillion

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 TIMELINE OF THE FUTURE

All the Stars Exhaust Their

110–120 trillion
Fuel

Universe Will Become

150 trillion
Completely Dark

Sun Cools Down to -268 °C One quadrillion

Nucleons in the Universe Stars

Two undecillions
Decaying

Black Holes of 1 Solar Mass

2000 vigintillion
Decays

Supermassive Black Hole TON

0.6 googol
618 Dissipates

Black Hole Era Ends 1,700,000 googols

213
 Glossary

A
bsolute Zero: The lowest possible temperature of
a body; its value is -273.15 ℃. The value of the heat
energy of a body reduces to zero at the absolute zero
temperature.
Anti-gravity: Just opposite to gravity. Anti-gravity (in the
form of dark energy) is causing the expansion of the universe
by pushing galaxies apart.
Antimatter: Antimatter is opposite to ordinary matter. Anti-
protons have a negative charge and anti-electrons have a positive
charge. Matter and its antimatter consume each other as they
come in contact leaving behind pure energy and radiations.
Every single particle is supposed to have an antiparticle.
Atom: The most basic unit of matter. It consists of a nucleus
made up of protons and neutrons surrounded by moving
electrons.
Big Bang: The most successful theory in explaining the origin
of the universe. Evidence shows that this colossal explosion
occurred roughly 13.8 billion years ago. The universe was
nothing but a singularity before the Big Bang.
Big Crunch: Scenario explaining the fate of the universe in
which gravity will take over the expanding forces of dark
energy. The whole universe will turn into a singularity, and the

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 GLOSSARY

Big Bang will occur once again.

Big Freeze: This theory suggests that the expansion of the
universe will last forever. Stars will use up all their energy, black
holes will radiate away, and intelligent life will die at absolute
zero temperature.
Big Rip: This theory suggests that everything in the universe
will be ripped apart due to the expanding universe. Nearby
galaxies will break the light barrier, and all the matter in the
universe will be ripped apart into its constituents.
Black Hole: A region in the space where gravity is strong
enough that even light cannot escape. The escape velocity of
any Black Hole is higher than the speed of light, which is
impossible to achieve.
Blue Shift: Blue Shift arises due to the shrinking of space. If a
yellow star is heading towards us at high speed, it will appear
blue in the telescope.
Chandrasekhar Limit: The maximum possible mass of an
object above which it turns into a Black Hole.
Conservation Law: This law predicts that energy can neither
be created nor destroyed. As per given by E=mc2, equivalent
mass and energy are convertible into each other.
Cosmic Microwave Background: The leftover afterglow or
footprints of the Big Bang explosion in the form of radiations.
Cosmological Constant: Extra term Einstein used in his
equations, giving a static model of the universe. Later he
removed this term after the discovery of the expanding universe.
Cosmology: The study of the universe starting from its

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beginning until its end.

Critical Density: The average density of matter at which the
universe will halt its expansion. The universe is not very dense
due to which dark energy has taken over.
Dark Energy: An unknown form of energy of space which
constitutes 68.3% of the total universe. Dark Energy causes
the one-way expansion of the universe by overcoming the
gravitational pull.
Dark Matter: An unknown form of matter, constitutes 27% of
the total universe. Not only ordinary matter, but dark matter
is also equally responsible for holding our galaxies together. Its
presence is measured by the distortion it creates in the path of
light.
Dimension: The primary parameter to measure space and time.
Electromagnetic Force: It is one of the four fundamental forces
of nature. It is the force of electricity and magnetism.
Electron: An elementary particle, discovered by Sir J.J.
Thomson. It is negatively charged with a charge of -1.602×10-
19 C and has a mass of 9.109×10-31 kg.
Entropy: The extent of randomness in a body. Gases have more
entropy or disorder than solids or fluids. In any closed system,
entropy increases with time.
Eternal Inflation: This is the model of a hypothetically
inflationary universe.
Event Horizon: A one-way ticket to a Black Hole. The
boundary, after which nothing can escape from the Black
Hole, not even light.

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 GLOSSARY

LASER: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of

Radiation. Laser produces a highly monochromatic, coherent,
and concentrated beam of light.
False Vacuum: Vacuum that has not yet acquired the lowest
energy state. In the case of a supernova, the whole star
explodes and acquires the state of minimum energy. Similarly,
the transition of a false vacuum into a true vacuum may occur
at any time, which may lead to the end of our universe.
Frequency: The number of vibrations or the number of cycles
per second.
Fusion: Process in which elements fuse into each other
resulting in the formation of a new element. This process
is mostly exothermic, which means energy is released. New
element generated is different in composition to that of its
constituents. For example, the fusion of hydrogen nuclei forms
Helium in the core of a star.
Galaxy: The elliptical/spiral/irregular beauty of the universe.
Galaxies consist of billions of stars and planets. Our galaxy is
the Milky Way galaxy which is made up of 100 to 400 billion
stars.
General Relativity: It is one of the most successful theories
given by Albert Einstein in 1916. It successfully explained the
gravitational force in terms of the bending of space-time.
God: The real creator and the ruler of the entire universe.
Grand Unification Theory (GUT): A theory that could unify
Electromagnetism and Nuclear forces. GUT theory does not
involve the unification of all four fundamental forces of nature.

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Gravitation: The weakest force of nature that keeps us on the

ground. Einstein predicted that space pushes us towards the
ground, instead of the Earth pulling us.
Hawking Radiation: Radiation caused by the Black Holes,
resulting in their evaporation. More massive Black Hole results
in more Hawking Radiations and vice versa.
Higgs Boson: A particle that gives matter its mass.
Higgs Field: A field that swept across the entire universe just
after the Big Bang, which gave particles their mass.
Hubble’s Law: After the observation of distant galaxies for a
long time, Hubble predicted that the farther galaxies are, the
faster they are moving away from us. Their distance from us
is directly proportional to the rate at which they are moving
away.
Large Hadron Collider: A landmark human achievement. It
has enabled us to look deeper into the microscopic universe
inside an atom. LHC uses a high energy beam of photons and
collides them to learn more about them.
Light: Electromagnetic radiation of different wavelengths.
Light Year: One light-year is the distance travelled by a light
beam in a year. This parameter is used to measure the vast
distances, such as the distant stars and galaxies.
Magnetic Field: Field generated by the charged particles when
they are in motion, responsible for the magnetic interactions.
Mass: The amount of matter in a body.
Matter: It is made up of atoms and molecules. Everything
around you that you can touch or see around you is an ordinary

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 GLOSSARY

matter.
Multiverse: The idea of multiple universes. It suggests there
could be an infinite series of universes, and we are living in just
one of them. We can connect with these universes through
wormholes.
Neutron: Neutral subatomic particle with a mass of 1.672×10-
27 kg. Along with protons, it makes up the atomic nuclei.
Neutron Star: As a result of a supernova explosion, these
smallest and densest stars are born. A neutron star is basically
the collapsed core of a giant star.
Nucleus: The combination of protons and neutrons makes
up the nucleus. It is the dense and positively charged central
region of an atom.
Particle Accelerator: A machine that provides acceleration to
moving charged particles.
Photon: An elementary particle with zero rest mass; it is the
constituent of light. Absorption of a photon causes excites
electrons, which makes photoelectric effect possible.
Proton: Positively charged subatomic particle with a charge of
1.602×10-19 C and mass 1.672×10-27 kg.
Quantum Mechanics: The branch of science which deals
with the quantum fluctuations of matter. It is based upon
wave equations and the uncertainty principle. Small scale and
lower energies of atoms and subatomic particles are studied in
Quantum Mechanics.
Quarks: The elementary particles which make protons and
neutrons. Three individual quarks make up a proton or a

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 BABY UNIVERSE

neutron.
Radioactivity: The natural disintegration of some elements. In
this process, the nucleus ultimately breaks into daughter nuclei.
The rate of radioactivity depends upon the type of matter.
Red Shift: Just opposite of blue shift. The wavelength of light
wave emitted by a distant source moves toward the red end of
the electromagnetic spectrum because of the expanding fabric
of space and time.
Singularity: A point of infinite density. In the beginning,
a singularity exploded and created our universe. Generally,
singularities are found at the centre of a Black Hole.
Space: Three-dimensional area where different objects have a
position and direction relative to each other.
Space-time: Space-time is derived to reflect that space and
time are the two faces of the same coin.
Special Relativity: The idea that no matter how fast the
observer is moving, the laws of physics would remain the same.
Einstein’s Special Relativity was published in 1905.
Steady-State Theory: This theory raises the question of the
existence of the Big Bang. The basic idea is that the universe
has always existed and will always exist; the formation of stars
and galaxies is a continuous process.
String Theory: Theory that goes deeper into our atomic and
subatomic particles, suggesting the presence of one-dimensional
strings whose different vibrations cause the different particles.
Strong Nuclear Forces: The strongest of four fundamental
forces which hold the protons and neutrons inside an atom.

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 GLOSSARY

Supernova: A short event in which a star produces an enormous

amount of energy because of its explosion.
Time: It is the continuous progress of the existence of events.
Time is irreversible, and it takes us from the known moment
of the past, through the moment of present, into the moment
of an unknown future.
Time Travel: Being able to go backward or forward in time.
Types of Civilization: Civilizations in outer space are
characterized into different parts based upon their requirements
of energy. This differentiation is done further based upon their
ability to harness the resources of the universe.
Unified Field Theory: The theory suggested by Einstein that
would unify all the four fundamental forces of nature—
Gravitation, Electromagnetism, Strong Nuclear Force, Weak
Nuclear Force. Unified Field Theory is one step ahead of the
GUT, which allows the unification of 2 forces only, however it
is yet to be done.
Universal Forces: Forces that govern and control the entire
universe. Today, we know about four fundamental universal
forces, Gravitation, Electromagnetism, Strong Nuclear Force,
and Weak Nuclear Force.
Vacuum: Vacuum is empty space, but the empty space does not
mean nothingness. Physics says that the empty space also has
its own energy.
Virtual Particles: Particles that form in pairs and destroy
each other within a fraction of time, and the process occurs
throughout the space.

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 BABY UNIVERSE

Visible light: Detectable to the human eye, it enables us to

understand the world around us. It lies within a specific range
of wavelength ~390 to 700 nm.
Weak Nuclear Forces: Forces that are responsible for nuclear
decay. These are the weakest forces of nature after gravity.
Weight: Force experienced by a body because of Gravitation.
White Dwarf: A star in its final stage, which has burned nearly
all of its fuel.
Wormholes: Shortcuts/pathways/tunnels to travel vast
distances or to travel within the universes.
X-Rays: A type of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a
wavelength of 0.01-10 nanometres.

222
 Who is God?

T
he question ‘Who is God?’ is a valid question in
science, so finding the correct answer becomes our
responsibility. Earlier it was believed that whatever is
happening above the sky is a divine act of God, and it would
be a sin to go there and find out. However, not everyone
believed this to be true. Some men stood for themselves and
questioned the existence of God even though they might fear
that if there is a god, they will go straight to hell. The curiosity,
even to question the existence of God, has helped us in making
various advancements in science. If no one had questioned
God’s existence, then there would be no agnostics, atheists and
spiritual people.
There is a notable misconception that most of the scientists
believe in God, and so there must be a god. Well, scientists
do not use God or holy books such as the Bible, Qur’an, or
Gita for their scientific research. They use these books for their
spiritual enlightenment when it comes to research religion
has no role to play in it. When I see so much suffering in
the outside world, people dying in floods while others die in
droughts without water, I want to question the existence of a
personal god above the clouds. If God cares about us, then why
doesn’t he/she/it stop these natural disasters. Maybe God does
not care about natural human suffering, or maybe God does

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 BABY UNIVERSE

not even exist.

From my understanding so far about religion and people in
general. There are three types of Gods:
The Personal God

The very first God is the personal God. Humans have created
this personal God in the form of statues. He listens to us, and
you can spend hours in front of him. He is so attentive that he
will not even blink his eyes while listening to you. People like
to share their daily life problems with this God. They go and
sit in front of its statue and spell out everything that has been
bothering them for days. They cannot discuss it with anyone
else because they feel very insecure about it, so instead, they
choose to tell God.
Suppose today you are going for an interview; you stop midway
and pray to God to get this job. If you do well in the interview
and get the job, you will give credit to God. However, if you
could not answer the questions during the interview and do
not get the job, this time, you will blame yourself and not God.
That is how the people’s relation with personal God works.
This God never replies, never takes the food or stuff that they
bring to temples or churches, but somehow people feel pleased
after bowing down in front of this God.
If I had to give another name for the personal God, then it
would be the Psychological God because personal God is
all about how we feel after doing our prayers. People spend
thousands of dollars to go to a psychologist, and what does
a psychologist do? He/she listens. You go there, spill out
everything in your heart, and that makes you feel better about

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 WHO IS GOD?

yourself. Because now you know that there is someone who

knows about my problems. The same thing happens in the
Churches, Mosques and Temples. You get inner psychological
relief after offering prayers.
The only problem with the personal God is that different
people with different religious backgrounds have different gods.
This distinction creates differences between various groups
of society, which sometimes becomes the reason for feuds
between them. Once you attach yourself to a personal god, you
lose your human identity. Now you do whatever is possible to
protect your religious identity even if it means killing other
fellow humans. More people have died or killed other people
in the name of personal God than killed by natural disasters.
Our history is full of bloodbath caused by religious tension.
Even today religious tension can be seen in countries which
are diverse with people from different religious backgrounds
living there.
The Universal God

The second kind of God is that which most of the spiritual

people and atheists believe in. The God of fundamental forces
of nature that governs the entire universe. The forces which
created us and the forces within us that keep us alive. This God
does not care about our paychecks, bills, rent, fees and daily life
worries. This God says that instead of begging in front of me,
figure out the way by yourself. I like this idea of God because
it gives you a universal identity. Once you believe in a universal
god, you consider all the other fellow humans as one, and you
would do anything possible to protect and help others. Not
only humans, you consider the entire universe as one, and you

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can feel the presence of the universe within yourself.

Just like the personal God, people who believe in a universal
god attach themselves to something which creates a distinction
between them and other religious people. Accepting a universal
identity for someone who believes in a personal god is difficult
because if they do so, they would have to erase everything
taught to them since childhood. However, with enough
knowledge and curiosity in mind, religious people can turn
into spiritualists or atheists.
Fundamental forces of nature are equal for everyone, it does
not matter what your religion, caste, or gender is. While
worshippers of personal God might limit themselves to a
certain level, a person who believes in the universal God is not
only a good human being but also willing to accept new ideas
and thoughts. This is what a progressive mind is, it accepts the
new reality. Acceptance of new ideas and thoughts is needed,
especially if you want to go in the field of science and do some
research. Believing in a personal god comes with a boundary
and a set of rules which make you feel calm and safe within
your head. Which is another reason why most religious people
do not want to leave their religion even if they know something
is not right.
The God of Simulations

The third possibility is that we are living in a simulation, and

whoever created this simulation is our God. We will probably
never know about it because it is too smart for us to comprehend.
Just like a player in a game would never know that it is being
controlled by someone else with a higher intelligence, we also
might never find out. The player in the game might think that

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 WHO IS GOD?

he is making his own conscious decisions, but he does not

know that a joystick is controlling him. As he moves in the
game, buildings and roads get created within his frame of view.
Even if the player in the game knows that his decisions are not
his own, he cannot do anything about it. He must obey the
commands given by the program.
If we are living in a simulation, then it is possible that those
who created us are also living in a simulation. Which means
our God could have its own God as well. This creates a long
chain of simulations with infinite gods, one above the other.
This possibility further raises the question of how big this
chain is and where does it end. Does it end at infinity, or is
it like a circle where multiple simulations depend upon each
other? If we are living in a simulation which is not circular,
then there are two possibilities.
The first possibility is that we are the first in this chain of
simulations, and the other simulations have not started yet.
We will create further simulations in the future that will make
us into a kind of God for the coming simulations. If we are
the first one, it also means that there is no God above us. The
second probability is that we are living in a chain of infinite
simulations, and we are the latest simulation that has been
created. There are no simulations after us because we are the
ones who will continue this series.
So how do we find out if we are living in a simulation? Well,
the easy way is to figure out if free will is our choice. If all the
decisions that we are taking are indeed our own and there is no
connection between two simultaneous events, then it might be
true that we are not living in a simulation. It is hard to find out

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because we have no way of knowing if our actions are our own

and whether free will is actually free. Let us suppose we are
living in a simulation and trying to find out if free will is real.
Then would the God who created this simulation ever allow us
to figure this out? Think about it.

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 Does the Universe have a
purpose?

W
e have created milestones in the history of
humanity, but we are still confused if there is
a purpose to all that. This question has been
bothering us long before we started understanding the language
of the universe. In the pursuit of finding a purpose, we have
created our own different personal gods. Our understanding
about God might have changed in the last 1000 years, but we
are still clueless if the universe has a purpose. The meaning
of purpose is the reason for which something was created or
for which something exists. When we look deeper into the
universe, we do not seem to find a reason for the existence of
the cosmos. Maybe it was created for a reason, but it is too
complicated for us to find out. Whenever we talk about the
purpose of the universe, scientists have two different opinions:
The first group of scientists believe that the universe has a
purpose. These scientists believe in God’s existence; some
believe in the personal God, whereas others believe in the
universal God as most of them are spiritual. Moreover, the
God who created all of us must have a plan of why he created
us. The universe has a purpose because lives, from their very
first spark, are governed by various laws of nature which drive

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us towards our fate. All those events of the past where life
came out of water and became what it is today cannot be a
mere coincidence. If we look at the geometry of the universe
from an atom to the solar system and the giant galaxies, we
find a similar pattern. Laws of the universes are governing our
lives, and we must be thankful for that. In the end, maybe a
billion years from now, we will find the purpose, and even if
we do not, we must keep giving ourselves new purposes in the
form of small tasks and keep this cycle going.
The second group believes that the universe does not have a
purpose because we do not play a central role in the universe.
We are tiny creatures living on a small planet, circling an
average-sized star, in an average-sized galaxy somewhere in
the universe. If we see our role in the universe, then we will
find that we do not matter to the cosmos. The universe will
go on its way as it is now whether we are present or not. There
are universal forces inside us that support and nourish life, but
there are an equal amount of forces that are trying to kill us.
Every day people are dying due to all sorts of silly reasons. That
makes us worthless for the universe.
Every second the universe is growing and moving towards its
fate. Maybe in a 100 billion years maybe in a 1 trillion years
from now, the universe will die out, so what is the meaning of
our existence? A universe without purpose does not mean that
our lives are purposeless because we create our own purposes,
but it also means that we do not have a purpose or role to
play in the universe. The universe having a purpose is only
theoretical; they are the predictions of religious people trying
to conflict with science. For people who believe in religion,
religion gives them a purpose to serve a god, go to heaven and

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live forever. However, science says it is false because there is no

evidence of God. It is hard to say that religion holds the truth
about our purpose because science brings the question against
God, stating who created God itself?
In simple words, our predictions of whether we have a purpose
or not are just theoretical foundations without a solid base. We
are struggling to find our place in the universe, and it is even
harder to predict our purpose. Either one of the above sides is
correct, or both could be wrong. The search for a purpose creates
a purpose in itself. However, if the universe does not have a
purpose, and it is going to die anyway, it makes everything
meaningless. Giving ourselves a purpose each day and going
through a continuous state of evolution may lead us towards an
ultimate purpose. Life starts and ultimately ends, then it starts
again but not from where it ended, and the process goes on.
It is hard for science to say whether we have a purpose or not.
Science goes through evolution itself.
Religion sends us to heaven or hell based upon the acts we
do while being alive. Religion gives us a purpose even after
death which is something science does not allow. We must not
forget that while science has proved religion to be wrong, there
are many questions that science still cannot answer. A purpose
cannot be multiple because the ultimate purpose is singular. If
the universe has a purpose, then it is unlikely we have a role to
play in it.
There are various questions in our path. Does intelligence and
consciousness lead us towards a destiny? Do we have a role to
play in the universe? Or is it just a meaningless race to save
humanity that will inevitably end somehow, someday, in some

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other place, in some other form? Maybe yes or maybe no!

If there is no purpose, then it becomes our responsibility to
give ourselves one. If there is a purpose where we have a role
to play, we must try and uncover it as soon as possible. Today
only religion can answer this question with confidence, but we
must not forget, ‘religion cannot show it and science cannot
prove it today.’

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 Newton’s World

A
true physicist, mathematician, astronomer and natural
philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton is considered as one of
the most influential scientists ever lived on this planet.
Born on December 25th, 1642, in Woolsthorpe, England, Sir
Isaac Newton is commonly known for discovering the universal
law of Gravitation. Sir Newton was born the same year Galileo
Galilei died. During his childhood, Sir Isaac Newton was not
a good student at all. After his stepfather died, his mother
wanted him to become a farmer. But little Newton was not
good at farming, so he was sent back to school. If he were
good at farming, he would have stayed at home, and it would
take probably another hundred years for scientists to discover
gravity. When he was 22, Newton developed the generalized
Binomial Theorem. After graduation, Newton spent the next
two years at home developing his theories on Optics, Calculus
and his universal laws on Gravitation.
It is said that during The Great Plague of London, which lasted
from 1665 to 1666, Newton discovered the laws of Gravitation.
Quarantine at home gave him time to work on his theories and
to develop new laws. If the plague had not happened, we might
have missed some of the most significant works of Sir Isaac
Newton. A few months after getting his undergraduate degree
at 23 years of age, Newton went back to his family farm. That

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place was far away from the dangers of the plague, which was
taking several lives. A farm provided him a quiet and relaxed
place to work upon his ideas and discover new rules of the
working universe.

According to a famous story, Newton saw an apple falling from

a tree, which gave him his idea of Gravitation. He suggested
that the same force which caused the apple to fall to Earth is
causing us to stay on the surface of Earth. Moreover, the same
force might also be dominating the movement of planets in
the solar system. Newton always believed that nature follows
certain laws; he used mathematics to prove the existence of
gravity. A force that keeps planets in their orbits around the
Sun, it also causes objects to fall towards Earth. Finally, we
can say that an apple served humanity by falling in front of
Newton. Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity was significant

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because it gave us a better understanding of mechanics. Better

mechanics have completely revolutionized our daily lives, and
the industrial revolution was also impacted. If there were no
gravity on Earth, all of us would be flying in outer space at
1000 miles per hour.
In Optics, Newton’s discovery of the composition of white light
helped us understand the nature of light. Newton showed the
world that white light is composed of several rays of diverse
colours. This discovery became the foundation of the modern
optics we study today. Now light was no longer thought to be
homogeneous and straightforward since Newton was the first
person to reveal its complexity.
In Mechanics, Newton’s three laws of motion became the
foundation of modern mechanics. Astronauts in the zero-
gravity of space, space shuttles, revolving planets and their
moons, moving stars and even galaxies obey these fundamental
principles observed by Newton. He derived Kepler’s laws for
planetary motion using his mathematical descriptions and
finally predicted the trajectories of various small objects in the
solar system. With the help of the explanation of Newton and
his works, we get the final picture of our working solar system.
Even today, we are using the same laws to send astronauts into
space and to observe the orbits of various planets around the
Sun. These three laws are:
1. All the bodies want to stay in their present state unless acted
upon by an external force.
2. The rate of change of momentum in a body is directly
proportional to the applied force.

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3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In Mathematics, Newton discovered one of the most beautiful
and complex riddles, Calculus. Today, scientists use calculus
to understand the language of the universe. The story for the
invention of calculus is very motivating. While Newton was
working on the theory of gravity, he found that the existing
laws of mathematics were very limited in explaining his ideas
on Gravitation. So instead of getting demotivated and giving
up on his calculations, he invented calculus. Now the principles
of calculus were able to explain gravity successfully. Calculus is
the backbone for a large number of theories and predictions
we make about the universe. In short, Calculus has become
the backbone for most of mathematics. It is said that Newton
invented calculus at the same rate a high school student learns
it in school.
Before Newton, no one knew what caused the tides at sea. It
was a mystery. However, with the discovery of Gravitation
and after creating a complete model of how gravity works,
Newton was able to explain sea tides. Newton explained how
the gravitational pull from the Sun and the Moon affects tides
on Earth. What Newton said about the working of tides over
350 years ago still applies. He did not just have ideas to explain
the working of tides, but he also proved them mathematically,
which is more important.
The telescope was first invented over 400 years ago, but
telescopes at that time were not very productive. They could
only magnify an image by a few times. It was almost impossible
to see distant objects clearly with those telescopes. In 1668, this
genius invented the reflecting telescope. With the discovery of

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the reflecting telescope, the space race got a major boost. By

using large mirrors, we were able to focus the beam of light
coming from distant stars onto a single point. Whenever you
see equations of mathematics, space shuttles heading towards
the orbit, or beautiful pictures taken by your camera, do not
forget to thank the genius who shaped our world into a better
place when it was much needed. Some of the most significant
achievements of Sir Isaac Newton are:
1. Discovery of Gravity.
2. Explained the nature and properties of light.
4. Developed the Newtonian Telescope.
5. Invention of Calculus.
6. He gave the three laws of motion.
The picture of the universe has gone through continuous
variation with time. At the time of Newton, most of the
things we now know about the universe were unknown yet.
So, Newton gave his unique model of the universe. For Sir
Newton, both space and time were different concepts having
no relation with each other. Newton suggested the existence
of an Ether in his book “The Third Book of Opticks” (1718).
With his observations of the universe, Newton came up with
these conclusions:
1. The universe is a static place composed of an infinite number
of stars scattered randomly throughout its volume.
2. The universe is infinitely old, it has existed forever and will
exist forever without any significant changes.
3. Space and time are steady and independent of one another;

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objects exist within them.

Even though Albert Einstein later proved most of his ideas
about space and time to be wrong, it was nonetheless a good
start by Newton. Albert Einstein built upon the basis of what
Isaac Newton said and gave a different picture of the universe.
Almost nothing was known about the universe when Newton
gave these conclusions. Also, there was no research done in
space. So, by only observing from Earth, it was natural for him
to conclude that the universe consists of an infinite number of
stars. There was no Big bang Theory or CMBR model of the
universe, so people believed that the universe is infinitely old.
The Ether Hypothesis

The wave theory of light says that light requires a medium for
its propagation. Newton believed that the entire universe was
filled with an ideal medium called Ether. Ether was supposed
to be roughly massless, invisible with infinitely low density.
Ether provided a rest frame for the propagation of light. The
high value of elasticity and very low density enabled light to
propagate through this medium without losing its intensity.
Not only light, but this ideal medium also enables all the other
electromagnetic waves to travel through the entire space.
To check the existence of Ether, one of the most significant
and long-lasting experiments in human history was carried
out; the name of this experiment was the Michelson-Morley
Experiment. The basic idea of this experiment was to calculate
the relative motion of light with respect to Earth. If there was
a medium called Ether in the space with a low density, then
there must be a relative motion. As a result of this experiment,
no relative motion between Earth and Ether was detected,

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resulting in a universe that does not contain Ether and is a

complete vacuum. This experiment took Michelson towards
the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1907.
Newton’s ideas dominated physics for three centuries until
Albert Einstein modified them through his work in the
‘Theory of Relativity.’ Newton gave his scientific ideas much
before Einstein when most of the actual physics was unknown.
The laws given by Newton can still be found in different areas
of mechanics, optics and mathematics. He took a rest from his
immensely productive and motivating journey on March 20th,
1726, at the age of 84.

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 Einstein’s Relativity

B
orn on March 14th, 1879, Albert Einstein is considered
as the greatest and most revolutionary scientist to
ever live. The ‘man of the century’ has done lots of
spectacular work in the field of physics. His contribution
by developing the Special and General Theory of Relativity
gave him the title of the father of modern physics. His theory
explained the relativity of time, space, energy, gravity, etc. and
these predictions that were later verified experimentally caused
immeasurable change to the world. The world’s most famous
equation E=mc2 on which atomic and nuclear bombs are based
came from the scientific work of Albert Einstein.
As one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, Einstein’s
Special theory of relativity revolutionized physics and
challenged scientists worldwide. His research made him a
celebrity, not to mention his flirtatious behaviour that could
impress any woman. This genius was awarded the Nobel Prize
in 1921 for his exceptional work in physics, especially for his
discovery of the photoelectric effect. He took rest from his
revolutionary journey on April 18th, 1955, in Princeton.
Einstein studied the equations given by Maxwell on light and
predicted that the speed of light is invariant. The invariant
speed of light breaks Newton’s Laws, but it was accepted
since Newton gave no evidence against the variable speed of

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light. 1905 is considered as a miracle year in the life of Albert

Einstein. This is the year in which he published four research
papers, and each of these papers became the foundation for
coming discoveries in physics. These research papers included
the special relativity and well-known equation E=mc².
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like
an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a
minute. That is relativity. ~Albert Einstein

When Einstein first published his research papers, most of his

work was ignored by the physicists because there was no physical
evidence for what he said. Publishing a series of papers from
1905 to 1915, he spent ten years finishing what he started. In
1915, he completed one of the most significant theories of all
time, General Relativity. He was confident with his work and
what he said because the mathematical beauty of the universe
reflected in his equations. Year 1919 changed the life of Albert
Einstein once and for all and made him a celebrity worldwide

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as the results from the observations of a solar eclipse were

shown. The results were revolutionary because they threw out
Newton’s ideas. He became world-famous within days when
scientists experimentally found that light bends when it passes
near a planet. This was the moment when physicists started
studying his work and took his ideas seriously.
Einstein used the quantum theory of light and explained the
photoelectric effect. He explained light not as a wave but as a
beam of particles called photons. The electrons absorb these
photons in an atom which excites them and gives rise to the
photoelectric current. This gave rise to another rivalry between
the great minds because light was considered as a wave, and
Einstein successfully explained it as a beam consisting of
particles. By the time the rivalry ended, light had acquired a
dual nature. Well, light did not acquire any nature, its nature
was accepted to be dual. Phenomenon like interference,
diffraction, and polarization show that light is a wave, whereas
the photoelectric effect and black body radiation show its
particle nature. Today we have solar panels as a result of the
discovery of the photoelectric effect.
The world that Einstein articulated has become our world
today. The map of the universe given by Einstein has become
the foundation for Astronomy. Today we are using the same
equations and moving along with the same ideas Einstein left
for us. Today relativity has become the backbone for modern
physics and cosmology. Relativity is not just a theory, it is a way,
a path shown by Albert Einstein to the entirety of humanity to
unfold the infinite secrets hidden in the universe.

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Gravitation

‘Matter tells space how to curve; space tells matter how to

move.’ ~Albert Einstein.
According to Albert Einstein, space is like a 4-dimensional
fabric consisting of both space and time. Mass of planets or
any object distorts the fabric, gathering other objects around
them. This distortion in the fabric of space-time is known as
the ‘bending of space-time,’ and creates the effect we experience
as gravity. Einstein predicted that space and time are like two
faces of the same coin. Einstein explains that if you are sitting
on a chair, Earth is not attracting you towards the chair, but it
is the distortion in space forcing you to stay there.
As Newton predicted, space and time are the static stage on
which physical processes act; Einstein explained space-time as
an active player working in tandem. Space-time can be curved,
it expands as well as shrinks depending on the amount and
nature of matter. Earth’s mass causes more distortion than what
the Moon does; as a result, the Moon orbits Earth. Like other
natural satellites, the Moon also wants to fall into Earth, but
because of equal centripetal force, it stays in its orbit. However,
researchers have found that the Moon is moving away from
the Earth at a rate of roughly 4 cm per year.
E=mc2
The next time you walk on the street, ask anyone to tell you
an equation given by Albert Einstein. Either they will not
have any answer, or the words coming out will be E=mc2. This
is the most famous equation ever written by anyone. In the
beginning, it was hard to believe the accuracy of this equation

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because ‘c’ (speed of light-299,792,458 meters per second) itself

is a large number, which means 2 kilograms of mass converts
into energy equivalent to 42 million tons of TNT. However, as
we understood the structure of an atom and their radioactive
nature, we realized the importance of this equation.
This equation is popularly known as the ‘mass-energy
equivalence.’ If energy can be converted directly into mass,
then mass can also be converted into energy. This equation
successfully explained that mass is just another form of energy,
and both are convertible into each other. Nuclear weapons
and Atomic bombs are the by-product of this equation. Not
only Nuclear bombs, but Nuclear reactors also work on the
same principle and produce electricity for a large part of
the population. This equation explains how every star in the
universe, including our Sun, fuse atoms and release an enormous
amount of energy. Without this equation, there would be no
nuclear bombs, and there would be no nuclear reactors as well.

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 The Conclusion

E
volution is necessary, even in our daily lives. If you are
not evolving continuously, you are not living life. In the
end, even our universe will fade away or die out like all
of us. However, the fate of the universe only means the end of
one chapter, it will find its way back, maybe in other shapes or
forms. Being a tiny creature sitting in a home on this planet
might make you feel small, but remember that you are the part
of this universe.
Instead of feeling small, feel big for playing your role in this
endless cosmos. How our intelligence and consciousness has
enabled us to find a meaning to the universe is magical and
cannot be explained in words, it can only be felt. It is possible
that there could be many distinct universes where there are no
signs of consciousness, or there could be many in which there
are. If it is not, then it becomes our duty to find them and give
them a meaning.
Our view of the universe was different just ten years ago, and
I’m sure it will be quite different ten years hence. Universe
will continue to make us wonder, and the day it stops doing so,
we are doing something wrong. We must look back into the
past and start a new journey. Today we know so much about
the universe because we are standing on the shoulder of giants
such as Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Their teachings

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stand right in the middle of our understanding about the

universe. Today we have limited knowledge available to argue
some of the biggest questions arisen through this book, but we
can wait and see how science will shape and further resolve
these riddles. Everything we have studied so far is nothing but
simple details that will one day lead us towards the ultimate
truth; there is a whole lot of universe waiting to be known.
As a kid, I have always looked up to many scientists and thinkers
who helped me understand what little I knew. Professor
Stephen Hawking, Sir Michio Kaku and Sir Neil deGrasse
Tyson are some of them. Whatever I learned from them since
childhood, I have poured out in this book. Studying their
work and watching them has made me realize how little we
know about the universe. What surprises me the most about
science is the way it has taught me how different the world
is from what was taught by my Grandmother in her tales. I
appreciate the way science can further change it with our little
and continuous efforts.
The Universe without us is not a universe, it is nothing because
there is no one to understand its language. Our intelligence
and consciousness are our most prominent tools. They compel
us all to assemble all the things we know into something
meaningful that makes sense. That is what science has done
so far. There are two ways to live your life, either you do not
know that you have never opened your eyes because you have
strong faith in religion or you do not want to close your eyes
because the beauty of the universe is endless. Both kinds of
people find joy in their own beliefs and knowings. However, if
any of these scenarios prevent you from asking questions, you
must understand its fallacies.

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 THE CONCLUSION

Keep looking up, keep wondering, and stay curious!

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