Cosmology

Cosmology or more formerly known as cosmogony, deals with the study of the development, origin and fate of the universe today. It uses the scientific method to figure to pretty much figure our becoming in the world today.

It has always been a mystery how the universe came about, also we ponder and question if it will ever cease to exist in the future. The main basis of cosmology deals with the theory of what scientists have called the "Big Bang" theory. The Big Bang model says that about 20 billion years ago the universe today was formed by an intense explosion. Before this explosion scientists say that the radiation and matter that we have today was was packed together in a giant so to say fireball. This fireball was in an enormously hot dense state from which it immediately expanded. After the expansion all of the radiation and matter that consisted in this ball rapidly cooled. According to cosmologists millions of years later this forming universe turned into galaxies. As this universe has continued to expand the galaxies have moved farther and farther away from each other. Today we know that the universe has continued to expand. Our reason for knowing this is based on Edwin Hubble's Law.

Hubble's law applies to all galaxies or clusters in the universe with an exception to our nearest galaxy outside our Milky Way, "The Andromeda Galaxy." According to the law, the galaxies are continuously receding farther and farther away from each other at great speeds. We have based this information of the redshift of the distant galaxies. The redshift is based of the Doppler Effect. It states that if a galaxy is receding from us, the spectral line of that galaxy observed will have a shift to red end of the spectrum. The quicker the galaxy moves away from us the more shift it will have. However if the galaxy happens to be moving closer to us on the spectral line it will show up as a blue shift. Lastly if the galaxy is not moving at all and is just stationary there will be obviously no shift. Hubble discovered that the more distance a galaxy has from us being Earth the more redshift it had. In turn this mean that the farther the galaxy was the faster it was moving. At this point in time it was thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. However this information allowed him to realize that the earth was not, but in turn he found out that the universe was expanding.

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