Alexxa St. Peters
Mr. Ferrara
Earth Science
10 December 2015
Evidence for the Big Bang
The Big Bang is a very controversial topic. This is mostly due to the contradictions between the theory and certain religions. The Big Bang Theory focuses on evolution rather than creation by a higher being. Many try to debunk the theory, saying that there isn’t enough evidence. In contrast, the Big Bang Theory has a substantial amount of scientific evidence to back it up.
The first piece of scientific evidence for the Big Bang is the Hubble Diagram. The Hubble Diagram is a map of the redshift of the universe. Redshift is when light becomes stretched due to extended galactic travel. The farther the light has traveled, the more the wavelength is stretched and the redder it becomes. Due to the fact that the expansion of the universe is mistaken as a form of relative motion,
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Contrary to popular belief, the Big Bang does not include the beginning of our universe. It was merely when our universe was extremely hot and extremely dense. Because of this, Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) produced an ample amount of elements with atomic numbers up to 26. Due to the rapid expansion, there was not enough time to create heavier elements, as the temperature and density was dropping. However, how can scientists tell what was produced during BBN and what has been produced later on? There are two ways: deuterium and just simply looking back. Deuterium created during BBN has the least binding energy, so it is consumed quickly in reactions. Other deuterium that we see in our universe therefore must be primordial. By looking back, we can go back to a time to before stars had a chance to form and the elemental abundances were primordial. However, at the present time, we are unable to look that far back. So for now, scientists look at the quantity of elements present in older stars and extrapolate