12:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. | From the Big Bang to the Milky Way: Where is the Sun?

13.8 billion years ago, with the Big Bang, space, time and energy came into existence. Shortly after the Big Bang, all elementary particles are formed out of energy. These are the basic building blocks of matter that make up everything in our universe: atoms, stars and also all unknown things, such as dark matter. The universe is cooling down and expanding. After 400,000 years (aka 2.5 seconds) the universe has cooled down so far that atoms can form.

The first stars and galaxies formed 200 million years later, including our Milky Way 13.6 billion years ago (at 9:00 a.m.). Billions of years after the formation of the Milky Way, 4.6 billion years ago (at 16:00), our Sun was born. In the meantime, billions of stars have formed and disappeared.

At the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, the universe was incredibly small and hot. It expanded very quickly and cooled down in the process.

Most of the matter in the universe consists of so-called dark matter. Dark matter neither emits nor sends out light and is only noticeable through its gravitational effect. What it really consists of, however, is still completely unclear and is the subject of current research.

The elementary particles initially form simple atoms such as hydrogen, helium or lithium. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. Most of the hydrogen in our body comes from shortly after the Big Bang.

Institute for Computational Science

Department of Physics

Department of Mathematics