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Big-bang model: Quick Facts

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Photos and Videos

Thousands of distant galaxies in various colors and shapes fill a dark sky in this deep field image from the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI and NIRCam instruments.
A sequence of five panels illustrates the early stages of the universe after the big bang. The first panel shows a bright explosion. The next panels depict the dense particle soup of quarks, leptons, and their antiparticles, then the formation of protons and neutrons, followed by the creation of atomic nuclei and finally atoms of hydrogen and helium, with radiation present throughout.
Diagram illustrating the evolutionary theory of the universe, with two panels: one labeled Now showing clustered galaxies, and a second labeled Billions of years later showing the galaxies spread farther apart, indicating expansion over time. Red lines connect the galaxies to emphasize their increasing distances.
Physicist Brian Greene speaks in front of a window, with an illustration of expanding balloons representing the universe on the screen beside him.
Britannica editor Erik Gregersen, a white man wearing glasses, holds a microphone in front of a galaxy background. Displayed above him are the phrases: Ask an Editor, and How old is the universe?
What is the Big-Model?
Know how the centre of the universe changes with different perspectives
How the big-bang theory was developed
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Related Topics and References

Topics
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Key People

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George Gamow
American physicist
Martin Rees
Martin Rees
British cosmologist and astrophysicist
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James Peebles
American physicist
Georges Lemaître
Georges Lemaître
Belgian astronomer
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Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Friedmann
Russian mathematician and scientist
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Arno Penzias
American astrophysicist
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Robert Woodrow Wilson
American astronomer
John C. Mather
John C. Mather
American physicist
George Smoot, 2006
George Smoot
American physicist

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