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23 questions
In the beginning there was nothing... then there was ___
light
matter
everything
galaxies
Cosmology is much like any other field of science; we have ___
theology
clues, observations and rules
creation myths
authority and blind trust
In the past the Universe was ___
denser, more crowded, and colder
rarified, less crowded, and colder
denser, more crowded, and hotter
rarified, less crowded, and hotter
A lot of what we know about the early universe comes from experiments done in giant ___
mass spectrometers
infrared spectrometers
bomb calorimeters
particle colliders
When the Cosmos was very young, particles were whizzing around slamming into each other, creating ___
energy
baby universes
other subatomic particles
black holes
When the universe got its start, it was unfathomably ___
hot and desolate
hot and dense
cold and desolate
cold and dense
If you take a snowball and heat it up, it'll melt. We call that a ___
chemical reaction
nuclear reaction
chemical change
phase change
When you heat something up, what you're doing is giving it more ___
entropy
light
mass
energy
The basic particles of normal matter, which can't be subdivided any more, are ___
electrons, neutrons, and protons
quarks and electrons
neutrons and protons
protons, electrons and quarks
In the very early Universe the four basic forces we see today were all squeezed together into ___
pure energy
a single ball of matter
one unified super force
a single nuclear force
If we call the instant of the Big Bang "time zero", then our physics cannot describe what happens in the first ___
10-43 seconds
10-4 seconds
10 seconds
103 seconds
Three minutes after the Big Bang, the Universe cooled enough that the subatomic particles could ___
freeze
collide
stick together
disintegrate
20 minutes after the Big Bang, the Universe cooled enough that ___
subatomic particles disintegrated
subatomic particles stuck together
fusion began
fusion stopped
The primordial ratio was similar to the Sun's elemental abundance, which is roughly ___
5% hydrogen, 95% helium
25% hydrogen, 75% helium
75% hydrogen, 25% helium
95% hydrogen, 5% helium
Until the Universe was 380,000 years old, electrons couldn't bond with the atomic nuclei. The Universe was ___
ionized
atomized
dissociated
degenerate
After 380 millennia, the Universe cooled enough to form stable neutral atoms. We call this moment ___
assemblage
unity
recombination
coalescence
When the Universe was still ionized, prior to recombination, it was ___
transparent
opaque
translucent
reflective
After recombination, the light emitted by the neutral atoms is what we see today as ___
the Milky Way Galaxy
the Hubble Deep Field
extremely luminous active galaxies
the cosmic microwave background
The background glow predicted by the Big Bang model has been on its journey to Earth for almost ___
13.8 billion years
31.8 billion years
81.8 billion years
318 billion years
After recombination, matter in the early Universe was ___
evenly distributed and had the same temperature
evenly distributed and had varying temperature
unevenly distributed and had the same temperature
unevenly distributed and had varying temperature
Theoretical physicist Alan Guth proposed an addition to the Big Bang model; a super expansion called ___
escalation
enhancement
inflation
distension
The denser fluctuations in the background glow were seeds, where matter condensed into ___
quarks
black holes
the first stars
normal matter
How long ago did our own galaxy start as a quantum fluctuation in space?
1.38 million years ago
13.8 million years ago
1.38 billion years ago
13.8 billion years ago
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