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I. CHAPTER I: ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE

EARTH
Lesson 1: The Universe and the Solar System

1.1 Objectives
This learning area is designed to provide a general background for the understanding of
the Earth Science and Biology. It presents the history of the Earth through geologic time.
It discusses the Earth’s structure, composition, and processes. Issues, concerns, and
problems pertaining to natural hazards are also included. It also deals with the basic
principles and processes in the study of biology. It covers life processes and interactions
at the cellular, organism, population and ecosystem levels.
At the end of the lesson, the learner will be able to:

 Describe the structure and composition of the Universe;

 State the different hypothesis that preceded the Big Bang Theory of the Origin of the
Universe;
 Explain the red-shift and how it used as proof of an expanding universe; and
 Explain the Big Bang Theory and evidences supporting the theory.

1.1.1 Important terms that learners will encounter.

A. Baryonic matter - "ordinary" matter consisting of protons, electrons, and neutrons

that comprises atoms, planets, stars, galaxies, and other bodies

B. Dark matter - matter that has gravity but does not emit light

C. Dark Energy - a source of anti-gravity; a force that counteracts gravity and causes
the universe to expand.

D. Protostar - an early stage in the formation of a star resulting from the gravitational
collapse of gases.

E. Thermonuclear reaction - a nuclear fusion reaction responsible for the energy

produced by stars.

F. Main Sequence Stars - stars that fuse hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms in
their cores; outward pressure resulting from nuclear fusion is balanced by
gravitational forces

G. Light years - the distance light can travel in a year; a unit of length used to measure
astronomical distance

EARTH SCIENCE Date Developed: COMPUTER COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

May 2020 Rizal St., Sorsogon City, 4700
ABIGAIL A. BARIA  (56) 421-55-75 E-mail: ccdisor@yahoo.com

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1.2 The Formation of the Universe

The best-supported theory of our universe's origin centers on an event known as the big
bang. This theory was born of the observation that other galaxies are moving away from
our own at great speed in all directions, as if they had all been propelled by an ancient
explosive force.

A Belgian priest named Georges Lemaître first suggested the big bang theory in the
1920s, when he theorized that the universe began from a single primordial atom. The
idea received major boosts from Edwin Hubble's observations that galaxies are speeding
away from us in all directions, as well as from the 1960s discovery of cosmic microwave
radiation—interpreted as echoes of the big bang—by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson.

Further work has helped clarify the big bang's tempo. Here’s the theory: In the first 10^-
43 seconds of its existence, the universe was very compact, less than a million billion
billionth the size of a single atom. It's thought that at such an incomprehensibly dense,
energetic state, the four fundamental forces—gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong
and weak nuclear forces—were forged into a single force, but our current theories haven't
yet figured out how a single, unified force would work. To pull this off, we'd need to know
how gravity works on the subatomic scale, but we currently don't .

It's also thought that the extremely close quarters allowed the universe's very first
particles to mix, mingle, and settle into roughly the same temperature. Then, in an
unimaginably small fraction of a second, all that matter and energy expanded outward
more or less evenly, with tiny variations provided by fluctuations on the quantum scale.
That model of breakneck expansion, called inflation, may explain why the universe has
such an even temperature and distribution of matter. After inflation, the universe
continued to expand but at a much slower rate. It's still unclear what exactly powered
inflation.

Watch the video:

F:\Files\sciencevid\Origins_of_the_Universe_101__National_Geographic(720p).mp
4

1.3 Structure, Composition and Age

 The universe as we currently know it comprises all space and time, and all matter & energy
in it.

 It is made of 4.6% baryonic matter (“ordinary” matter consisting of protons, electrons, and
neutrons: atoms, planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae, and other bodies), 24% cold dark matter
(matter that has gravity but does not emit light), and 71.4% dark energy (a source of
antigravity)

EARTH SCIENCE Date Developed: COMPUTER COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

May 2020 Rizal St., Sorsogon City, 4700
ABIGAIL A. BARIA  (56) 421-55-75 E-mail: ccdisor@yahoo.com

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 Dark matter can explain what may be holding galaxies together for the reason that the low
total mass is insufficient for gravity alone to do so while dark energy can explain the
observed accelerating expansion of the universe.

 Hydrogen, helium, and lithium are the three most abundant elements.

 Stars - the building block of galaxies born out of clouds of gas and dust in galaxies.
Instabilities within the clouds eventually results into gravitational collapse, rotation,
heating up, and transformation to a protostar-the core of a future star as thermonuclear
reactions set in.

 Stellar interiors are like furnaces where elements are synthesized or combined/fused
together. Most stars such as the Sun belong to the so-called “main sequence stars.” In the
cores of such stars, hydrogen atoms are fused through thermonuclear reactions to make
helium atoms. Massive main sequence stars burn up their hydrogen faster than smaller
stars. Stars like our Sun burnup hydrogen in about 10 billion years

Hydrogen and Helium as the most abundant elements in the universe. Having the lowest mass, these are the first
elements to be formed in the Big Bang Model of the Origin of the Universe.

 A star's energy comes from combining light elements into heavier elements by fusion, or “nuclear
burning” (nucleosynthesis).
 In small stars like the sun, H burning is the fusion of 4 H nuclei (protons) into a He nucleus (2
protons + 2 neutrons).
 Forming He from H gives off lots of energy (i.e. a natural hydrogen bomb).
 Nucleosynthesis requires very high T. The minimum T for H fusion is 5x106oC.

 The remaining dust and gas may end up as they are or as planets, asteroids, or other
bodies in the accompanying planetary system.

 A galaxy is a cluster of billions of stars and clusters of galaxies form superclusters. In

between the clusters is practically an empty space. This organization of matter in the
universe suggests that it is indeed clumpy at a certain scale. But at a large scale, it
appears homogeneous and isotropic.

EARTH SCIENCE Date Developed: COMPUTER COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

May 2020 Rizal St., Sorsogon City, 4700
ABIGAIL A. BARIA  (56) 421-55-75 E-mail: ccdisor@yahoo.com

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 Based on recent data, the universe is 13.8 billion years old. The diameter of the universe
is possibly infinite but should be at least 91 billion light-years (1 light-year = 9.4607 ×
1012 km). Its density is 4.5 x 10-31 g/cm3.

1.3.1 Expanding Universe

 In 1929, Edwin Hubble announced his significant discovery of the “redshift” (fig. 5) and
its interpretation that galaxies are moving away from each other, hence as evidence for an
expanding universe, just as predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.

 He observed that spectral lines of starlight made to pass through a prism are shifted
toward the red part of the electromagnetic spectrum, i.e., toward the band of lower
frequency; thus, the inference that the star or galaxy must be moving away from us.

1.4 Theories about the Origin of the Universe

1.4.1 Non-scientific Thought

 Ancient Egyptians believed in many gods and myths which narrate that the world arose
from an infinite sea at the first rising of the sun.

 The Kuba people of Central Africa tell the story of a creator god Mbombo (or Bumba)
who, alone in a dark and water-covered Earth, felt an intense stomach pain and then
vomited the stars, sun, and moon.

 In India, there is the narrative that gods sacrificed Purusha, the primal man whose head,
feet, eyes, and mind became the sky, earth, sun, and moon respectively.

 The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam claim that a supreme
being created the universe, including man and other living organisms.

1.4.2 Steady State Model

 The now discredited steady state model of the universe was proposed in 1948 by Bondi
and Gould and by Hoyle.It maintains that new matter is created as the universe expands
thereby maintaining its density.

 Its predictions led to tests and its eventual rejection with the discovery of the cosmic
microwave background.

1.4.3 Big Bang Theory

 As the currently accepted theory of the origin and evolution of the universe, the Big Bang
Theory postulates that 13.8 billion years ago, the universe expanded from a tiny, dense
and hot mass to its present size and much cooler state.

EARTH SCIENCE Date Developed: COMPUTER COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

May 2020 Rizal St., Sorsogon City, 4700
ABIGAIL A. BARIA  (56) 421-55-75 E-mail: ccdisor@yahoo.com

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 The theory rests on two ideas: General Relativity and the Cosmological Principle. In
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, gravity is thought of as a distortion of space-time
and no longer described by a gravitational field in contrast to the Law of Gravity of Isaac
Newton. General Relativity explains the peculiarities of the orbit of Mercury and the
bending of light by the Sun and has passed rigorous tests. The Cosmological Principle
assumes that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic when averaged over large scales.
This is consistent with our current large-scale image of the universe. But keep in mind that
it is clumpy at smaller scales.

 The Big Bang Theory has withstood the tests for expansion: 1) the redshift 2) abundance
of hydrogen, helium, and lithium, and 3) the uniformly pervasive cosmic microwave
background radiation-the remnant heat from the bang.

Big Bang Timeline

Watch the Video:

C:\Users\admin\Videos\sciencevid\The_Formation_of_the_Solar_System_in_4K_(Ultra_HD)(720p).
mp4

1.5 Evolution of the Universe according to the Big Bang Theory

 From time zero (13.8 billion years ago) until 10-43 second later, all matter and energy in
the universe existed as a hot, dense, tiny state (fig. 7). It then underwent extremely rapid,
exponential inflation until 10-32 second later after which and until 10 seconds from time
zero, conditions allowed the existence of only quarks, hadrons, and leptons.

 Then, Big Bang nucleosynthesis took place and produced protons, neutrons, atomic nuclei,
and then hydrogen, helium, and lithium until 20 minutes after time zero when sufficient
cooling did not allow further nucleosynthesis.

EARTH SCIENCE Date Developed: COMPUTER COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

May 2020 Rizal St., Sorsogon City, 4700
ABIGAIL A. BARIA  (56) 421-55-75 E-mail: ccdisor@yahoo.com

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 From then on until 380,000 years, the cooling universe entered a matter-dominated
period when photons decoupled from matter and light could travel freely as still observed
today in the form of cosmic microwave background radiation.

 As the universe continued to cool down, matter collected into clouds giving rise to only
stars after 380,000 years and eventually galaxies would form after 100 million years from
time zero during which, through nucleosynthesis in stars, carbon and elements heavier
than carbon were produced.

 From 9.8 billion years until the present, the universe became dark-energy dominated and
underwent accelerating expansion. At about 9.8 billion years after the big bang, the solar
system was formed.

References:
Lesson Plan/Materials/Teaching Guides
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Solar_System_formation_and_evolution_hy
potheses#Classification_of_the_theories
(accessed 13 October 2015)
2. ”The Origin of the Universe, Earth, and Life." National Academy of Sciences. Science
and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition.
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1999.
http://www.nap.edu/read/6024/chapter/3#8
(accessed 2 October 2015)
3. http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-powered-the-big-bang/
(accessed 5 October 2015)

Activities for teaching of the Universe

1. http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/science-society/activities-universe

2. http://molebash.com/doppler/horn/horn1.htm

3. http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/?origin-universe

Additional Resources:

(1) http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve/
(accessed: 12 october 2015)
(2) http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/solarsys/solarsys.html
(accessed 12 October 2015)
Activities for teaching of the Universe: http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/science
society/activities-universe and http://molebash.com/doppler/horn/horn1.htm
(3) Short article: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/?origin-universe12

EARTH SCIENCE Date Developed: COMPUTER COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

May 2020 Rizal St., Sorsogon City, 4700
ABIGAIL A. BARIA  (56) 421-55-75 E-mail: ccdisor@yahoo.com

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