UniVerses

Brim of Time

A few frail photons from the very brim of time
connect us through the tapestry of all that’s ever been
and stitch this fleeting instant into the cosmic lifeline
through a universe unfolded since God uttered: begin.
 
From what we know the atoms in this primal universe,
not formed until the temperature eventually cooled down,
consists of only hydrogen the mix was so dispersed
each proton isolated when its electron finally bound.
 
Peculiar those galaxies whose ghosts survived their flight
like snapshots of a revelry whose participants are dead.
We see the warmth and wonder what being there was like
in puzzled admiration at time’s distant fountainhead.

A few millennia after the Origin, the intensity of matter cooled and evolved into plasma. In plasma, energy is so intense atoms can’t exist, and the ionized protons, electrons and neutrons constitute a huge "soup" that travel independently (unlike the matter we are familiar with. The sun is a huge sphere made of plasma.

The earliest signal we can detect after the Origin is called the Cosmic Background Radiation. The WMAP image from NASA illustrates that matter within this first snapshot of the Cosmos was not evenly spread out. Like a weather map, yellow and red pixels are areas with relatively more matter, and dark blue areas where there is very little. Also like a weather map, the distribution is far from uniform.

This image is our earliest map of the primitive universe, showing the red and yellow wrinkles that would evolve into the vast clusters of galaxies we see today with our most sensitive telescopes.

Anomalies in measurements at speeds approaching that of light inspired the discovery of Special and General Relativity. Among its teachings is that the speed of light is constant. But if the fabric of space expands rapidly, as it did during the Cosmic Inflation, the speed of light was exceeded, by the rules through which we measure time and distance (but of course these rules did not apply then).

Perhaps, as we learn more about the laws which govern the expansion of space it will inspire new insights into the design that guides the cycles of the Cosmos.

Perhaps these enigmas provide windows to connect across vast distances?

The threads that weave the tapestry of our knowledge of the earliest universe are made of light. Of all the known Bosons, only photons span vast distances.

Neutrinos, also carry information between galaxies, but we have not learned to decipher them yet. Yet from these frail messages we have divined incredible insights into the design that governs the evolution of nebulae.

Each of these clusters are enormous clouds of atoms which,  like seeds, provide the stuff from which stars and galaxies are made.

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