• Question: what is the universe made of?

    Asked by to David, Johanna, Linda, Tamas, Tom on 13 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Linda Cremonesi

      Linda Cremonesi answered on 13 Jun 2014:

      The “universe” actually comes from latin and means “everything”. So the short answer to your questions is: the universe is made of everything by definition!
      In astronomy we usually refer to the “observable universe”, i.e. the fraction of space all around us that we can see, which is a sphere of almost 14 billion light years radius (with 1 light year being the distance that light can go through in a year, e.g. the distance between the Earth and the Sun is more or less 6/7 light minutes). So the universe is made of anything that we can see!
      As a particle physicist, I like thinking that the universe is made of all the elementary particles created by the big bang almost 14 billion years ago. This means that the atoms (and the elementary particles in them) that compose the laptop on which I’m writing right now were created in the same moment when the elementary particles in your laptop were created! And at that very moment they were in the same point in space –> big bang!

    • Photo: David Davila

      David Davila answered on 13 Jun 2014:

      Yo I have no idea, that is like a SUPER deep question

      But I did find this:

      I don’t know what most of these are, but I do know that ‘atomic matter’ is STUFF. Like everything made of atoms – you, me, air, water, my computer, your toenails, and miley cyrus.

      Everything else is…???

      (Also – Look, Linda, NEUTRINOS! =D )

    • Photo: Thomas Smith

      Thomas Smith answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      If you look at David’s diagram:
      you’ll see that most of the universe is made of “dark energy” and “dark matter”. No one on the planet has any idea what these are, which I think is rather incredible given that 96% of the universe is made of it according to the diagram!

      So I think a fair answer to your question is “no one really knows, sorry!”

    • Photo: Johanna Fischer

      Johanna Fischer answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      As far as I am aware the most abundant atom is hydrogen, but obviously there are all the other elements hanging around there as well

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