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Session 1: The Start of the Universe

Start thinking: If the whole history of the universe ﬁts into one year, when do the dinosaurs turn up?

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Boxing Day, December 26th.

That's when the dinosaurs turn up.

Over 200 million years ago is when the dinosaurs ﬁnally make their appearance.

That still leaves 359 days of cosmic

history before them.

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VS

Where do modern humans ﬁt on our calendar?

Dinosaurs

200 million years ago

Modern Humans

300,000 years ago

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Humans don't appear until the ﬁnal minutes of the cosmic year.

Today, we explore the universe

not just in space, but in time.

We are the newest arrivals in a very old story.

11:52pm on 31 Dec is when the humans would appear.

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Today’s Big Question:

How did the universe begin, and what

does it tell us about our place in it?

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The Start of the Universe

PATHWAY 1

How Did the Universe Start?

Sequencing the cosmic timeline
Sorting structures in the Cosmic Nest
Discover why the first stars formed

10 mins

PATHWAY 2

Seeing the Universe

How Hubble changed what we know
Why a telescope shows the past
Sorting cosmic distances by light-time

10 mins

Finished? Complete the Seeing the Universe Minigame

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The Light-Time Scale

When we look at an object one light-year away, we see it as it was 1 year ago.

Object	Distance from Earth
The Moon	1.3 light-seconds

If you were looking back at this room from the moon, what would you see?

You would see this room as it was 1.3 seconds in the past (when we were looking at this slide!)

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The Moon	1.3 light-seconds

The Sun	8 light-minutes

Neptune	4.2 light-hours

Proxima Centauri (nearest star)	4.2 light-years

Sirius (brightest star we can see)	8.6 light-years

Orion Nebula	1,344 light-years

Centre of the Milky Way (Sagittarius A)	26,000 light-years

The Andromeda Galaxy (nearest galaxy)	2.5 million light-years

For each of these objects, what would you see in this room if you were looking back at Earth from them?

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The Moon	You would see this room 1.3 seconds ago

The Sun	Us 8 minutes ago, during the ITZA pathways

Neptune	This room earlier today (8 hours ago)

Proxima Centauri (nearest star)	4.2 years ago - what was here then?

Sirius (brightest star we can see)	8.6 years in the past - what was here?

Orion Nebula	1344 years ago - back in the Middle Ages

Centre of the Milky Way (Sagittarius A)	The last Ice Age - how would this place have looked?

The Andromeda Galaxy (nearest galaxy)	2.5m years ago, our ancestors first starting to use stone tools

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WE HAVE COVERED:

What the Big Bang was and when it happened
How the first stars formed from hydrogen and helium
Why a telescope shows the past, not the present
The distance of cosmic objects from Earth and what that distance means in time
What the scale of the universe tells us about our place in it

Learner Journal

Part 1: Three Things I Learnt Today

Open your Learner Journal. Write down three things you learnt. These can be facts, ideas, or things that surprised you.

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How has today’s session changed how look at the night sky?

Write your response in your Learner Journal, then ﬁnish sections 3-5.

Learner Journal

Part 2: Reflective Question

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“We cannot look out into space without looking back in time.” Carl Sagan, astronomer (1980)

Every time you look up at the night sky, you are not seeing the universe as it is. You are seeing it as it was, at dozens of different points in history, all at once.

The light from the Moon left a second ago. The light from Andromeda left before modern humans existed.

Lock-In Quote

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Extension Activities

Extension 1

Extension 2

The Theory of Evolution

The First of Us