From the Big Bang to Life on Earth Should we as humans expect to find intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe? There are many reasons for and against this concept, but first we should trace just how our terrestrial life started. The beginning of time and the universe began with the Big Bang. This was an explosion that started the expansion of the universe. In the most basic sense, the standard model is simply the idea that every bit of the matter and energy in the universe was once compressed to an unimaginable density. In the big bang, the material exploded outward into the formation of matter that we see today. Shortly after this event everything in the universe was very dense and very hot. It was only until 500,000 years later that it cooled enough so that hydrogen and helium could form by fusion processes. Even then, it took another two billion years of cooling for enough clumps of interstellar dust and gas, called molecular clouds, to achieve stability in the universe.From these molecular clouds, stars were able to form due to compression of the material by gravitational forces. In the core of a star fusion takes place that causes it to emit light. If the star is initially large enough, its death happens in the form of a supernova explosion. During this explosion, in less than one second, every element up to and including uranium is synthesized by fusion and dispersed into space. As time passed in the universe, the heavy element content as a whole increased, so new stars were more enriched.Production of planets is an entirely different process. Planets form from the accretion disk surrounding newly formed stars. This material, comprised of dust and rock, collides and sticks together eventually gaining enough mass to become a planet. This process was responsible for the unique and very important aspects of Earth. We now focus our attention on the formation of one particular planet, one that is so far unlike any other in the uni...
