• Question: What is the universe made of?

    Asked by 929curm25 to Matthew, K, Jacque, Hazel, Fiona, Daniel on 5 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: K Sasitharan

      K Sasitharan answered on 5 Mar 2018:

      As a chemist, I am aware that the Universe consists of abundance of Hydrogen followed by Helium and Oxygen and every other element is present in relatively small amounts.

      The things that we see- stars, planets, people, every visible object is all made up of atoms. These are the normal matter in the Universe which constitute only 5% of the universe (very small proportion). The remaining is believed to be the Dark Energy (theoretically believed to be a force that contributes to expansion of the Universe).

    • Photo: Jacque Cilliers

      Jacque Cilliers answered on 5 Mar 2018:

      Now this is a bigly big-O MASSIVE question!

      Firstly lets remember that the Universe is a very very very big place. The closest star to earth is 5 lightyears away. If you get in a Jumbo Jet and fly at max speed, it would take you about 6.7 million years to get there. And that’s the CLOSEST star!!

      So its big, but its also very empty! If you had a big broom and you swept all the stars, comets and planets into a corner, you would have an empty room which was 25 TIMES bigger than the pile of “stuff” in the corner.

      Now the pile of planets and stars you just made is called “matter”, because you can touch it, weigh it and see it. And the all this matter is made up of various atoms like Nitrogen, Helium (gas giants and stars), Magnesium, Silicon, Aluminium (rocks and rocky planets), Sulphur, Carbon and oxygen (organic compounds) … to name only a few.

      So, what about the rest? We still have an empty room, you know, the gaps between the stars. Well that’s made of Antimatter or Dark Matter – the opposite of matter. It doesn’t weigh anything, we can’t see it and we can’t touch it!

      It turns out that MOST of the universe is made up of…. We don’t know!

Comments