Cosmology Quiz

Cosmology: The Scientific Study of the Universe

• Cosmology is a branch of physics and metaphysics concerned with the origin, evolution, and ultimate fate of the universe.
• Physical cosmology is the study of the observable universe's origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics, and the ultimate fate of the universe.
• Cosmogony studies the origin of the universe, and cosmography maps the features of the universe.
• Physical cosmology is a sub-branch of astronomy that is concerned with the universe as a whole.
• Modern physical cosmology is dominated by the Big Bang Theory with dark matter and dark energy, known as the Lambda-CDM model.
• Cosmology is a "historical science" because "when we look out in space, we look back in time" due to the finite nature of the speed of light.
• Physical cosmology was shaped through both mathematics and observation in an analysis of the whole universe.
• In 1922, Alexander Friedmann introduced the idea of an expanding universe that contained moving matter.
• The debate between Heber Curtis and Harlow Shapley about the structure of the cosmos came to a climax with the organization of the Great Debate on 26 April 1920.
• The Big Bang model was proposed by the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître in 1927, which was subsequently corroborated by Edwin Hubble's discovery of the redshift in 1929.
• Since around 1990, several dramatic advances in observational cosmology have transformed cosmology from a largely speculative science into a predictive science.
• In 2014, astronomers reported that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and composed of 4.9% atomic matter, 26.6% dark matter and 68.5% dark energy.