Flashcards: Cosmology

In physical cosmology, baryogenesis is the generic term for the hypothetical physical processes that produced an asymmetry (imbalance) between baryons and antibaryons produced in the very early universe.

(This article is about theories of the origin of the universe. For the Björk song, see Cosmogony (song).)("Cosmogenesis" redirects here. For the Obscura album, see Cosmogenesis (album).) Cosmogony (or cosmogeny) is any model concerning the origin of either the cosmos or universe.

A gravity anomaly is the difference between the observed acceleration of a planet's reaction to gravity and a value predicted from a model.

The ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology.

Cosmology (from the Greek κόσμος, kosmos "world" and -λογία, -logia "study of"), is the study of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe.

The heat death of the universe is a possible ultimate fate of the universe in which the universe has diminished to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and therefore can no longer sustain processes that increase entropy (including computation and life).

Heliocentrism, or heliocentricism, is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System.

Quasars (/ˈkweɪzɑːr/) or quasi-stellar radio sources are the most energetic and distant members of a class of objects called active galactic nuclei (AGN).

In physics, redshift happens when light or other electromagnetic radiation from an object is increased in wavelength, or shifted to the red end of the spectrum.

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory concerning the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear interactions, as well as classifying all the subatomic particles known.

The abundance of a chemical element is a measure of the occurrence of the element relative to all other elements in a given environment.

The Big Crunch is one possible scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately ending as a black hole singularity or causing a reformation of the universe starting with another big bang.

The anthropic principle (from Greek anthropos, meaning "human") is the philosophical consideration that observations of the Universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it.

In cosmology, the cosmological constant (usually denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda: Λ) is the value of the energy density of the vacuum of space.

In astrophysics and physical cosmology, Olbers' paradox, named after the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers (1758–1840) and also called the "dark night sky paradox", is the argument that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe.

The inflaton is a hypothetical scalar fieldthat is supposed to be responsible for cosmic inflationin the very early universe.

The shape of the universe is the and of the Universe, in terms of both curvature and topology (though, strictly speaking, the concept goes beyond both).

Dark flow is an astrophysical term describing a possible non-random component of the peculiar velocity of galaxy clusters.

Tired light is a class of hypothetical redshift mechanisms that was proposed as an alternative explanation for the redshift-distance relationship.

The chronology of the universe describes the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology, the prevailing scientific model of how the universe developed over time from the Planck epoch, using the cosmological time parameter of comoving coordinates.