The Cosmic Dark Ages

To Learn more about ExpressVPN, visit: https://www.expressvpn.com/spacetime PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE We live in the stelliferous era. Somewhere between 10 and 1000 billion trillion stars fill the observable universe with light. But there was a time before the first star ignited. A time we call the cosmic dark ages. Check out the new Space Time Merch Store! https://pbsspacetime.com/ Support Space Time on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Need a Black Hole Refresher https://youtu.be/vNaEBbFbvcY #theuniverse #astrophyics #spacetime Hosted by Matt O'Dowd Written by Matt O'Dowd Graphics by Aaron Havley Directed by Andrew Kornhaber Produced By: Kornhaber Brown In astronomy we study things that are very far away. It’s a powerful challenge because even the brightest objects are almost impossibly faint when you view them from the other side of the universe. But there’s an up side. If the light from some space object took billions of years to get to us then we see that object as it was billions of years ago. In this way we can peer back in time and literally see the past in motion. In fact we’re able to see some of the first stars and galaxies to ever form. But if we look beyond, both in distance and in time, there is … nothing. Darkness. For the hundred million years or so between the formation of the first atom and the formation of the first star there were no light sources in the universe. These were the cosmic dark ages. It’s a period of cosmic history rarely discussed because it’s hellishly difficult to observe. Fortunately scientists are devilishly clever. So what do we know about the time before stars? Special Thanks to our Patreon Supporters! Big Bang Supporters: Anton Lifshits David Nicklas Fabrice Eap Juan Benet Quasar Supporters: Mark Rosenthal Tambe Barsbay Vinnie Falco Hypernova Supporters: Antoine Brugier Chuck zegar Danton Spivey Donal Botkin Edmund Fokschaner Hank S John Hofmann Jordan Young Joseph Salomone kkm Mark Heising Matthew Matthew O'Connor Gamma Ray Burst Supporters: Adrien Moyneux Alexey Eromenko Andreas Nautsch Antonio Ruiz Bradley Jenkins Brandon Labonte Carlo Mogavero Daniel Lyons David Behtala DFaulk Dustan Jones Geoffrey Short James Flowers James Quintero John Funai John Pollock Jonah Jonathan Nesfeder Joseph Dillman Joseph Emison Josh Thomas Kevin Warne Kyle Hofer Malte Ubl Mark Vasile Nathan Hitchings Nick Virtue Paul Rose Ryan Jones Scott Gossett Sigurd Ruud Frivik Tim Stephani Tommy Mogensen Yurii Konovaliuk سلطان الخليفي Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices