300 thousand years after the big bang the universe was filled with snowflakes of compressed hydrogen. This is what two scientists from Switzerland claim
Even before the galaxies, stars or planets formed, exotic snowflakes streaked through the universe in the universe's first dark winter, astronomers say. The flakes were not made of water but compressed hydrogen, appeared about 300 thousand years after the big bang. This is what two Swiss scientists claim.
While the universe was born hot, its expansion cooled enough for the first hydrogen atoms to coalesce, presumably in the form of flakes. Physicist Daniel Fenniger (Pfenniger) from the University of Geneva published this on November 12 in the electronic edition of the journal Nature.
Hydrogen, the simplest and most neglected element in terms of research, freezes at a temperature close to absolute zero. The universe at that time, however, was hot at a temperature of 3,000 degrees Celsius. So what made possible the existence of these snowflakes? Feniger and his colleague Dennis Pai of the University of Zurich believe that the answer is the balance between the cooling of the universe and its expansion.
The hydrogen atoms should also expand and become colder than the universe around them, perhaps enough to freeze. These flakes floated as they absorbed the radiation and melted shortly after they formed.
There are several factors some of which can build or destroy the hydrogen snow. Only further observations and theoretical studies will make it possible to understand what was the dominant factor, says Feniger.
The first snow was apparently not white. The universe was then at the peak of the dark cosmic age that lasted until about a billion years after the big bang - when the first stars ignited. If there was some kind of snowflake on my right, the color that would be more suitable for it would be ultra violet.
