The Cosmic Dark Ages

To Learn more about ExpressVPN, visit: www.expressvpn...
PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: to.pbs.org/Dona...
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!
pbsspacetime.com/
Support Space Time on Patreon
/ pbsspacetime
Need a Black Hole Refresher
• Do Events Inside Black...
#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