Newly presented dates of the eras of universe

(This article has been cross posted from SayPeople.com)

Main Points:

According to the newly presented dates of the major eras of the universe, the era of radiation ended about 50,150 years after inflation and the era of matter ended 10.31 billion years after inflation.

Published in:

arXiv

Study Further:

Phases of the known Universe’s evolution:

In the studies of astronomoy, following are considered as the phases in the evolution of the known universe:

1. Radiation-dominated era

Radiation-dominated era is considered as the first of the three phases of the known universe. During this time, radiation set the dynamics of the universe. In the last stages of this era, deuterium and helium formed by the fusion of protons and neutrons.

2. Matter-dominated era

Matter-dominated era was the second phase in the evolution of the universe. During this time, energy density of matter exceeds the energy density of radiation in the universe and atoms form. In the middle stages of this phase, first stars and quasars glow in the universe, and galaxies form and grow. In the last stages of this phase, galaxies started merging and evolution and dark energy started to dominate the universe.

3. Dark-energy-dominated era

Dark-energy-dominated era started in the last and is considered as the present era of the universe.

Present research:

In the present study (that is very elementary at the time of writing this article), Kevin Cahill from Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of New Mexico,  utilized data from Planck satellite and reported that the era of radiation ended 15 thousand years earlier and the era of matter ended 1.5 billion years later than the WMAP data had suggested.

It has been reported that the era of matter ended about 3.51 billion years ago, i.e. 10.31 billion years after inflation, while the era of radiation ended about 50,150 years after inflation.

Reference:

The Early Universe - http://physics.uoregon.edu/~jimbrau/astr123/notes/chapter27.html

Kevin Cahill (2013). New dates for the eras of the universe from the Planck data arXiv arXiv: 1308.6001v1