Graphical Timeline From Big Bang To Heat Death

This is the timeline of the Universe from Big Bang to Heat Death scenario. The different eras of the universe are shown. The heat death will occur in around 1.7×10¹⁰⁶ years, if protons decay.

Timeline

ImageSize = width:840 height:2000
PlotArea = left:40 right:235 bottom:75 top:75

Colors =
id:period1 value:rgb(1,1,0.7) # light yellow
id:period2 value:rgb(0.7,0.7,1) # light blue
id:events value:rgb(1,0.7,1) # light purple
id:era1 Value:yellowgreen
id:era2 value:lightorange
id:time1 Value:coral
id:time2 Value:lavender

DateFormat = yyyy
Period = from:-171 till:300
TimeAxis = format:yyyy orientation:vertical # order:reverse does not work
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:-170
ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:-171

AlignBars = justify

BarData =
bar:Clock
bar:Dummy1
bar:Era
bar:Dummy2
bar:Dummy3
bar:Periods
bar:Dummy4
bar:Events

TextData =
fontsize:M
pos:(365,75)
text:"Planck epoch"
# pos:(210,50)
pos:(205,50)
text:"Big Bang"
pos:(20,50)
text:"0: Linear time"
pos:(10,1980)
text:"Double-logarithmic time:"
text:"100*log log year"
pos:(200,1960)
text:"Heat Death"

PlotData=
textcolor:black fontsize:M

width:90
bar:Clock color:events align:right shift:(43,3) mark:(line,teal)
at:-171 text:"1E-43 seconds"
# at:-141
# at:-135
at:-129 text:"One picosecond"
# at:-122 text:"One nanosecond"
at:-113 text:"One microsecond"
# at:-102 shift:(43,-13) text:"One millisecond"
# at:-100 text:"1E-10 years"
at:-88 text:"One second"
at:-60 text:"One hour"
at:0 text:"One year"
at:48 text:"One thousand years"
at:78 text:"One million years"
at:95 text:"One billion years"
# at:100 text:"1E10 years"
at:108 text:"One trillion years"
at:118 text:"One quadrillion years"
# at:126
# at:132
at:200 text:"1E100 years"
# at:200 text:"10¹⁰⁰ years"
at:300 shift:(43,-13) text:"1E1000 years"

width:55
bar:Dummy1

width:130
bar:Era mark:(line,white) align:center shift:(0,0)
from:-171 till:78 color:era1 text:" The Primordial Era"
from:78 till:115 color:era2 text:" The Stelliferous Era~ZOOM IN"
from:115 till:160 color:era1 text:"The Degenerate Era"
from:160 till:200 color:era2 text:"The Black Hole Era"
from:200 till:300 color:era1 text:"The Dark Era"

width:55
bar:Dummy2
bar:Dummy3

width:165
bar:Periods align:center shift:(0,0) mark:(line,white)
from:-171 till:-164 color:period1 text:Grand unification epoch # end at 10-37 seconds, not 10-33?
from:-164 till:-129 color:period2 text:Electroweak epoch
from:-129 till:-113 color:period1 text:Quark epoch
from:-113 till:-88 shift:(-40,0) align:left color:period2 text: Hadron epoch Formation of hydrogen nuclei
from:-88 till:-72 color:period1 shift:(0,0) text:Lepton epoch
from:-72 till:75 color:period2 shift:(0,0) text:Photon epoch
from:75 till:90 color:period1 text:" Dark Ages"
from:90 till:93 color:period2 text:"Reionization" # 100-400 million years
from:100 till:101 color:period1 text:"Life on Earth~ ZOOM IN MORE"

width:55
bar:Dummy4

width:55
mark:(line,purple) textcolor:black fontsize:M
bar:Events color:events align:left shift:(30,-2)

at:-171 shift:(30,-15) text:" Planck time, the smallest observable unit of time ~and the time before which science is unable to ~describe the universe. At this point, the force of ~gravity separated from the electronuclear force."
at:-164 shift:(30,-10) text:"Separation of the strong force from the ~electronuclear force."
from:-164 till:-160 align:left shift:(-55,-3) color:time1 text:" Inflationary epoch. The Universe expands exponentially"
at:-160 shift:(30,20) text:"Reheating after inflation populates universe ~with quarks and anti-quarks."
at:-129 text:"The weak force separates from the ~electromagnetic force resulting in the four ~separate forces we know today."
at:-113 text:"Quarks become confined within hadrons."
at:-88 text:"Neutrinos cease to interact with other particles."
at:-72 shift:(30,-11) text:"Lepton/anti-lepton pairs annihilate."
from:-72 till:-65 align:center shift:(0,0) color:time2 text:"Big Bang nucleosynthesis"
at:-65 shift:(30,0) text:"3 to 20 minutes: Formation of helium nuclei"
at: 69 shift:(30,-14) text:" 70,000 years: Matter domination"
from:73 till:74 shift:(-65,-5) color:time1 mark:(line,white) text:" Recombination"
at:75 shift:(30,35) text:"379,000 years: Hydrogen and helium nuclei ~capture electrons to form stable atoms. Photons ~are no longer able to interact strongly with atoms. ~Cosmic microwave background radiation streams ~freely."
at:87 text:" 10-17 million years - Habitable epoch begins"
at:90 text:"100 million years. First star began to shine."
at: 94 text:" 600 million years. Formation of the first galaxy"
# at:98 text:" 4 billion years. Earliest Population I stars"
at:100 text:" 9.1 billion years. Formation of the Sun" shift:(30,-10)
at:101 mark:(line,magenta) text:"13.8 billion years: this present day"
# at:101 text:"19.1 billion years Sun becomes a red giant"
at:115 text:"Formation of new stars ceases.~Stars cease to fuse." shift:(30,-7)
at:118 text:"Solar systems no longer exist. Planets flung out ~of orbit or consumed by larger bodies.~ Sun has become a black dwarf." shift:(30,26)
at:130 text:"Galaxies no longer exist. Stars flung out of orbit~or consumed by black holes." shift:(30,11)
at:156 text:" Half of all protons have decayed."
at:160 shift:(30,10) text:"All protons decay. The matter that stars and life~were built of no longer exists."
at:182 text:"A black hole with the mass of the Sun~has evaporated."
at:200 text:"A supermassive black hole with mass~10 billion solar masses has evaporated."

Usually the logarithmic scale is used for such timelines but it compresses the most interesting Stelliferous Era too much as this example shows. Therefore, a double-logarithmic scale ''s'' (''s*100'' in the graphics) is used instead. The minimum of it is only 1, not 0 as needed, and the negative outputs for inputs smaller than 10 are useless. Therefore, the time from 0.1 to 10 years is collapsed to a single point 0, but that does not matter in this case because nothing special happens in the history of the universe during that time.

: $s = \begin \log_ \log_ year & \mbox year > 10 \mbox year = 10^ \\ 0 & \mbox 0.1 \le year \le 10 \\ -\log_ (-\log_ year) & \mbox year < 0.1 \mbox year = 10^ \end$

The seconds in the timescale have been converted to years by $second / 31 557 600$ using the Julian year.

See also

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* - Timeline uses the log scale for comparison with the double-logarithmic scale in this article.

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Graphical Timeline From Big Bang To Heat Death
Big Bang to Heat Death
Astrophysics
Physical cosmology
Astronomy timelines
Big Bang