Origins_How the Planets, Stars, Galaxies and the Universe began
In the last decade, there has been a revolution in observational astronomy, which has meant that we are very close to answering three of the four big origin questions, of how the planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe itself were formed. As recently as 1995 we knew of only one planetary system: our own. Now we know of over a hundred, and this knowledge has helped to reveal how planetary systems form.
Within the last four years, astronomers have discovered that the universe is geometrically flat and that its expansion is accelerating, fuelled by a mysterious dark energy. This revolution in our observational knowledge of the universe, including the first precise measurements of its age and matter and energy content, has been vital groundwork for new ideas about its origin, including the possibility that the universe originated in a larger meta-universe .
Origin Questions describes, at an understandable and basically non-mathematical level, the origin questions and the recent steps that have been taken towards answering them.