Did atoms form 380,000 years after the Big Bang

Although we are not sure exactly when the first stars began to shine, we know that they must have formed sometime after the era of Recombination, when hydrogen and helium atoms formed (380,000 years after the big bang), and before the oldest-known ...

The cosmos was opaque because a vast number of electrons created a sort of fog that scattered light. Around 380,000 years after the big bang, the universe had cooled enough that atomic nuclei could capture electrons, a period astronomers call ...

Protons and neutrons formed the nuclei of hydrogen and helium, the basic building blocks of stars, but it would be some 380,000 years before the universe cooled enough for these nuclei to capture electrons, forming the atoms we are familiar ...

The universe created in the big ... these particles scattered the cosmic light like droplets in a fog. After about 380,000 years the expanding universe cooled down, and stable, neutral hydrogen atoms formed....

Within the first three minutes, ... as Big Bang nucleosynthesis, resulting in hydrogen, helium, and a small amount of lithium. In most models of cosmology, dark matter is usually assumed to have been produced by this epoch, although its production mechanism is unknown. Around 380,000 years later, electrons were captured by the nucleons, forming stable atoms...

21.4.1: "Big-Bang Cosmology" (Revised September 2017) by K.A. Olive and J.A. Peacock. ... ↑ Maoz 2016, pp. 251–252: "Going forward in time now, the temperature declined, and at T ~ 3000 K, few of the photons in the radiation field, even in its high-energy tail, had the energy required to ionize a hydrogen atom. Most of the electrons and protons then recombined. Once this happened, at a time trec = 380,000 ...

But these nuclei seal the makeup of our cosmos’ future matter: three parts hydrogen to one part helium. That ratio is still much the same today. 3 minutes to 380,000 years after the Big Bang: Notice that the timescales are now lengthening ...

The temperature of the universe ... \] According to cosmological models, the time when photons last scattered off charged particles was approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang....

It took 380,000 years for electrons to be trapped in orbits around nuclei, forming the first atoms. These were mainly helium and hydrogen, which are still by far the most abundant elements in the universe. Present observations suggest that the first stars formed from clouds of gas around 150–200 ...