The Universe Began Without Any Matter

The universe started 13.8 billion years ago as an incredibly hot, dense point that contained no physical matter at all. Everything we see today was birthed from pure, formless energy.

During the earliest moments after the Big Bang, the universe was too energetic for atoms or even subatomic particles to exist. It took hundreds of thousands of years for the cosmos to cool enough for simple matter to form. This means that for a brief time, the entire universe was essentially a glowing, empty void of intense radiation. It is mind-boggling to realize that the building blocks of planets and people were an afterthought in the cosmic timeline.