Cosmic inflation
Have you ever blown up a balloon and noticed how it gets bigger and bigger very quickly? That's kind of what cosmic inflation is, but on a much bigger scale.
Many, many years ago, right after the Big Bang, the universe was very small and kind of bunched up. But then, all of a sudden, it started expanding incredibly fast. This super-fast expansion is called cosmic inflation.
It's kind of like if you were playing with some building blocks and suddenly blew a big gust of air that made them all spread out really fast. Except this happened on a much, much bigger scale - we're talking about the whole universe!
Scientists think that cosmic inflation is what allowed the universe to become as big and spread out as it is now. If the universe had just kept expanding at a regular pace, it wouldn't be nearly as big as it is today. And without cosmic inflation, we might not even be here at all!
Many, many years ago, right after the Big Bang, the universe was very small and kind of bunched up. But then, all of a sudden, it started expanding incredibly fast. This super-fast expansion is called cosmic inflation.
It's kind of like if you were playing with some building blocks and suddenly blew a big gust of air that made them all spread out really fast. Except this happened on a much, much bigger scale - we're talking about the whole universe!
Scientists think that cosmic inflation is what allowed the universe to become as big and spread out as it is now. If the universe had just kept expanding at a regular pace, it wouldn't be nearly as big as it is today. And without cosmic inflation, we might not even be here at all!
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