The Universe was created 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang. Astronomers expect that first generation stars were formed, within the expanding universe. After that galaxies and star clusters were formed. Our solar system was born about 9 billion years after the Big Bang. A few 100 Million years later, life on earth was born. The history of the Human race is only few million years old. Modern particle physics and astrophysics have allowed us to explain cosmic history including the origin of matter and the formation of stars and galaxies from observing electromagnetic waves directly with state of the art detectors. In these first 10 years of the 21st century, newly developed detectors will revolutionaries our whole view of the Universe.
In this article I will summarize some of the key issues in the history of the universe with a particular emphasis on the formation of globular clusters, as a fossil of the universe, in low-heavy-element environments.
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