If you compare the universe to a human being, what would it have looked like a mere 12 hours after conception? Nobel Prize winner and astrophysicist George Smoot discusses the Big Bang, alien life and seeing God with Kim Dalli.

Winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics, George Smoot. Photo: Jason Borg

George Smoot first shot into the public eye in 1992, heading a team that was able to map the infant universe, revealing its newborn form and making the Big Bang (the seminal explosion that created the universe) a household term.

He even made a guest appearance on the popular American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, a part which he “enjoyed tremendously”. The Nobel Prize winner is currently in Malta, having recently delivered a talk at the inauguration of the University of Malta’s Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy.

His work helped change the nature of the quest to understand the origin and evolution of the universe and was hailed by Stephen Hawking as “the discovery of the century, if not all time”.

“We mapped the infant universe. Translated into human terms, if the universe is now 50 years old, this is a picture of the equivalent of 12 hours after conception. So that’s very early into the history of the universe,” Prof. Smoot explains.

Cosmologists and physicists alike had been plagued by the question: how did the apparently featureless universe that existed shortly after the Big Bang evolve into the highly structured universe we now know?

I think there are going to be some major discoveries and understandings... on extraterrestrial life

By studying cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation (a relic of the heat unleashed after the Big Bang), Prof. Smoot mapped a pattern of tiny temperature fluctuations in the CMB.

The CMB’s cooler, denser regions would turn into galaxies, stars and planets. The less dense, warmer regions turned into the universe’s great voids.

The findings, Prof. Smoot explains, tells us something about the initial conditions which eventually grow to become other things. “I often refer to them as the seeds; an acorn grows into a mighty oak. These little tiny seeds eventually turn into huge objects like clusters of galaxies.”

So what did the universe look like in its infancy?

Prof. Smoot bursts into a laugh: “Here’s one of the reasons why I got into trouble.” At the 1992 press conference announcing his team’s findings, Prof. Smoot had famously and provocatively said: “If you’re religious, it’s like seeing God.”

“It had a deeper meaning that people didn’t understand then,” Prof. Smoot protests. “What would medieval people think they would see if they saw God? The answer is light.

“So if you want to know what the universe looked like back then, the answer is incredibly brilliant light everywhere. It’s like being inside the sun.”

The universe was also much smaller – over a thousand times smaller than its current size.

Our solar system, he continues, formed 4.55 billion years ago. It is relatively new compared to the universe, which formed almost 14 billion years ago.

“You think the sun has always risen and will always rise. Well, it has ‘only’ risen 1.66 trillion times,” he says, with a laugh.

We think the solar system has been here forever but it’s only been here for a third of the lifetime of the universe, he continues. And we think of humans as being here forever but they have only been here for a tiny fraction of the Earth’s lifetime.

“Malta is thrilled about its history but 7,000 years is nothing. I’ve seen stars where the light has been travelling in our galaxy for longer than that.

“If I was on one of those stars taking a picture of the Earth, I would not see any evidence of human activity at all.”

Does he believe there is any form of life somewhere out there? Prof. Smoot replies that scientists have often spotted molecules in space which include all the basis of DNA.

“So all the pieces are lying around. We don’t know if they’ll come together, how likely that is and how long it’ll take but you have a lot of chances.” He said there were an estimated 200 billion galaxies, each containing a billion planets.

“So the chances are pretty good that somewhere, there’s life.

“I would not be surprised that within the next 20 years, we find evidence of life, but we’ll be lucky if we find evidence of intelligent life.”

In his spare time, Prof. Smoot works with a team of scientists at the University of Berkeley on the question of extraterrestrial intelligence.

There are lots of interesting questions, he adds: could you communicate with them? Could you trade with them?

“There comes a time when a field is developed to the point where major discoveries become much rarer.

“In cosmology, we still have the chance for some more. Things are fitting together reasonably well. The number of surprises will probably be less in the next 20 years than it was in the last 20 years – but we’ll see.

“But regarding discoveries on extraterrestrial life, I think there are going to be some major discoveries and understandings.”