The chronology of the universe describes the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology.
Research published in 2015 estimates the earliest stages of the universe's existence as taking place 13.8 billion years ago, with an uncertainty of around 21 million years at the 68% confidence level.
In cosmology, the cosmological constant (usually denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda: Λ), alternatively called Einstein's cosmological constant, is a coefficient that Albert Einstein initially added to his field equations of general relativity. He later removed it; however, much later it was revived to express the energy density of space, or vacuum energy, that arises in quantum mechanics. It is closely associated with the concept of dark energy.
Einstein introduced the constant in 1917 to counterbalance the effect of gravity and achieve a static universe, which was then assumed. Einstein's cosmological constant was abandoned after Edwin Hubble confirmed that the universe was expanding. From the 1930s until the late 1990s, most physicists thought the cosmological constant to be zero. That changed with the discovery in 1998 that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, implying that the cosmological constant may have a positive value after all.