The earliest light in the universe has been traveling across space since just after the Big Bang. Known as the cosmic microwave background, it is imperceptible to the human eye. But if scientists can ...

So much happened in the earliest moments of the universe. Elementary particles appeared, the first nuclei of hydrogen and helium, and fluctuations of energy and matter set into motion the formation of ...

Nearly 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the primordial plasma of the infant universe cooled enough for the first atoms to coalesce, making space for the embedded radiation to soar free. That ...

For the first time, scientists have used Earth-based telescopes to look back over 13 billion years to see how the first stars in the universe affect light emitted from the big bang. Using telescopes ...

For more than five years, scientists at the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica have been observing the sky with an upgraded camera. The extended gaze toward the cosmos is picking up remnant light from ...

As it studies cosmic microwaves, the Simons Observatory in Chile aims to help prove or disprove cosmic inflation, a notion that the universe expanded rapidly in the moment after the Big Bang. Two of ...