Physics Professor Colin Hill and his team have released the clearest images of the universe’s infancy, providing new insights into the earliest moments of cosmic evolution. The Atacama Cosmology Telescope collaboration has captured light from 13 billion years ago, revealing the universe when it was about 380,000 years old – a time equivalent to hours-old baby photos of a now middle-aged cosmos.
The images show the formation of ancient clouds of hydrogen and helium that later developed into the first stars and galaxies. These findings confirm the standard model of cosmology and rule out most competing alternatives. The research team used the cosmic microwave background as a detector for new particles or fields in the early universe, but found no evidence to support alternative models.
The discovery sheds light on longstanding questions about the universe’s origins and provides a more precise understanding of the universe’s age and expansion rate. The data confirm that the age of the universe is 13.8 billion years with an uncertainty of only 0.1%.
Source: https://news.columbia.edu/news/new-high-definition-pictures-baby-universe