Transcending time, light from the newborn universe reaches Earth

(NLDO) - The latest observations of the ALMA telescope located in Chile have revealed a portrait of the universe when it was only 380,000 years old.

A research team led by astrophysicist Jo Dunkley from Princeton University (USA) has published the oldest image of our universe.

This image is created by ancient light rays that traveled nearly 13.8 billion light years in the same time it took to reach Earth's observatory.

So it provides a precise view of what happened in the past nearly 13.8 billion years ago, at the exact location where that light originated, when the universe was still young and had not yet had time to expand as greatly as it does today.

Image created from recent ALMA observations of the early universe - Image: CT Collaboration/ESA/Planck Collaboration

According to Live Science, the new image — captured of the universe when it was just 380,000 years old — confirms leading theories about the evolution of the universe accurately describe its early stages.

At that time, the giant world we belong to emitted cosmic microwave background radiation as it emerged from the hot, opaque state that followed the Big Bang, allowing space to become transparent.

But rather than simply a transition from dark to light, the new images show in high resolution the formation and movement of primordial clouds of hydrogen and helium gas.

Millions or billions of years later, these clouds began to coalesce into the first stars and galaxies, bringing the universe out of its infancy known as the Dark Ages.

The results also show that the early universe contained a mass equal to 1,900 "zetta-suns". One zetta-sun is equal to 10^21 solar masses.

Of these, only 100 zetta-suns come from ordinary matter, the kind we can see and measure. In the early universe, this matter was mostly hydrogen, followed by helium.

Of the remaining 1,800 zetta-suns, 500 zetta-suns are dark matter, the invisible theoretical substance that pervades the universe; while a massive 1,300 zetta-suns come from the density of dark energy, a similarly mysterious phenomenon that is causing the universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate.

“By looking back to a time when things were much simpler, we can piece together the story of how our universe evolved into the rich and complex place it is today,” said Professor Dunkley.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/vuot-thoi-gian-anh-sang-tu-vu-tru-so-sinh-cham-den-trai-dat-196250323084519285.htm