Explosion of galaxy formation lit up early universe
Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - 10:31
in Astronomy & Space
The universe was dark until the first stars began to form, but really lit up once massive hydrogen clouds began birthing galaxies of stars. A study by researchers using data from the South Pole Telescope finds that this period, the Epoch of Reionization, was later and more explosive than thought, ending 13 billion years ago. The clues come from minute temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation.