Did light exist at the beginning of the universe?

An illustration with a flash of red light in the upper corner, which transforms into discs of cloudy rainbow colors, which transform into a view of many galaxies.

Nowadays, the dark of night is interspersed with the light of stars. But before the stars were born, did light shine at the beginning of the universe?

The short answer is "no." But the long answer reveals light's extraordinary journey. At first, the early universe's light was "trapped," and it took several hundred thousand years for it to escape. Then, it took about 100 million years for stars to form.