Telescope reveals earliest-ever 'baby pictures' of the universe: 'We can see right back through cosmic history'

On the left is part of a new half-sky image in which three wavelengths of light have been combined to highlight the Milky Way (purple) and cosmic microwave background (gray). On the right, a closeup of the Orion Nebula.

Astronomers have released the clearest images yet of the infant universe — and they confirm that the leading theory of the universe's evolution accurately describes its early stages.

The new images capture light that travelled for more than 13 billion years to reach the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile. They show the cosmos when it was just 380,000 years old — much like seeing baby pictures of our now middle-aged universe.