Spitzer Picks Up Glow of Universe's First Objects

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The right panel is an image from NASAacutes Spitzer Space Telescope of stars and galaxies in the Ursa Major constellation. The left panel is the same image after stars galaxies and other sources were masked out. Image credit: NASAJPL-CaltechGSFC
The right panel is an image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of stars and galaxies in the Ursa Major constellation. The left panel is the same image after stars, galaxies and other sources were masked out. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC

New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope strongly suggest that infrared light detected in a prior study originated from clumps of the very first objects of the universe. The recent data indicate this patchy light is splattered across the entire sky and comes from clusters of bright, monstrous objects more than 13 billion light-years away.


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