Much-Anticipated Source of Ancient Twisted Light Finally Spotted by Scientists

An ancient source of light from the very early universe has finally made its way to telescopes on Earth, according to a news release.

The light had traveled some billions of years being pulled and distorted all along the way, resulting in a zig-zag light pattern. Called B-modes, this was a long-anticipated pattern of light that will help scientists develop better maps of matter across the universe.

Scientists have speculated there would be two types of B-modes, including the one that just made its way into our universe's view. The other, called primordial, was conceived just a fraction of a second after the Big Bang that is perceived to have created the universe 13.8 billion years ago.

"This latest discovery is a good checkpoint on our way to the measurement of primordial B-modes," said study lead author Duncan Hanson of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Hanson headed the new report, published online Sept. 30 in the journal Physical Review Letters. He and his team made their observations using the National Science Foundation's South Pole Telescope.

Still not seen, the primordial B-modes likely contain keys to how the universe was created. Scientists from the European Space Agency are currently in search of them in the Planck and Herschel missions, to which NASA contributes.

In the new study, the researchers sought after light created with gravitational lensing, which distorts the path of light by creating knots of matter. The team made the first ever B-modes discovery using data from the Herschel mission and will likely need to do the same with the Planck mission to ever spot a primordial one.

"These beautiful measurements from the South Pole Telescope and Herschel strengthen our confidence in our current model of the universe," said Olivier Doré, a member of the U.S. Planck science team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "However, this model does not tell us how big the primordial signal itself should be. We are thus really exploring with excitement a new territory here, and a potentially very, very old one."