A pair of studies describing the findings also confirm the standard model of cosmology and offer compelling findings regarding the cosmological conundrum known as the Hubble Tension. The researchers also spotted light from several other sources, resulting in a virtual cosmic road map from the present to the beginning of time.

“We can see right back through cosmic history,” said Jo Dunkley, the Joseph Henry Professor of Physics and Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University and the ACT analysis leader, in an announcement, “from our own Milky Way, out past distant galaxies hosting vast black holes, and huge galaxy clusters, all the way to that time of infancy.”

The new data from the ACT builds on several previous studies, including a time-traveling video from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, examining the early universe after the Big Bang when time reportedly moved five times slower than today. One study even proposed a second event called a “dark Big Bang” to explain lingering cosmic mysteries.