Big Bang

Physicists at the University of Illinois Chicago say they have detected a ripple dating back to the universe's earliest moments. The finding, announced by the university, is being read as a possible window into conditions shortly after the Big Bang. Details of the measurement and its significance have not been widely reported yet, and independent verification of the result is not yet available.

Researchers report an unexpected result from experiments on primordial matter, the quark-gluon plasma recreated inside a particle collider to mimic conditions just after the Big Bang. Scientific American covered the finding, which is drawing attention among physics enthusiasts and researchers online. Details of what exactly surprised scientists are limited to the article itself, but such deviations can point to gaps in the standard understanding of early-universe matter.