Take a look at this baby picture of the universe

A new image reveals what the universe looked like shortly after the Big Bang

A portrait of the universe as an infant.
(Image credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration)

The European Space Agency on Thursday released an image that depicts what the universe looked like a mere 380,000 years after the Big Bang. While that may sound like a fair amount of time, the universe was virtually an infant then, giving scientists new insight into its origins.

Using its Planck space telescope, the ESA was able to compose a map from the "Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB, the ambient thermal radiation that's left over from the birth of the universe," says Scott Neuman at NPR. Think of it as the Big Bang's "afterglow" or "heat map." It is considered the oldest light in our universe, and it has left its imprint on the Earth's sky. This is how it works, according to ESA:

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Ryu Spaeth

Ryu Spaeth is deputy editor at TheWeek.com. Follow him on Twitter.