Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Bensemus t1_jbfjhei wrote

Yes. However we can't look all the way back to the Big Bang. The farthest back in time we can look with light is the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation or the CMB. After the Big Bang the universe was too hot for atoms to form. Electrons had too much energy. This plasma was opaque to light. Any light that was emitted was quickly reabsorbed and then reemitted. About 370,000 years after the Big Bang the universe kinda instantly everywhere cooled down to a temperature where atoms could form and suddenly light was able to travel arbitrarily far. This light is the CMB. This is a major piece of evidence supporting the Big Bang. No matter where you look you will see the CMB. It covers the entire universe.

To see past the CMB we will need to use something other than light. Scientists are hoping it will be possible to use gravitational waves or neutrinos to detect their equivalent of the CMB but both of those would have originated from the Big Bang or right after it as neither are blocked by plasma.

1