Astronomers get glimpse at the very beginning of time

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. And the breakthrough is the consequence of a happy accident: a galaxy acted as a huge space telescope, bending light so that we could see deep into space and time. It was one of those beams of light, thrown out from the quasar, that happened to pass near a galaxy that happened to bend and magnify the light, sending it towards us and allowing it to be seen today by Nasa- "If it weren't for this makeshift cosmic telescope, the quasar's light would appear about 50 times dimmer," said Xiaohui Fan of the University of Arizona, who led the study. "When we combined the Gemini data with observations from multiple observatories on Maunakea, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other observatories around the world, we were able to paint a complete picture of the quasar and the intervening galaxy," said Fan. "This is one of the first sources to shine as the Universe emerged from the cosmic dark ages," said Jinyi Yang of the University of Arizona, another member of the discovery team.