Scientists hail breakthrough image revealing the birth of the universe

To the untrained eye it looks like an uninspiring thermal image of a muddy rugby ball but yesterday scientists were hailing what they said was the first clear picture of the birth of the universe.

To the untrained eye it looks like an uninspiring thermal image of a muddy rugby ball but yesterday scientists were hailing what they said was the first clear picture of the birth of the universe.

The image, taken by a Nasa probe one million miles from Earth, shows the cosmos as it was 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

Researchers at the US space agency say the images show the universe is precisely 13.7 billion years old and that stars only started forming 200 million years ago.

Charles Bennett, the head of the project, said: "We've captured the infant universe in sharp focus and from this portrait we can now describe it with unprecedented accuracy. The data is a real gold mine."

The early universe captured in the image consisted only of a vast void containing minute differences in temperature.