The Cosmic Microwave Background Is Brahman's First Word - The Sound That Still Echoes in Your Cells

Three hundred and eighty thousand years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled sufficiently for the first atoms to form. Before this moment - in the cosmic epoch called recombination - the universe...

Three hundred and eighty thousand years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled sufficiently for the first atoms to form.

Before this moment - in the cosmic epoch called recombination - the universe was a dense plasma of free protons and electrons in which photons could not travel freely.

The photons were trapped, scattered continuously by the free electrons, unable to propagate through the plasma. Then the electrons combined with the protons to form neutral hydrogen atoms.

And the photons, suddenly free, began their journey through the now-transparent universe. Those photons are still traveling. They have been traveling for thirteen point eight billion years.