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From BGR Media: Scientists have long attempted to paint a detailed picture of what the universe looked like in the immediate aftermath of the big bang, and new research suggests that some of their most basic assumptions have been entirely incorrect. Researchers studying some of the most ancient regions of the cosmos have discovered a radio signal that suggests the earliest stars were born from incredibly frigid hydrogen gas, roughly twice as cold as previous estimates suggested.

The study, which was published in Nature, focused on detecting signals that were born in the young universe. Setting up shop in an area in an Australian desert, the scientists waited patiently and listened for the faint radio signal produced by the universe’s very first stars. When they finally heard it, it didn’t match what they had previously expected, and now the data has pushed them to reconsider what the universe was like in the couple hundred million years following the big bang.

“We work with theorists, and we know what theorists expect for this signal produced by the first stars. And what we were seeing was different,” Raul Monsalve of the University of Colorado, and co-author of the study, explains. “Specifically, it was a larger signal.”