Long before there were stars, there was the stuff that stars are made of. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/observing-the-dark-ages

This era of the universe is called the dark ages, when the universe was transparent before the galaxies formed. Peering back in time with the largest telescopes reveals younger and younger galaxies ad the time when there were no galaxies and no stars. For the first 380,000 years of cosmic history, the universe was dense and opaque. All was dark - a dense fog, dominated by an impenetrable mixture of radiation and matter. Looking forward from the Big Bang, the fog lifted as the universe cooled, resulting in a race to detect the state of the universe in the dark ages.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/observing-the-dark-ages

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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