UK joins international effort to uncover first moments of the universe

US-led project examines fraction of a second after big bang and how all the structures in the night sky started'

Researchers from the UK are joining an international effort to uncover what the universe looked like a fraction of a second after it burst into existence, and how the cosmic order we see today emerged from primordial chaos.

Six UK universities are to crunch data and build new instrumentation for the Simons Observatory, a group of telescopes that scan the heavens from a vantage point on Cerro Toco, 5,300 metres above the Atacama desert in Chile.