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Dr. Charles Bennett: A brand new

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discovery from these observations is that we have

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detected the era where the very first stars in the universe ignited.

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And this era was for many, surprisingly early. It's only about two

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hundred million years after the Big Bang from the time that you had the

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intense concentration of all kinds of

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exotic particles, to the time when gas clouds can form and condense and form

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stars. So we've detected that era for the first time

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and it is very early. Well because it takes the light over

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13 billion years to reach us, we are seeing now what the universe looked like

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then--over 13 billion years ago. So its a fossil

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remnant of what the early universe was like and just

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fossils are used to study the past, we use this light to study what the universe

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what it's like way back near the very beginning.

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Dr. Lyman Page: What is the map? Well that picture behind me is really, it's an

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image of the whole sky. And its made

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to image the whole sky on this oval and you can see

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in there blue spots and red spots. And what

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those correspond to are slightly hotter and colder images of the

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sky. That's a picture there, those hot and cold spots

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that pattern, its really the, its the after glow of the Big Bang.

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Dr Bennett: We determine using this cosmic consistency the

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age of the universe is 13.7 billion years old.

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And we've made that determination to 1% accuracy which

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is just amazing. Dr. Page: On a sort of deeper

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long term level its this

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amazing consistency that the picture we can put together of the

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universe is relatively simple that the

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pieces fit together, its a stunning confirmation

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of this, of the study of cosmology from many years now.

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Its just built up and here it is. In some ways we're getting

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to know the cosmos like we know our own backyards. Its the universe has

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all of a sudden has gotten smaller and much more familiar.