] One of the biggest surprises revealed in the data is that ] the first generation of stars to shine in the Universe ] first ignited only 200 million years after the Big Bang, ] much earlier than many scientists had expected. ] In addition, the new portrait precisely pegs the age of ] the Universe at 13.7 billion years old, with a remarkably ] small one percent margin of error. ] The WMAP team found that the Big Bang and Inflation ] theories continue to ring true. The contents of the ] Universe include 4% atoms (ordinary matter), 23% of an ] unknown type of dark matter, and 73% of a mysterious dark ] energy. The new measurements even shed light on the ] nature of the dark energy, which acts as a sort of an ] anti-gravity. New Image Of Infant Universe Reveals Era Of First Stars, Age Of Cosmos, And More |