The National Science Foundation's Very Large Array of radio antennas will be used to test predictions by Stuart Wyithe and Avi Loeb of the structure of the early universe. They have calculated that astronomers taking CAT-scan-like images will see 30 million light-year-wide bubbles in space.(Credit: David Andrew Gilder) JPEG (147K)

Smithsonian astronomer Lincoln Greenhill will use an instrument similar to this at the apex of VLA radio dishes to detect radiation from hydrogen gas located more than 12 billion light-years away. This instrument is expected to yield the first glimpses of the end of the cosmic "dark ages" by detecting shells of hot material around the youngest quasars in the universe. (Credit: Naval Research Laboratory) JPEG (138K)

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