In 1965, physicists Penzias and Wilson made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of 20th Century science... they demonstrated that they could directly observe the 3 K radiation from the moment the universe first became transparent to visible light, opening the way to study of the state of the entire universe when it was only a few hundred thousand years old! [Nobel Prize, 1978]

The entire universe at the age of 380,000 years, as observed by the WMAP microwave observatory satellite. The colors represent very, very slight variations in density, 1 part in 10⁴, the seeds of all structure that has arisen in the universe since.

<The usual description of “dark energy” in physics is that empty space itself must have an associated energy, which increases as the amount of empty space increases. Since the universe has been expanding for 13.7 billion years, this DARK ENERGY is now the dominant energy that the universe possesses! Live and learn...  By the way, what do you think the total energy of the universe is?  It is easy to estimate, and observations agree well with the estimate....