The best map yet of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Radiation - the so-called echo of the Big Bang - shows the Universe may not be the same in all directions.
The image has been produced from data collected by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (Map), which was launched in 2001.
"It is a photo of the most distant thing we can see; our best photo yet," said Dr Max Tegmark, of the University of Pennsylvania, US, who processed the image.
Dr Tegmark and colleagues present the CMB as a sphere: "The entire observable Universe is inside this sphere, with us at the centre of it."
