Washington ? NASA has released what it called the most vivid snapshot of the infant universe ever taken, capturing such stunning detail that it may be one of the most significant scientific achievements of recent years.

Evidence that answers long-standing questions about the age, composition and evolution of the universe was gathered by scientists using NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, a satellite orbiting 1 million miles from Earth, during a 12-month observation of the entire sky.

The first detailed, all-sky picture of the infant universe reveals 13 billion-year-old temperature fluctuations, shown as color gradations, that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies.

One key finding in the data is that the first generation of stars to shine in the universe ignited much earlier than previously thought — only 200 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical explanation for the explosion that gave birth to the universe.

The image shows the “afterglow” of the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background.

Also, the new portrait pegs the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years old, with a small 1 percent margin of error.

“The light seen today as the cosmic microwave background has traveled for more than 13 billion years to reach us,” NASA said in a statement. “Within this light are infinitesimal patterns that mark the seeds of what later grew into clusters of galaxies and the vast structure we see all around us.”