T he first light which ever shone in the universe has been detected by astronomers scouring the skies for the earliest stars.

Using a simple radio antenna positioned in the quietest place on Earth — the western Australian desert — scientists picked up a signal of the long-sought ‘cosmic dawn.’

The breakthrough was described as ‘revolutionary’, ‘trailblazing’ and the most important discovery in astronomy since the detection of gravitational waves in 2015.