Do you know that this image represents only 26 million years of the Big Bang?

You're off by logarithmic proportions. The only photon emissions at that point were from H lines, almost indistinguishable from the CMB. Cosmologists refer to the period between inflation and the first stars as "the dark epoch". What you're seeing there is 260ma - 1Ga (minimum). This post was edited by Slartibartfast at August 3, 2022 3:00 AM MDT