[saagarjha]

We can’t observe things before recombination, a couple hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, when electrons bound to nuclei and photons stopped being constantly scattered.

[sunstone]

I believe there's some hope they may be able to see past this point using the new gravitational astronomy.

[jschwartzi]

That makes sense. Observation implies that matter and energy have to be in a form familiar to the observer.