Sep 24, 2014 03:06 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

What was once seen as a major discovery in support of the big bang may be losing some credibility, as the researchers determined what they found could have only been space dust.

According to BBC News, researchers using the European Space Agency's (ESA) Planck satellite disputed the conclusions made by the U.S.-based BICEP team. In March, BICEP claimed to have spotted a pattern in the sky made from rapid expansion just seconds after the big bang occurred.

The Planck researchers published a study in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics that suggests the BICEP team's discovery was more made up of space dust than they had assumed. The new study does not completely cripple the initial discovery, BBC News noted, but it definitely represent a significant wrench in the matter.

"It's possible, but the error in our measurement is quite high," Dr. Cécile Renault, a Planck researcher, told BBC News. "The conclusion really is that we need to analyze the data together - BICEP and Planck - to get the right cosmological [versus] galactic signal. It's really too early to say."

Neither side believes this new analysis is the end of the BICEP team's initial discovery and theory.

"We have started a collaboration with BICEP2. We are directly comparing their data with the Planck data, in the same frequency, 150 GHz, and trying to exploit the image of the contaminants we reach with Planck at other frequencies," study co-author Carlo Baccigalupi said in a statement obtianed by Space.com. "This way, we hope to be able to give a definitive answer. In fact, we might find that it was indeed a contamination, but, given that we're optimists, we might even be able to exclude it with confidence."

If this new joint venture confirms the Planck team's suspicions, future researchers are in fact better off. According to BBC News, the Planck researchers are seeking parts of the sky with as little space dust as possible, to give the clearest view possible.

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit