One of the ideas of the big bang is that all laws of physics were created at the start. And that as time is one of these, no time existed before then.

The ring patterns indicate at least two potential things:
a) That there was more symmetry in the big bang then thought and/or a series of pulses that occured at the start.
b) That we can see before the big bang to prior universes... which has a whole plethora of implications... one of which is that our universe laws may be applicable to other ones. Has implications on entropy and information retention for starters.