Breaking

Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe’s First Stars - Quanta Magazine
Jan 30, 2023 1 min, 9 secs
A group of astronomers poring over data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has glimpsed light from a rare isotope of helium in a distant galaxy, which could indicate the presence of the universe’s very first generation of stars.

“Their heat or explosions could have reionized the universe,” Carr and his colleagues wrote, “… and their heavy-element yield could have produced a burst of pregalactic enrichment,” giving rise to later stars richer in heavier elements.

Carr and his co-authors estimated that the stars could have grown to immense sizes, measuring anywhere between a few hundred and 100,000 times more massive than our sun, because of the large volume of hydrogen and helium gas available in the early universe.

However, although this would be “the first direct evidence” of the universe’s first stars, Whalen said, “it’s not clean evidence.” Other piping hot cosmic objects can produce a similar signature of helium-2, including scorching disks of material that swirl around black holes.

Wang thinks his team can rule out a black hole as the source because they did not detect specific oxygen, nitrogen or ionized carbon signatures that would be expected in that case.

“We already have some candidates.” Similarly, Eros Vanzella, an astronomer at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy, is leading a program that’s studying a clump of 10 or 20 candidate Population III stars using gravitational lensing.

RECENT NEWS

SUBSCRIBE

Get monthly updates and free resources.

CONNECT WITH US

© Copyright 2024 365NEWSX - All RIGHTS RESERVED