Population III stars possibly discovered for the first time
The first stars after the Big Bang were probably huge and short-lived, but Population III has not yet been found. This could now have changed.
Artistic representation of an exploding Population III star
(Image: NAOJ)
An international research team may have discovered a distant galaxy consisting of the very first generation of stars in the universe for the first time. This is the result of a research paper that has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal and can be viewed in advance. It presents two candidates, one of which is particularly promising. "If you had to make a galaxy from Population III stars in a factory, you couldn't build a better example than GLIMPSE-16043," astronomer Rohan Naidu told Science magazine. Hundreds of thousands of galaxies were systematically sighted for the discovery.
Only remnants found so far
Population III refers to the first generation of stars that consisted only of the light elements hydrogen and helium, which were available after the Big Bang, as well as small amounts of lithium. As they have not yet been observed, much about their structure and life cycle has only been described theoretically. It is assumed that they were tens or hundreds of times more massive than our sun and ended comparatively quickly after a few million years in massive supernovae. Only then did heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen, magnesium and some iron form the basis for the next stellar population. So far, only remnants of these explosions have been discovered.
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As Science now summarizes, the team led by Seiji Fujimoto from the University of Texas carried out a "quick and dirty" search for certain features that should characterize the galaxies they were looking for. They searched for galaxies whose spectrum shows a clear trace of hydrogen, but in which the trace of a heavier element such as oxygen is missing. They applied this to a small section of the observation data from the James Webb space telescope. We therefore see the galaxy GLIMPSE-16043 discovered in this way as it looked 850 million years after the Big Bang. It therefore has around 100,000 solar masses and is just five million years old.
GLIMPSE-16043 and the not-so-promising second galaxy JOF-21739 are still only candidates. Further observations with the ultra-modern space telescope will soon determine whether this assumption is confirmed. This should collect significantly more precise spectral data as early as June. If this confirms that it is the first galaxy from the very first stellar population, it could help answer important questions about the early history of the universe. For example, to what extent they helped to make the universe transparent.
(mho)
