Astronomers Found When the First Stars Began Shining
All Elements of The Period Table Except Hydrogen, Lithium, and Helium Were Created Inside Stars and Spread When They Explode
The astronomers are currently working to figure out the timeline of when the first stars began to shine in our galaxy. It has been said that the time period, which is also known as to be the ‘cosmic dawn,’ occurred between the time duration of 250 to 350 million years after the occurrence of the Big Bang, which brought the existence of our universe.
Cosmic dawn
The result, which has been accumulated over multiple pieces of research done on the universe, has indicated that the initial galaxies will have enough brightness up till now that they can be clearly visualized by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is expected to be unveiled by the end of this year. This research study regarding the shining of first stars has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The process of discovering the time when the cosmic dawn initially started has been Prof Richard Ellis’s work of his lifetime, as he kept studying while being at the University College London. He also said that the Holy Grail is for us to look back into time and space far enough that we could be able to see the very foremost generation of galaxies and the shining of the first stars in our vast universe. This might take some time, but we will be able to accomplish this task one day.
Deep analysis has been done on the six most distant galaxies located from our research team. These farthest galaxies are located a very long distance away from the Earth that they are only able to be visually clear by looking through the most powerful telescope of the world, and even through that, those distant galaxies were only the size of a few pixels over the computer screen.
These distant galaxies have also been listed among some of the earliest galaxies to have been able to emerge in the Universe, and by the time the telescope on Earth is able to capture its images, they are observed not long after the Big Bang.
By working out the approximate ages of the galaxies, the research team of astronomers has been able to calculate the initiation of the cosmic dawn, which was when the first star came into existence and later when the first stars began to start shining.
The analysis has been led forward by Dr. Nicolas Laporte, who belongs to the Kavli Institute of Astronomy, which is located in Cambridge. He stated that this had become a major question in the field of modern cosmology, and now this is the very first time when humans are able to predict such a crucial moment by only observation regarding the history of the occurrence of the Universe. The data and results obtained regarding the first stars brightening and initiation of multiple galaxies feel like a dream has come true for Dr. Laporte.
He explained that this is a fantastic concept to think that the accumulation of light particles has been traveling through the vast universe space for the past 13 billion years and then was able to enter through the telescope and visualized on screens. The fantastic thing about having astrophysics as a profession is the ability to travel through time and being able to eyewitness the distant past, including the first stars shining.
Existence of the Universe
The Universe initially came into existence around 13.8 billion years ago after the Big Bang. After the flash that occurred initially, the Universe went through a phase which is known as the cosmic dark ages. According to the data collected during a recent research study, it has been confirmed that around 250 to 350 million years after the event of the Big Bang, the first stars emerged into existence and brought light into the cosmos.
Prof Catherine Heymans, of the Astronomer’s Royal of Scotland, said that she is excited by the prospect, and this news is fantastic as a tiny civilization on Earth has been able to develop ad telescope that can be sent into space and by which we could be able to visualize the history of the Universe and the first stars, as it was just a few hundreds of millions of years after the occurrence of the Big Bang.
Many of the first stars had been quite different from the Sun in our galaxy. They used to be massive in size and used to burn only hydrogen gas. But later, the same objects were used in the creation of the generation of stars which lead towards the formation of much heavier elements in the periodic table.