Fingerprints of the universe’s first stars found

Researchers find ‘fingerprint’ for the first time Left behind with the explosion of the first stars in the universe. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they were able to detect three distant gas clouds with a chemical composition matching the initial stellar explosions.

The first stars in the universe formed from the condensation of clouds of gas and cosmic dust about 200 to 300 years after the beginning of the universe. They were very different from the stars we see today because they were very massive, bright and hot, and probably It played an important role in the formation of galaxies..

They consisted only of the simplest chemical elements such as hydrogen and helium and had a relatively short lifespan. Exploding in powerful supernovas, they enriched the surrounding gas with heavy elements for the first time, which gave rise to the next generation of stars. It is difficult to study them, as the first stars are long gone. To look for signs of these early stars, the team searched for distant gas clouds that were poor in iron but rich in other elements.

The team responsible for investigating the first stars used quasars as beams of light to detect and study distant gas clouds. Quasars are bright sources of supermassive black holes at the centers of distant galaxies. The light emitted by a quasar passes through gas clouds as it travels through the universe, and the chemical elements in this environment leave a trace on its orbit.

To analyze this data, the researchers used the X-shooter instrument, which splits light into different wavelengths, making it a unique tool for identifying many chemical elements in these distant clouds.

This discovery complements the work already done on stars in our galaxy, opening new possibilities for studying the nature of the first stars.