Has JWST Finally Found the First Stars in the Universe? - by BrianKoberlein
Both of these types of stars have been observed in the Milky Way and other galaxies. But there is a third population we’ve never seen. Population III stars would be truly ancient. They would have been the first stars to appear in the universe, with almost no metals in them. Without heavier elements to increase their density, Population III stars must have been monsters. Brilliant blue hydrogen-helium stars hundreds of times more massive than our Sun.
But thanks to the finite speed of light, the deeper we look into the cosmos the further into the past we can see. So astronomers have studied some of the most distant galaxies searching for evidence of these first stars. Now that the James Webb Space Telescope is online, they are getting an amazing view of incredibly distant galaxies. And according to a recent study, one team may have found the first glimpse of Population III stars.
The team looked at spectral lines from a region near a galaxy known as GN-z11. It’s one of the most distant galaxies ever observed, with a redshift of about z=10.6, meaning that we see it at a time when the universe was only 400 million years old. That’s still after the very first stars likely formed, so much of the galaxy is likely comprised of Population II stars. But Population III stars might still have been forming in the halo of gas surrounding the galaxy.
The spectral lines from this halo region show a strong HeII ?1640 line, which is the type of line emitted by helium when it’s extremely hot. Normally such a hot interstellar gas will have bright lines from “metal” elements, but this region doesn’t have that. So the HeII region appears to be a mix of hydrogen and helium gas that has been strongly ionized by…something.
This study isn’t enough to prove the presence of Population III stars, but it’s a compelling argument. We need more observations of these distant galaxies. And thanks to the JWST, we’re starting to get them.
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