First starlight November 8, 2005
Billions of years after they’ve died, we may be seeing their light for the very first time.
Scientists say they may have detected light from the very first stars, back when the universe first came alive after millions of years of pervasive darkness that followed the theorized Bing Bang, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
The stars were thought to be a hundred times more massive than our sun, extremely hot, bright, and short-lived. They disappeared billions of years ago but their light is still traveling across the universe. The image below shows what might be the glow of the first stars of the universe after all the existing stars, galaxies and other objects were masked out.
Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (GSFC)
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