Artist's Rendering of How the First Stars in the Universe May Have Looked (IMAGE)
Caption
This artist's rendering shows the universe's first, massive, blue stars embedded in gaseous filaments, with the cosmic microwave background just visible at the edges. Using radio observations of the distant universe, NSF-funded researchers Judd Bowman of Arizona State University, Alan Rogers of MIT and their colleagues discovered the influence of such early stars on primordial gas. Although they can't directly see the light from the massive stars, Bowman's team was able to infer their presence from dimming of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a result of the gaseous filaments absorbing the stars' UV light. The CMB is dimmer than expected, indicating that the filaments may have been colder than expected, possibly from interactions with dark matter.
Credit
N.R.Fuller, National Science Foundation
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