What was it like when the Universe formed the most stars?

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The first stars to form in the universe were different from stars today. They were: 

  • Metal-free 
  • Extremely massive 
  • Destined for a supernova 
  • Surrounded by a cocoon of gas 
  • Incredibly bright 
  • Hotter and brighter than the sun 

According to NASA, the first stars were 30 to 300 times more massive than the sun and millions of times brighter. They burned for only a few million years before exploding as supernovae

The space between star clusters was filled with neutral, opaque atoms, and the background temperature was hot enough. 

The Big Bang theory is the most popular modern theory of how the universe formed. It accounts for the fact that the universe expanded from a very high density and high temperature state

Just 100 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars were forming, the Universe was tens of thousands of times denser than it is today, but the most overdense clumps were still small and low in mass compared to the galaxies that form and grow at later times

According to Big Think, the universe was tens of thousands of times denser 100 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars were forming. However, the most overdense clumps were still small and low in mass compared to the galaxies that form and grow at later times

The first stars in the universe were made exclusively of hydrogen and helium, and were far and away more massive and shorter-lived than nearly all of today’s stars. These behemoths swelled to some hundred times the mass of the sun, and they lived for only a few million years. 

Researchers found that a complex web of interactions preceded the first star formation. Neutral gas began to collect and clump together. Hydrogen and helium released a little bit of heat, which allowed clumps of the neutral gas to slowly reach higher densities

According to Scientific American, the first stars appeared around 100 million years after the Big Bang. However, CERN suggests that the first stars formed from clouds of gas around 150–200 million years after the Big Bang. 

According to Space.com, a new study suggests that the first stars formed even earlier than astronomers had thought. Researchers found no sign of first-generation stars in galaxies that existed just 500 million to 1 billion years after the Big Bang

Expanded Image: undefined. Artist’s conception of early star formation: The first stars are thought to have formed as early as 100 million years after the big bang, when dense regions of hydrogen and helium collapsed under their own gravitational pull.

The first stars are important because they: 

  • Changed the universe The first stars heated and ionized the surrounding gases, and produced and dispersed the first heavy elements. 
  • Started the era of Reionization The ultraviolet light emitted by the first stars broke down the neutral hydrogen gas into hydrogen ions and free electrons. 
  • Started the cosmic chemical enrichment When the first stars exploded as supernovae, they ejected the heavy elements produced in their interiors into the interstellar medium. This started the cosmic chemical enrichment that led to the formation of the stars that we see in the Milky Way today. 
  • Are key to understanding the evolution of the universe Understanding the first stars is key to understanding the evolution of the universe as a whole. 

The first stars are also known as “population III” stars. Finding these stars is one of the most important goals in reconstructing the history of the universe.

These stars altered the dynam- ics of the cosmos by heating and ionizing the surrounding gases. The earliest stars also produced and dispersed the first heavy elements, paving the way for the eventual formation of solar systems like our own

Gravity is the force that pulls objects with mass towards each other. As the universe cooled, gravity caused matter to clump together, eventually forming stars and galaxies

The first stars are thought to have formed when dense regions of hydrogen and helium collapsed under their own gravitational pull. As the gas and dust collapsed, pressure from gravity caused the material at the center to heat up, creating a protostar. Eventually, the core became hot enough to ignite fusion and a star was born

About a billion years after the Big Bang, gravity caused these atoms to gather in huge clouds of gas, forming collections of stars known as galaxies. Gravity is the force that pulls any objects with mass towards one another — the same force, for example, that causes a ball thrown in the air to fall to the earth

The Big Bang created all the matter and energy in the universe. In the first fraction of a second, the universe grew from smaller than an atom to larger than a galaxy

The first entities to emerge after the Big Bang were quarks and gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles, and gluons carry the strong force that glues quarks together. As the universe cooled, these particles formed subatomic particles called hadrons, including protons and neutrons. 

Within a few minutes of the Big Bang, protons and neutrons combined to form atomic nuclei, mostly hydrogen and helium. Hundreds of thousands of years later, electrons stuck to the nuclei to make complete atoms. 

The Big Bang nucleosynthesis process created hydrogen, helium, and lithium. It also created unstable radioactive isotopes of beryllium, but these quickly decayed into other elements or fused with other stable atoms. 

The other 86 elements found in nature were created in nuclear reactions in stars and in huge stellar explosions. The explosive power of supernovae creates and disperses a wide range of elements, including gold and titanium

According to Quora, biological life on Earth is believed to have originated around 3.5 to 4 billion years ago through a process called abiogenesis. This process involves simple organic compounds combining to form more complex molecules, which eventually lead to the formation of the first living organisms. 

The Big Bang theory suggests that the expansion and explosion of hydrogen gas led to the formation of stars, and their death (supernova) led to the creation of life. 

Some scientists believe that after things cooled down, simple organic molecules began to form under the blanket of hydrogen. These molecules eventually linked up to form RNA, a molecular player long credited as essential for life’s dawn. 

Other theories suggest that life on the earth began deep in the oceans, near hydrothermal vents which acted as a nursery for harboring the first forms of life. 

The earliest life forms we know of were microscopic organisms (microbes) that left signals of their presence in rocks about 3.7 billion years old. This suggests that it took a very long time after the Big Bang for the Earth (and our solar system) to develop, but not very long for life to develop on Earth once optimal conditions existed

The Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago from a cloud of gas and dust called the solar nebula. The Sun formed in the center, and the planets formed in a thin disk orbiting around it.

The Earth was originally a hot ball of gases with no atmosphere. Over time, the gases condensed into a molten core. Different elements stratified according to their density. Heavy elements like iron and nickel sank to the center and formed the core. Lighter elements like silicon and aluminum formed the middle layer, and lighter elements like hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen formed the gaseous part. 

The Earth’s atmosphere contained almost no oxygen. Volcanic outgassing probably created the primordial atmosphere and then the ocean. 

The Earth’s atmosphere became stable after millions of years, and the first life on Earth came into existence around 4 million years ago.

Earth formed about 9.3 billion years after the Big Bang. The universe is 13.82 billion years old, and Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago. 

Earth’s formation was largely completed within 10–20 million years. However, in June 2023, scientists reported evidence that Earth may have formed in just three million years

The oldest known planets are around 12.8 billion years old, which means they formed about 1 billion years after the Big Bang. The oldest planet, Psr B1620-26 B, is 12.7 billion years old, almost three times the age of Earth

The planets in our solar system formed about nine billion years after the Big Bang. The existence of a planet that is 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter suggests that the first planets formed rapidly, within a billion years of the Big Bang. 

According to Quora, the earliest point after the Big Bang that a planet capable of supporting life could have formed is estimated to be around 200 million years after the Big Bang

According to the standard big bang model of cosmology, time began with the universe in a singularity about 14 billion years ago. However, some say that time existed before the Big Bang

According to general relativity, time started with the Big Bang. However, some say that we need quantum gravity theory to really understand this. Science does not have a conclusive answer yet, but at least two potentially testable theories plausibly hold that the universe–and therefore time–existed well before the big bang

Indeed, insofar as the known physical laws (including general relativistic laws with the big bang model as a special case) predict or ‘retrodict’ that the universe had a beginning, it is physically impossible to have objects and events, and therefore time, ‘before’ the big bang (since there cannot be physical objects

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