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Science 15 July 2005:
Vol. 309. no. 5733, p. 351
DOI: 10.1126/science.309.5733.351e
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This Week in Science

The first stars born in the universe formed from primordial gases that contain no "metals"--astrophysical shorthand for carbon and heavier elements. Once these first-generation stars died in supernova explosions, second- and later-generation stars formed as the metal-enriched debris gravitationally coalesced. The recent discovery of "hyper metal poor" stars led to hopes that the earliest generation of stars, the so-called Population III, had been found. Iwamoto et al. (p. 451, published online 2 June 2005; see the Perspective by Beers) describe computer modeling that indicates these prime candidate stars are in fact second-generation objects that formed from the supernovae of an earlier population of stars. The results, which accurately reproduce the abundance of chemical elements in the hyper metal poor stars, will have important implications for identifying the true "first" stars.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)