The first generation of stars transformed the universe. Inside their cores, simple hydrogen and helium fused into a rainbow of elements. When these stars died, they exploded and sent these new ...

Not all stars are created equally. Astronomers believe that the first stars to form after the Big Bang were mostly made of ...

Astronomers studying how elements heavier than iron were produced in the early Milky Way have identified a distinct series of epochs of galaxy-wide chemical formation. This evolutionary timeline, ...

Besides being a point of light, a star is a luminous, spherical mass of plasma, enough to hold itself together under its own gravity. On its own, though, gravitational rounding isn't enough. What ...

More than 13 billion years ago, before planets, before even most of the heavier elements that make them, the first stars ...

At just 25, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin applied quantum physics to a treasure trove of astronomical observations to show that stars are mostly hydrogen and helium.

A computational model of the early-to-present-day Universe predicts that some of the first stars formed in structures that challenge conventional classification. Read the paper: The emergence of ...

Some classes of stars create light elements, such as oxygen and silicon; others also craft heavier ones, such as iron and ...

Astronomers have identified the most pristine star ever observed, located in the Milky Way's halo. This ancient star, with exceptionally low levels of heavy elements, offers a rare glimpse into the ...

Chemistry in the first 50 million to 100 million years after the Big Bang may have been more active than we expected. This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication ...