Scientists detect signs of the first stars in the universe.What happened after the Big Bang
Channel: Александр Юрьевич Чукланов
Date: 2018-03-04

Scientists detect signs of the first stars in the universe that could explain what happened after the Big Bang
Using radio signals, researchers led by Arizona State University detected the oldest stars, which were born just 180 million years after the universe began
Scientists have detected signs of the earliest stars in the universe that could shed light on what happened after the Big Bang.
Using radio signals, researchers led by Arizona State University detected the oldest stars, which were born just 180 million years after the universe began.
Dr Peter Kurczynski, who supported the study, said: “There was a great technical challenge to making this detection, as sources of noise can be a thousand times brighter than the signal - it's like being in the middle of a hurricane and trying to hear the flap of a hummingbird's wing.
"These researchers with a small radio antenna in the desert have seen farther than the most powerful space telescopes, opening a new window on the early universe.”
To find the fingerprints, the researchers used a ground-based instrument called a radio spectrometer, which measured the average radio spectrum of all the astronomical signals received across most of the southern-hemisphere sky.
The radio spectrometer detected signals from primordial hydrogen gas that filled the young universe and existed between all the stars and galaxies.
These signals hold a wealth of information that opens a new window on how early stars, black holes, and galaxies formed and evolved.
Judd Bowman, who led the study, said: “It is unlikely that we'll be able to see any earlier into the history of stars in our lifetimes.
“This project shows that a promising new technique can work and has paved the way for decades of new astrophysical discoveries."
The results suggest that the first stars formed 180 million years after the Big Bang.
Alan Rogers, a co-author of the study, said: “What's happening in this period is that some of the radiation from the very first stars is starting to allow hydrogen to be seen.
“It's causing hydrogen to start absorbing the background radiation, so you start seeing it in silhouette, at particular radio frequencies.
“This is the first real signal that stars are starting to form, and starting to affect the medium around them.”
The study also revealed that gas in the universe was probably much colder than expected.
This could confirm a theory proposed by Rennan Barkana, which suggests that in the early universe normal matter may have lost energy to dark matter.
Dr Bowman said: “If Barkana's idea is confirmed then we've learned something new and fundamental about the mysterious dark matter that makes up 85 percent of the matter in the universe, providing the first glimpse of physics beyond the standard model.”
The researchers now hope to study the radio signals using another instrument to confirm their findings.