page_title: Chronology of the universe
section_title: Earliest structures and stars emerge
hierarchical_section_title: Chronology of the universe / The Dark Ages and large-scale structure emergence / Earliest structures and stars emerge
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Das Hubble Ultra Deep Field ist ein Bild einer kleinen Himmelsregion aufgenommen vom Hubble-Weltraumteleskop über einen Zeitraum vom 3. September 2003 bis 16. Januar 2004. Dabei wurde eine Himmelsregion ausgewählt, die kaum störende helle Sterne im Vordergrund enthält. Man entschied sich für ein Zielgebiet südwestlich von Orion im Sternbild Chemischer Ofen. English: The Hubble Ultra Deep Field, is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, composited from Hubble Space Telescope data accumulated over a period from September 3, 2003 through January 16, 2004. The patch of sky in which the galaxies reside was chosen because it had a low density of bright stars in the near-field. Français&#160;: Le champ ultra profond de Hubble, une image d'une petite portion du ciel dans la constellation du Fourneau, prise par le télescope spatial Hubble du 3 septembre 2003 au 16 juillet 2004. La portion de ciel a été choisie car elle possède peu d'étoiles brillantes proches.
context_page_description: The chronology of the universe describes the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology.
  The earliest stages of the universe's existence are estimated as taking place 13.8 billion years ago, with an uncertainty of around 21 million years at the 68% confidence level.
context_section_description: The matter in the universe is around 84.5% cold dark matter and 15.5% "ordinary" matter. Since the start of the matter-dominated era, the dark matter has gradually been gathering in huge spread out (diffuse) filaments under the effects of gravity. Ordinary matter eventually gathers together faster than it would otherwise do, because of the presence of these concentrations of dark matter. It is also slightly more dense at regular distances due to early baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) which became embedded into the distribution of matter when photons decoupled. Unlike dark matter, ordinary matter can lose energy by many routes, which means that as it collapses, it can lose the energy which would otherwise hold it apart, and collapse more quickly, and into denser forms. Ordinary matter gathers where dark matter is denser, and in those places it collapses into clouds of mainly hydrogen gas. The first stars and galaxies form from these clouds. Where numerous galaxies have formed, galaxy clusters and superclusters will eventually arise. Large voids with few stars will develop between them, marking where dark matter became less common.
  The exact timings of the first stars, galaxies, supermassive black holes, and quasars, and the start and end timings and progression of the period known as reionization, are still being actively researched, with new findings published periodically. As of 2019, the earliest confirmed galaxies date from around 380–400 million years (for example GN-z11), suggesting surprisingly fast gas cloud condensation and stellar birth rates, and observations of the Lyman-alpha forest and other changes to the light from ancient objects allows the timing for reionization, and its eventual end, to be narrowed down. But these are all still areas of active research.
  Structure formation in the Big Bang model proceeds hierarchically, due to gravitational collapse, with smaller structures forming before larger ones. The earliest structures to form are the first stars (known as Population III stars), dwarf galaxies, and quasars (which are thought to be bright, early active galaxies containing a supermassive black hole surrounded by an inward-spiralling accretion disk of gas). Before this epoch, the evolution of the universe could be understood through linear cosmological perturbation theory: that is, all structures could be understood as small deviations from a perfect homogeneous universe. This is computationally relatively easy to study. At this point non-linear structures begin to form, and the computational problem becomes much more difficult, involving, for example, N-body simulations with billions of particles. The Bolshoi Cosmological Simulation is a high precision simulation of this era.
  These Population III stars are also responsible for turning the few light elements that were formed in the Big Bang (hydrogen, helium and small amounts of lithium) into many heavier elements. They can be huge as well as perhaps small—and non-metallic (no elements except hydrogen and helium). The larger stars have very short lifetimes compared to most Main Sequence stars we see today, so they commonly finish burning their hydrogen fuel and explode as supernovae after mere millions of years, seeding the universe with heavier elements over repeated generations. They mark the start of the Stelliferous Era.
  As yet, no Population III stars have been found, so our understanding of them is based on computational models of their formation and evolution. Fortunately, observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation can be used to date when star formation began in earnest. Analysis of such observations made by the Planck microwave space telescope in 2016 concluded that the first generation of stars may have formed from around 300 million years after the Big Bang.
  The October 2010 discovery of UDFy-38135539, the first observed galaxy to have existed during the following reionization epoch, gives us a window into these times. Subsequently, Leiden University's Rychard J. Bouwens and Garth D. Illingworth from UC Observatories/Lick 
caption: The Hubble Ultra Deep Fields often showcase galaxies from an ancient era that tell us what the early Stelliferous Era was like
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