Just How Big Were The First Stars To Ever Twinkle?

And scientists might finally know how they began twinkling.

Transcript

00:00Our Sun is the biggest thing in the solar system by a long shot.

00:07But when compared to other stars, it's actually quite small.

00:10However, when the universe was first beginning, and the first stars twinkled into existence,

00:14new research finds those were likely in another league altogether.

00:17Using new computer models which simulate the act of cold accretion,

00:20a phenomenon where stars might come together quickly,

00:23while remaining at a relatively low and constant temperature,

00:25so as to be able to collapse upon themselves and ignite into stars.

00:29It's one of those cosmic events that was difficult to explain.

00:32But in the early days of the universe,

00:33subsections of space featuring large areas of cold yet dense matter

00:36could form an accretion disk at the center of those giant globs of material.

00:40And according to the new computer simulation,

00:42when that happens, a shockwave emerges,

00:44and forces an instant collapse of that matter.

00:46But what's really interesting?

00:47This process, which protostars likely went through,

00:50can produce giant burning balls of gas 100,000 times the mass of our own Sun.

00:54Meaning in the early days of the starlit universe,

00:57supermassive stars may have been the norm.

00:59Now we just have to look back in time with the James Webb Space Telescope

01:02to hopefully find evidence to confirm it.

01:04Confirm it.