Astronomers Find First Generation Stars, Formed After The Big Bang Phenomenon

JAKARTA A number of astronomers announced their biggest findings recently. With the help of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, it looks like they managed to find the first generation stars.

The star, named Population III (POP III), is thought to have formed after the Big Bang event or the initial explosion during the formation of the universe. This star has long been sought after by scientists so that this finding is a great achievement.

POP III was discovered in a galaxy called LAP1-B. This galaxy was previously part of a research by the James Webb Telescope. Launching from Space, the light from this galaxy reached the telescope by traveling about 13 billion years.

This shows that astronomers observed LAP1-B as when the object was seen about 800 million years after the Big Bang. This discovery could be the first research of the oldest stars in the universe.

"If the LAP1-B stars are indeed Pop III, this is the first detection (of) these ancient stars," said the Head of the Research Team fromchoto University, Eli Visbal. He stressed that this is a very important moment for astronomy.

The LAP1-B galaxy is very far away and looks dim so its findings can only be done with the support of the gravitational lensing phenomenon. The phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein enlarges the light from distant objects through the arch of space.

Gravitational lensing that enlarges LAP1-B is a massive galaxy cluster called MACS J0416.1-2403. This cluster functions as a natural magnification glass with an enlargement of up to 100 times.

JWST sees this galaxy in the age of the universe called 'reionization'. Today, ultraviolet light from the first stars and galaxies turns neutral hydrogen gas into a charged plasma that then ends the cosmic dark era.

The POP III stars are estimated to have formed about 200 million years after the Big Bang, before the reionization era. They formed in a small dark matter structure that became the building blocks of larger galaxies.

"Thus, they (this object) taught us about the early stages of galaxy formation and evolution," said Visbal. This discovery is very important because scientists limit the properties of dark matter that also affect galaxy formation.