Has the James Webb Telescope finally found the first stars in the Universe?

One of the goals of modern astrophysics is to find traces of the first generation of stars in the Universe those classified as Population 3 . This step is getting closer to becoming possible thanks to the famous James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that according to study Posted June 6, would have managed to find the first traces of the oldest celestial bodies.

The origin of the first stars and galaxies dates back to the Big Bang, this great explosion which gave rise to what are considered to be the first and most important chemical elements for the universe, hydrogen and helium.

Considered metals by astrophysicists, these are of vital importance, because make up at least 99% of the atoms in the Universe . From them and from the astrophysical processes (nuclear fusion, supernova explosions, collisions of white dwarfs and neutron stars) that continue to occur to this day, the other heavy elements that we already know arise.

And it is that these metals are essential to the formation and classification of stars, it is according to the “ metallicity ” that astronomers can classify stars into:

• Population I : the youngest stars in the universe, they contain a high density of metals and are formed from the death of previous giant stars, they cover 2% of the galaxy, an example of which is the Sun.
• PopulationII : they contain a small amount of metals and are considered old stars, many of them have already become white dwarfs.

This is the third category Population 3 considered the oldest in the cosmos they have almost no heavy elements and their size is estimated to have been massive. All of them died even before the appearance of the Sun, but how to observe them if they have already disappeared?

The creation of James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ) It was a big help so that astronomers can observe the past, with him study the different phenomena and elements from millions of years ago.

This is possible thanks to a simple rule of physics, The speed of light who travels 300 thousand kilometers per second and it is that each time we see the stars, we look back and in this sense, the farther we observe in the Universe, the farther in the past we “travel”.

The impressive telescope is capable of capturing light, or rather wavelengths, through the use of a wide range of infrared light with the instrument NIR cam (observatory wavefront sensor and an image generator), which measures the age of celestial bodies by observing their wavelengths, and how long and red they are.

Through the JWST, the research team observed different galaxy spectral lines GN-z11 considered one of the most distant observed, finding Hell Lines λ1640 a type of line emitted by helium when it is at very high temperature.

This could be explained with the presence of heavy/metallic elements However, this sector has no proof of it.

The research team considered the possibility that this sector of the halo is heated by the active galaxy nucleus (AGN) of GN-z11, but the distance and temperature of this region with the AGN do not coincide, so we see it on the ionization on the site as a possibility.

It goes hand in hand with the ionization through population III stars because it is calculated that these had a size and an ionization power 500 times larger than the Sun and as mentioned, they did not contain metallic/heavy elements, which would logically place them as responsible for this phenomenon.

Despite this, these findings are not entirely sufficient to prove the presence of Population III stars and requires further investigation in this regard. However, This is a big step towards the possibility of observing the oldest stars in the universe.