When we look at the universe we see it full of glittering stars , but it has not always been this way . Stars took a farsighted time to form after the Big Bang , and concord to the latest inquiry they took even longer than we previously call back .
Astronomers usingESA ’s Planck satelliteused the lightness from the Big Bang itself , known as the Cosmic Microwave Background ( CMB ) , to estimate that only a tiny fraction of stars was present between 300 and 500 million year after the Big Bang .
The Planck collaboration is probing the occult era of reionization , a form of the universe of discourse when the hydrogen spring after the Big Bang was once again rive into protons and electrons by the sinewy light of the first whiz .
grant to the paper , publish inAstronomy & Astrophysics , only 10 percent of the universe was ionized 500 million year after its nascence . Combining this with other observations , it tells us that process was very quick , with half the universe being reionized by 700 million years and completely reionized by 900 million years . The scientists also confirm the first stars were plentiful enough to do this on their own .
" We have also confirmed that no other factor are needed , besides the first stars , to reionize the cosmos , " say Matthieu Tristram , a Planck Collaboration scientist at the Linear Accelerator Laboratory ( LAL ) in Orsay , France , in astatement .
To approximate the amount of non - ionized gas in the very distant universe , the team exploited a place of the CMB . Its light is polarized , meaning that it vibrates in a specific guidance . This polarization is give by the photons bouncing off free - float electrons , something that happen often before the CMB was released and after the end of reionization .
" It is in the bantam fluctuations of the CMB polarisation that we can see the influence of the reionization operation and infer when it began , " excuse Jan Tauber , Planck undertaking scientist at ESA .
" The CMB can tell us when the epoch of reionization get going and , in turn , when the first wizard formed in the universe . "
The first star are believe to be very monumental , living short bright lives before exploding in spectacular supernovae . Although we have establish hint of these first stars , we have yet to directly note them . TheJames Webb Space Telescope , which will set up in 2018 , will hopefully glimpse some of these mysterious object .
