'Fireworks' greeted early star birth
Astronomers say there may have been a cosmic firework display when the first stars burst into being.
Information from the Hubble telescope suggests many of the universe's first stars appeared at around the same time.
Scientists say there was a 'torrential firestorm of star birth' a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
They now hope the clues Hubble has given them about this early firework display will let them see it for themselves with the next generation of telescopes.
When astronomers use the most powerful telescopes, they are looking at events which happened millions of years ago because light from these objects takes so long to get here.
As part of a study published in the Astrophysical Journal, Kenneth Lanzetta, from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, makes the preliminary conclusion that the universe was lit up all at once.
Though stars are still being born, their birth rate may only be a trickle compared to the number in those early times.
Dr Anne Kinney, director of the astronomy and physics division at Nasa headquarters in Washington, says: "Because stars are the building blocks of galaxies and the birthplace of solar systems, proving that countless numbers of stars began forming so early after the birth of the universe could cause us to rethink a lot of our theories."
Story filed: 10:50 Wednesday 9th January 2002