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While the “Epoch of Reionization” sounds like the title of a sci-fi novel destined for a Hugo award, this very real era of the universe featured the first light from the very first stars. Before this epoch, the universe was nothing more than a dark void filled with a fog of primordial hydrogen gas—and then, suddenly, there was light. For decades, scientists have searched for a source of radiation powerful enough to have cleared away this fog and introduced light into the universe. Now, an international team of scientists have analyzed the first faintest galaxies ...

Nearby stars appearing red in a sky survey image. (SDSS) From billions of light-years across the vast gulf of space-time, from the very dawn of the Universe, astronomers have detected the light of a single star. Its discoverers have nicknamed it Earendel, from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning "morning star"; to date, it is the most distant object of its kind ever detected, dating to just 900 million years after the Big Bang. Because Earendel's light has traveled so far to reach us, its properties are difficult to discern, but follow-up observations have already been approved for the James Webb Space...