A surprising new study reveals that the first stars appeared in a pre-heated universe, challenging earlier ideas about early cosmic conditions.

Besides being a point of light, a star is a luminous, spherical mass of plasma, enough to hold itself together under its own gravity. On its own, though, gravitational rounding isn't enough. What ...

Black holes are among the most intriguing cosmic bodies, but we know little about their origins. The Pop III.1 model explains ...

Astronomers studying how elements heavier than iron were produced in the early Milky Way have identified a distinct series of epochs of galaxy-wide chemical formation. This evolutionary timeline, ...

Some classes of stars create light elements, such as oxygen and silicon; others also craft heavier ones, such as iron and ...

At just 25, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin applied quantum physics to a treasure trove of astronomical observations to show that stars are mostly hydrogen and helium.

Two professors from Arizona State University and one from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are fascinated by stars and the elements they create. Sumner Starrfield and Frank Timmes from ...

A new article published in The Astrophysical Journal explores a new theory of how Type Ia supernovae, the powerful stellar ...

Gold, uranium, and other heavy elements on Earth did not form here. They were born in the violent deaths of massive stars and the collisions of neutron stars, traveling across the galaxy before ...

Chemistry in the first 50 million to 100 million years after the Big Bang may have been more active than we expected.

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Luke Keller, Ithaca College (THE CONVERSATION) For decades, astronomers have wondered ...