Astronomers detect light of the first stars

A faint glow from the first stars formed after the Big Bang has been detected. The cluster of stars, known as Population III, is believed to have been formed about 100 million years after the dawn of the Universe 13.7 billion years ago, astronomers from Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland said.

The stars are so distant that they cannot be seen directly using telescopes, but their presence has been inferred from glimmers on infra-red radiation. A team led by Alexander Kashlinsky picked out the signature of the cluster from the cosmic infra-red background (CIB), a glow of radiation. The team measured the CIB, and created an image by removing the contributions made by other stars and galaxies. Times Online