First light: switching on stars at the dawn of time

CHAPMAN, EMMA

Abstract

The Era of the First Stars is one of the last unknown frontiers for exploration: a poorly understood billion years missing from our cosmological timeline. We have now developed several methods for finally filling in the lost billion years of the history of our Universe: stellar archaeology, detecting primordial hydrogen using 21 cm cosmological emission, and observing the earliest galaxies, most recently using the James Webb Space Telescope. This review will summarise why the first stars and galaxies are unique and worthy of observation, and the methods employed by the groundbreaking telescopes aiming to detect them.

Citation

CHAPMAN, E. (2022). First light: switching on stars at the dawn of time. Contemporary Physics, 63(1), 15-33. https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2022.2133417

• Journal Article Type: Review
• Acceptance Date: Oct 2, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Nov 22, 2022
• Publication Date: Nov 22, 2022
• Deposit Date: Apr 8, 2025
• Print ISSN: 0010-7514
• Electronic ISSN: 1366-5812
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 63
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 15-33
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2022.2133417
• Keywords: Astrophysics, cosmology, stellar physics, early universe, stellar archaeology, first stars, galaxies
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/47550437
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00107514.2022.2133417