Has JWST found evidence for the FIRST STARS to ever form in the Universe?

AD | To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/drbecky and you'll get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription. | One of JWST’s main goals has always been to find evidence of the first stars to form in the Universe. And this month there’s a paper been published by Maiolino and collaborators claiming to have found just that, around a galaxy known as GN-z11 (the previous record holder of most distant galaxy known). But claims of evidence of the first stars in the universe, aka population III stars, are not be made lightly. So in this video we’re going to chat about (1) what are population III stars? (2) why are they so important in the history of the universe? (3) the evidence that Maiolino et al. claim to have in GN-z11, and (4) what’s next to confirm/refute this?

Maiolino et al. (2024; evidence for pop III stars around GN-z11) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.00953.pdf
Wang et al. (2022; first claim of population III stars in un-peer reviewed article) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.04476.pdf

Baade (1944; separation of stars into population I and II) - https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/p...
Thornton Page (1966; first written use of"population III" stars) - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...

JWST program 1181 - https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-pub...
JWST program 4426 - https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-pub...
JWST program 2926 - https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-pub...
My previous video on GN-z11 and the discussion over whether it has a growing supermassive black hole or not -    • JWST & the BIG DEBATE on GN-z11: one ...  

Shorts playlist decorating my new office space -    • Renovating my new office/filming space  

00:00 Introduction
02:06 What are "Population III" stars (aka the first generation of stars)
05:43 Why are Population III stars so important in the history of the Universe?
08:24 New evidence for Population III stars from Maiolino et al
12:18 What's next to confirm/refute this claim of Population III stars?
14:09 Brilliant | AD
15:22 Bloopers

Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV

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👩🏽‍💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford (Christ Church). I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.


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https://rebeccasmethurst.co.uk