The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered the first evidence that millions of supermassive stars may be hiding at the dawn of the universe, Live Science reported. So far, the largest stars observed anywhere have a mass of around 300 times that of our Sun.
But the supermassive star described in the new study has an estimated mass of 5,000 to 10,000 Suns. Researchers dubbed these giant stars "celestial monsters," which emerged a mere 440 million years after the Big Bang.
The team of European researchers published their findings on May 5 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
"Today, thanks to the data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope, we believe we have found a first clue of the presence of these extraordinary stars," lead study author Corinne Charbonnel, an astronomy professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, said in a statement.
These ''celestial monsters'' are 5,000 to 10, 000 times more massive and five times hotter at their centre (75 million °C) than the Sun.
For decades, astronomers have been baffled by the huge diversity in the composition of different stars packed into what are called globular clusters. Globular clusters are found in almost every galaxy, our own, the Milky Way, hosts at least 180 of them. Some of these clusters are home to the universe's biggest stars and could help answer questions about our early universe.
''Globular clusters are between 10 and 13 billion years old, whereas the maximum lifespan of superstars is two million years. They, therefore, disappeared very early from the clusters that are currently observable. Only indirect traces remain,'' explained Mark Gieles, ICREA professor at the University of Barcelona and co-author of the study.
However, locating these supermassive stars has proved challenging. This is because they burn through their fuel for nuclear fusion quickly and thus have short lifespans.
To spot the scattered chemical residue of the ancient monsters, the researchers trained the JWST's infrared camera on the galaxy GN-z11, which is one of the most distant and ancient galaxies ever discovered, sitting 13.3 billion light-years away from Earth.
"It has been established that it [GN-z11] contains very high proportions of nitrogen and a very high density of stars," said study team member Daniel Schaerer, an astronomy professor at the University of Geneva.
