January 2, 2007
The Moon has changed phase thousands of times since the beginning of the cosmos, but only once did it shine on the night you arrived.
Light from the First Stars
Birthday · January 2, 2007
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published January 2, 2007. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What were the first stars like? No one is yet sure. Our Sun is not a first-generation star. It is not even second generation. The first stars to appear in the universe likely came and went about 13 billion years ago. However, deep observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope in infrared light have detected a diffuse glow, possibly from first generation stars hundreds of times more massive than our Sun. The above image shows infrared background light with bright patches that might have originated from clusters of these first objects. Gray areas depict places where nearby foreground stars from our Milky Way Galaxy were digitally removed.