Scientists Have Detected the First Stars

Viewers like you help make PBS (Thank you 😃) . Support your local PBS Member Station here: https://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE What do the first stars in the universe, dark matter, and superior siege engines have in common? You can further support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Get your own Space Time t­-shirt at http://bit.ly/1QlzoBi Tweet at us! @pbsspacetime Facebook: facebook.com/pbsspacetime Email us! pbsspacetime [at] gmail [dot] com Comment on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/pbsspacetime Trebuchet Challenge Winners: Vineet Gala Valerie Sinclair Alex Funiciello David Shearn Gwyn Paske Bruce & Angela Tremain Help translate our videos! https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?tab=2&c=UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g Previous Episode: Hawking Radiation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPKj0YnKANw Sometimes space news sneaks by without getting much attention. Not everything wows like gravitational waves or spacefaring sportscars. That’s the case with the recent discovery of earliest stars in the universe. In a Nature paper published a few weeks ago, Judd Bowman and collaborators report a signal from the very first stars to form in our universe. The same result also hints at brand new physics that may help explain the nature of dark matter. This result flew under the radar in part because it’s a subtle and clever result that requires a bit of interpretation. Today we’re doing a Space Time Journal Club to explain this discovery. We’ll follow that with the solution to our recent trebuchet challenge question. Written and Hosted by Matt O Dowd Produced by Rusty Ward Graphics by Grayson Blackmon Assistant Editing and Sound Design by Mike Petrow and Linda Huang Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com) Special thanks to our Patreon Big Bang, Quasar and Hypernova Supporters: Big Bang CoolAsCats David Nicklas Faisal Saud Anton Lifshits Joey Redner Quasar Tambe Barsbay Mayank M. Mehrota Mars Yentur Mark Rosenthal Dean Fuqua Roman Pinchuk Frank Secilia ColeslawPurdie Hypernova Edmund Fokschaner Matthew O’Connor Eugene Lawson Martha Hunt Joseph Salomone Chuck Zegar Jordan Young Ratfeast John Hofmann Barry Hatfield Craig Peterson Kevin Costello Thanks to our Patreon Gamma Ray Burst Supporters: James Hughes Fabian Olesen Kris Fernet Jane Meyers James Flowers Greg Allen TJMadison Denys Ivanov Nick Virtue Alexey Eromenko Nicholas Rose Scott Gossett Mark Vasile Patrick Murray Sultan Alkhulaifi Alex Soto Michal-Peanut Karmi Erik Stein Daniel Lyons Kevin Warne JJ Bagnell J Rejc Avi Goldfinger John Pettit Florian Stinglmayr Benoit Pagé-Guitard Nathan Leniz Brandon Labonte David Crane Greg Weiss