Finale of star formation came early

WASHINGTON -- A half-billion years of utter blackness following the Big Bang, the theoretical start of the universe, was broken by an explosion of stars bursting into life like a fireworks finale across the heavens, a new theory suggests.

An analysis of faint galaxies in the deepest view of the universe ever captured by a telescope suggests there was an eruption of stars bursting to life and piercing the blackness very early in the 15-billion year history of the universe.

The study, by Kenneth M. Lanzetta of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, challenges the long-held belief that star formation started slowly after the Big Bang and didn't peak until some five billion years later.

"Star formation took place early and very rapidly," Lanzetta said last week at a NASA news conference. "Star formation was ten times higher in the distant early universe than it is today."

Lanzetta's conclusions are based on an analysis of what is called a deep field study by the Hubble Space Telescope. To capture the faintest and most distant images possible, the Hubble focused on an ordinary bit of sky for more than 14 days, taking a picture of every object within a small, deep slice of the heavens. The resulting images are faint, fuzzy bits of light from galaxies near and far, including some more than 14 billion light years away, said Lanzetta.

The surprise was that the farther back the telescope looked, the greater was the star forming activity.

"Star formation continued to increase to the very earliest point that we could see," said Lanzetta. "We are seeing close to the first burst of star formation."

Burst at the beginning

Bruce Margon of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore said Lanzetta's conclusions are a "surprising result" that will need to be confirmed by other studies.

"This suggests that the great burst of star formation was at the beginning of the universe," said Margon, noting that, in effect: "The finale came first."

"If this can be verified, it will dramatically change our understanding of the universe," said Anne Kinney, director of the astronomy and physics division at NASA.

Current star formation, he said, "is just a trickle" of that early burst of stellar birth.

Current theory suggests that about 15 billion years ago, an infinitely dense single point exploded -- the Big Bang -- creating space, time, matter and extreme heat. As the universe cooled, light elements, such as hydrogen and helium, formed. Later, some of areas became more dense with elements than others, forming gravitational centers that attracted more and more matter. Eventually, formed celestial bodies became dense enough to start nuclear fires, setting the heavens aglow. These were newborn stars.