Discovery of Remnants from Universe's First Supernovae in Distant Gas Clouds

Astronomers have found evidence of the first stars in the universe by identifying the chemical traces of their explosions in distant gas clouds. These stars were made of just hydrogen and helium and were hundreds of times bigger than the Sun. The team used the Very Large Telescope to find three clouds that existed when the universe was just 10 to 15 percent of its current age and were not contaminated. The clouds were illuminated by the light of even more distant quasars, allowing the researchers to work out their chemical composition.