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How the First Stars in the Universe Came into Existence Researchers believe that our universe began with the Big Bang1 about 13 billion years ago, and that soon after that event, matter began to form as small dust grains and gases. How the first stars formed from this dust and gas has been a burning question2 for years, but a state-of-the-art3 computer simulation now offers the most detailed picture yet of how these first stars in the universe came into existence. The result is a detailed description of the formation of a protostar4 the early stage of a massive primordial star of our universe -and the researchers computer simulation sets the bar5 for further investigation into the star formation process. The question of how the first stars evolved is so important because their formations and eventually explosions provided the seeds for subsequent stars to come into being. This general picture of star formation, and the ability to compare how stellar objects form in different time periods and regions of the universe, will eventually allow investigation into the origins of life and planets, said Lars Hernquist, a Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. The abundance of elements in the universe has increased as stars have accumulated, he says,and the formation and destruction of stars continues to spread these elements further across the universe. So when you think about it, all of the elements in our bodies originally formed from nuclear reactions in the centers of stars, long ago. | 
