Has JWST found evidence for the FIRST STARS to ever form in the Universe?

00:00 Introduction
02:06 What are "Population III" stars (aka the first generation of stars)
05:43 Why are Population III stars so important in the history of the Universe?
08:24 New evidence for Population III stars from Maiolino et al
12:18 What's next to confirm/refute this claim of Population III stars?
14:09 Brilliant | AD
15:22 Bloopers

Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV

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👩🏽‍💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford (Christ Church). I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.

[restorer]

When your paper's font is ambiguous enough that the gas with significant Helium II emission appears to be labeled "Hell clump".

[thomasgeib]

I realize the definition of "metals" is broader in astrophysics, but it's still a bit jarring to hear carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen referred to as "metals."

[rachel_rexxx]

I'm pretty sure Douglas Adams makes a nod of a joke about the naming convention of pop I-III stars in the Hitchhiker's Guide series when he reveals that Zaphod is Zaphod the first and his father and grandfather, be Zaphod II and III (resp.). So...yeah, funny, and weird enough to have appeared in pop sci-fi shortly after Pop III was first discovered.

[KimP]

Watching your videos, listening to your audio book helps me to believe that I can succeed in science as well. I’m definitely older than you but I went into nursing because it was something I grew up with as my mom was a nurse. But when I get up in the morning my heart & brain want astronomy related information. I’m gonna get myself back into school, gotta start with math. Thank you. Keep doing what you’re doing, it’s inspiring and making a difference.

[Reaktora]

I'm so used to her old room reverb, my mind was like tricked in to thinking something was wrong.
This means I watched way too many of her video's.
Which is a good thing.

[fastnakus]

I think the naming starts make sense when you add pop3 stars.
We count outwards from youngest to oldest stars.
It would be much worse if we had to rename the new oldest stars into pop 1 every time we discovered one.

[ahcapella]

“ I think one thing we can say for sure is that *we haven’t heard the last of GN-z11 just yet!* ”

— Dr. Becky Jan 11, 2024

[Formosus]

Your videos are always so well organized and built with the basics, the details, the discussion, and the awesome discoveries and implications. Gorgeous footage topped off with the original papers from astronomys origins in the past. I never miss your videos. Thank you.

[tonyreno]

Similar to pop-3 naming, that the charge that an electron happens to have was named negative by Ben Franklin was a similar historical accident that has made electrical engineering confusing ever since.

[TheRadikarAuthor]

Bloopers made me think of Ever After:

"Good heavens, child, are you alright?"
.... "There was a bee."

[pierreabbat]

"Metal" in glassblowing means molten glass, and in roadbuilding means stones, both of which are not conductive chemical elements but compounds, such as silicon dioxide, or mixtures thereof. Astronomers and ordinary people agree that lithium and iron are metals, and as astrophysics doesn't care about the conductivity or ductility of elements at room temperature, I think that calling oxygen and carbon "metals" is fine in that context.

[andrearaimondi]

Note how they frame it as “Possible”, which is absolutely the correct way to go about this

[moosethompson]

I love this presentation technique you've been using for awhile, where you give the intro, list the questions, and answer them.
You should rightly be proud of your blue wall. 😁

[annmoore]

Thank you so much for making cutting edge science so accessible! If you can call something that many billion light years away "accessible, " that is! The important thing for me is that you explain to us what needs to come next. You help us find our location on the map of knowledge, as it were.

[kenbrady]

It's actually good luck that stars of decreasing "metallic" content are named with increasing numbers. Look what happened in thermodynamics, where a foundational zeroth law had to be inserted. Now, if ever we observe something that fuses hydrogen into helium yet is somehow even more primitive than population III stars - those will be population IV.

[stoffls]

JWST has exceeded my expectations from day 1. Let's see if this study can be confirmed, it would be amazing to have finally found one of the holy grails of astrophysics.

[serenityindeed]

Nice shoutout to my boy Anton! He's great for covering new science papers :)

[surajshinde]

Really loved the cameo by The Wonderful Person Anton.

[dreyhawk]

The naming does make sense when you consider the order of discovery. Population 1 is the first population that were seen clearly and analyzed. Population 2 were the 2nd group we were able to analyze closely, so, naturally, this would be the 3rd population to be more closely looked at and that we're beginning to analyze.

[Stevemcnash]

Lighting and setup in the new room is on point (love the blue)! Great vid as always