Key Takeaways:
- 1. Protostellar clouds need to cool in order for lower-mass stars to form.
- 2. Hydrogen and helium atoms are not efficient radiators, but molecular hydrogen is effective in cooling gas at low temperatures.
- 3. Researchers found that helium hydride, HeH⁺, may have been more abundant in the early universe than previously believed.
The formation of lower-mass stars is dependent on the cooling of protostellar clouds. Molecular hydrogen is crucial for this process as it efficiently cools gas at low temperatures by emitting infrared light. Researchers have discovered that helium hydride, HeH⁺, could have been more prevalent in the early universe than previously assumed, potentially impacting the formation of stars.
Insight: Physicist Florian Grussie and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics revealed in a July 2025 study that helium hydride, HeH⁺, may have been more common in the early universe than previously estimated. Their findings shed light on the cooling process of protostellar clouds and its significance in star formation.
This article was curated by memoment.jp from the feed source: Ars Technica.
Read the original article here: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/the-first-stars-may-not-have-been-as-uniformly-massive-as-we-thought/
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