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Science 15 July 2005:
Vol. 309. no. 5733, pp. 390 - 391
DOI: 10.1126/science.1114671
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Perspectives

ASTRONOMY:
The First Generations of Stars

Timothy C. Beers

The first stars in our universe that formed shortly after the Big Bang were probably very massive and short-lived. Their demise is believed to have spawned a second generation of stars, which recorded the elemental compositions of their progenitors. Some of these second-generation stars may still be detectable today. In his Perspective, Beers discusses the report by Iwamoto et al., who have modeled the elemental abundances of the two most iron-poor stars known today. These stars may be representatives of the second generation of stars. According to the model of Iwamoto et al., the detailed abundance patterns of these stars indicate that first-generation stars may have included objects with masses as low as 25 times the solar mass.

The author is at Michigan State University and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. E-mail: beers{at}pa.msu.edu .

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)