#big bang

A team at the Institute for Astronomy uncovered rare events when massive stars at least three times the mass of the Sun are shredded by supermassive black holes. 

In a groundbreaking study, a team of astronomers — with the help of the Subaru Telescope atop Maunakea on the Big Island — has discovered an ancient star bearing a unique chemical makeup unlike anything ever before observed in the Milky Way galaxy.

An international team of scientists, including staff astronomer Chien-Hsiu Lee at W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, has captured first time images of starlight from two massive galaxies hosting actively growing black holes from less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

Scientists used artificial intelligence to analyze the chemical abundances of old stars seen by a telescope on Maunakea and found indications that the very first stars in the universe were born in groups rather than as isolated single stars.

Scientists now have a detailed glimpse of what may have happened just after the Big Bang about 13.1 billion years ago.