How old was the universe when the rate of formation of stars was highest?
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| We find that the SMC was already forming stars ~12 Gyr ago, even if the lack of a clear horizontal branch suggests that in the first few billion years the star formation activity was low. | |
| e) The volume averaged birthrate parameter, b'=0.39, suggests that the present day Universe is forming stars at 1/3 of its past average rate. | |
| The young age (<1-2 Myr) for the highest mass stars, combined with what was previously known for the intermediate-mass populations, suggests that the lower mass stars began forming 4-5 Myr ago and continued forming until the high mass stars formed, consistent with the paradigm in which the formation of massive stars shuts down further star formation in the molecular cloud. | |
| If more than ~30% of all stars formed over the lifetime of the universe are formed at these ages, then the distance could be overestimated by ~10%-25%. | |
| Our results are the most direct confirmation to date of models that predict that the main mode of star formation in the early universe was highly collisional. | |
| Ages derived here agree reasonably well with those found previously for the old and intermediate-age turnoff stars, as well as for the period of negligible star formation (SF) activity (~ 6-10 Gyr ago). | |
| Combined with constraints on the evolution of the star formation rate density and the distribution of star formation over galaxies with different masses, our findings imply that, averaged over cosmic time, the majority of stars formed in disks. | |
89 Citations | Our results illustrate how metals, produced by the first stars, led to a transition from the high-mass star formation mode of Population III stars to the low-mass mode that dominates today. |
| Our results, if confirmed through subsequent work, have strong implications for the star formation rate density of the universe and the growth of stellar mass over time. |
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What is the age of the universe?3 answersThe age of the universe is estimated to be approximately 9.7 billion years with a margin of error of 29.6%. However, there are other estimates that suggest a much older age. One theory based on the modification of general relativity proposes an effective age of 327 billion years. Another estimate based on the age of the oldest stars in our galaxy suggests a minimum age of 8-15.2 billion years. These estimates are in line with the lower bound of 10 billion years obtained from radioactive dating and nucleocosmochronology. It is important to note that there is still some controversy surrounding the exact age of the universe, but these estimates provide a range of possible values.
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