Dark Stars:
Astronomers recently unearthed evidence that some of the earliest luminous objects in the universe may be “dark stars”, stars powered not by nuclear fusion but by dark matter annihilation.
- Dark stars are hypothetical objects that may have inhabited the early universe.
- Scientists believe that dark stars might be the oldest stars in the history of the universe and may represent the first phase of stellar evolution.
- These stars are giant, much larger than our sun or any of the other stars around today.
- Dark stars aren’t actually dark; they just don’t emit any visible light.
- That’s because instead of nuclear fusion, which is the process that converts hydrogen into helium in the core of an ordinary star, dark stars are powered differently.
- Astronomers believe that dark matter heating is what powers them.
- Because there’s no fusion happening inside them, they aren’t very hot.
- Because dark stars don’t rely on core fusion to stave off gravitational collapse, they’re not extremely compressed like normal stars.
- Instead, dark stars are likely giant, puffy clouds that shine extremely bright.
- A single dark star from the early Universe could be as bright as an early galaxy containing many more standard stars.
- And even though they’d be massive — and potentially spewing gamma rays, neutrinos, and antimatter — so far, they’ve been too faint to be detected because they don’t emit visible light.
