The James Webb Space Telescope’s data contains information about a galaxy known as Hebe, and what makes it remarkable is nearly impossible to comprehend all at once. The light from Hebe that is being examined now originated 400 million years after the Big Bang. Because of this, astronomers studying it today are not studying something far away in the traditional sense; rather, they are studying something that existed prior to the formation of nearly everything in the observable universe. prior to the Sun.
Prior to the Milky Way taking on any resemblance of its present form. Prior to the protracted, sluggish processes that yielded carbon, oxygen, iron, and ultimately the kind of matter capable of self-assembly into a person reading about it while seated at a desk. If the current analysis is correct, Hebe provides a window into the universe’s initial star-making process.
| Topic | JWST & The Search for Population III (First) Stars |
|---|---|
| Telescope | James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) |
| Launch Year | 2021 |
| Cost | Approximately $10 billion |
| Telescope Type | Infrared space observatory — largest telescope in space |
| Target Stars | Population III (Pop III) stars — universe’s first generation |
| When First Stars Formed | Estimated ~100–200 million years after the Big Bang |
| First Stars Composition | Almost solely hydrogen, helium, and trace lithium — no heavier elements |
| Physical Characteristics | Hundreds of times more massive than the Sun; tens of thousands of degrees hotter |
| Key Galaxy Candidate (2025) | LAP1-B — light traveled 13 billion years; seen as it was ~800 million years post-Big Bang |
| Key Galaxy Candidate (2026) | Hebe — existed just 400 million years after the Big Bang |
| Gravitational Lens Used | MACS J0416.1-2403 — galaxy cluster ~4.3 billion light-years away; provides ~100x magnification |
| Key Challenge | “Little red dots” could be first stars OR early supermassive black holes — requires spectroscopic confirmation |
| Lead Researcher (LAP1-B) | Eli Visbal, University of Toledo |
| Cosmic Era Observed | Epoch of Reionization — end of the “cosmic dark ages” |
| Reference Website | NASA James Webb Space Telescope — Official Site |
The stars under search are known officially as Population III stars, or Pop III, and they are not found in the current sky. These first stars are believed to have been enormous beyond easy comprehension, formed from the only elements available in the very early universe: hydrogen and helium with traces of lithium. Their lifespans were geologically short because they were hundreds of times more massive than the Sun and burned at temperatures tens of thousands of degrees hotter.
They lived quickly and perished in supernovae, which introduced heavier elements into the surrounding gas—the metals, as astronomers refer to them—that would be carried by all stars to come. All of the stars that are burning now, including our own, are downstream of those initial ones. It is not merely an astronomical objective to locate them. Digging for the original layer beneath everything else is more akin to the deepest kind of archaeology.
Built in part for this search, the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021 at a cost of about $10 billion. The faint, stretched light from objects so far away that the universe’s expansion over billions of years has nearly completely redshifted their original wavelengths can be detected by its infrared instruments. Despite all of its accomplishments, Hubble was only able to look back so far; Population III stars most likely formed before the Big Bang, and its vision ended about 380 million years later.
Even the researchers who built and calibrated JWST have been surprised by the data it has produced since it started operating. JWST was designed to go farther. It turns out that galaxies formed in the early universe more quickly and in larger quantities than most models predicted. For the majority of its operational life, the telescope that was supposed to validate current theories has instead complicated them.
A team at the University of Toledo under the direction of Eli Visbal revealed in November 2025 that JWST may have already found Pop III stars inside a galaxy known as LAP1-B. This discovery required the help of one of nature’s optical tricks in addition to the telescope’s own sensitivity. MACS J0416 is a massive cluster of galaxies located between Earth and LAP1-B.
It is approximately 4.3 billion light-years away, and its combined gravitational mass causes light to be bent and magnified. As a result of general relativity, Einstein foresaw this effect in 1915. For decades, astronomers have taken advantage of it. In this instance, the cluster amplified LAP1-B’s light by about 100 times; without this, Visbal pointed out clearly, detection would not have been feasible. A $10 billion telescope’s sensitivity was insufficient on its own. To make the target readable, a galaxy cluster the size of a tiny area of the universe had to act as a natural lens.
The gas surrounding the stars in LAP1-B appears to have very few metal traces, which is consistent with what Pop III stars and their direct progeny would leave behind. That’s a positive sign, but astronomers are wary of using the word “confirmed.” The same faint, reddish objects that have been showing up in JWST data—dubbed “little red dots” by researchers—may be first-generation stars, but they could also be early supermassive black holes, which also emit intense radiation and appear in the early universe at an age that has shocked theorists.
It takes a thorough spectroscopic analysis to differentiate between them, measuring the exact chemical signatures in the surrounding gas and working backward from there. It’s a laborious process, and the findings from Hebe and LAP1-B are still being analyzed, discussed, and scrutinized as any significant discovery should be.
After months of gathering data for this search, there’s a sense that science is truly on the verge of something. Not in the flamboyant, press-release sense, but rather in the more subdued manner that occurs when instruments eventually improve to the point where they can answer issues that have been waiting decades for the appropriate tool in the literature.
Theories about Population III stars have been around for a while. Our understanding of early cosmic chemistry essentially demands their existence because something had to create the heavier elements from which everything else is composed. However, theoretically demanding something and actually seeing its light are two completely different things, and for the majority of observational astronomy’s history, the first stars were just not visible. The light was too old and dim by the time it reached us, the universe was too young when they burned, and the instruments were not sensitive enough to detect it even if it existed.
Carefully and quietly, JWST is working to close that gap. A low-metallicity gas signature in a cluster 13 billion light-years away, a galaxy named Hebe, and a gravitational lens named MACS J0416 are the details that could ultimately provide an answer to one of astronomy’s most persistent mysteries. Whether Pop III stars will be confirmed by Hebe, LAP1-B, or another galaxy in the data that no one has yet completed analyzing is still unknown, as is whether the current candidates will withstand thorough spectroscopic examination. However, the search is no longer just theoretical. The telescope is searching. And what it’s discovering is beginning to resemble the beginning quite a bit, piece by piece.
