If these [earliest stars] were very massive and formed in the standard cosmological mode, they should have left a signature in the fluctuations of the CIB. That's the signal we sought to measure with these observations.

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They have basically been theoretical objects.

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We think we are seeing the collective light from millions of the first objects to form in the universe. The objects disappeared eons ago, yet their light is still traveling across the universe.

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It took us over a year to convince ourselves that we did [the calculations] well. But we found the same signal at all wavelengths.

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For these stars to have produced a signal this strong, they had to be very massive stars, much bigger than what we see in the Universe.

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