The Archaeology of Stars

The Archaeology of Stars | DiscoverMagazine.com: 



One key factor distinguishes an ancient star from a youngster like our sun: its composition. The only elements that emerged from the Big Bang were hydrogen, helium and tiny bits of lithium, so that’s what the first generation of stars must have been made of.
Heavier elements — including nitrogen, oxygen, iron, carbon and more — were forged in the nuclear furnaces at the cores of those first stars, then spewed into interstellar space when the stars exploded. “What’s remarkable to me,” says Beers, “is the elements that we associate with carbon-based life today are produced by the first-generation stars.”