An astronomer based at Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (AOP) has been awarded €2 million in European Research Council (ERC) funding to investigate how the first stars in the universe formed and emitted light after the Big Bang.
Professor Jorick Vink, a leading stellar astrophysicist at AOP, will lead the project titled 'First Stars: The First Stellar Generations in the Universe.' The grant, announced in July 2026, is part of the ERC Advanced Grant scheme, which supports groundbreaking research by established scientists.
The research aims to model the formation and evolution of Population III stars—the first generation of stars thought to have formed from primordial gas clouds about 100–200 million years after the Big Bang. These stars are believed to have been extremely massive and short-lived, ending in supernovae that enriched the universe with heavy elements.
Vink's team will use advanced computer simulations and observational data from telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to test theories about how these early stars 'switched on the lights' of the cosmos. The project is expected to run for five years.
Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, a leading astronomical research institution in Northern Ireland, has a strong track record in stellar astrophysics. This grant will support two postdoctoral researchers and a PhD student, boosting local scientific capacity.
