This simulation could unlock the Universe's secrets

This article was taken from the March 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Supermassive stars with a mass between 55,000 and 56,000 times larger than our Sun, don't behave like normal stars. "These explosions would have had a dramatic impact on the early Universe," says Ken Chen, post-doctoral researcher at the University of California at Santa Cruz and lead author of the study in The Astrophysical Journal. "The elements made inside the star would have been ejected in a supernova explosion." "These metals are important, as they form the building blocks for Earth," says Chen.