Rate of star birth in the early Universe

New Hubble Space Telescope results show that the rate of star birth changed dramatically in the universe over just 170 million years, increasing by ten times from 480 million years after the Big Bang to 650 million years, and doubling again in the next 130 million years.

The astonishing tenfold increase in star birth happened in a period that is just 1 per cent of the current age of the Universe. This is shown schematically in this figure that shows the new candidate galaxy at 480 million years and comparable galaxies from the epoch at 650 million years and at 780 million years after the Big Bang to represent the relative amounts of star birth in galaxies at different times.