spacetoday.net: First stars may have been made of dark matter

First stars may have been made of dark matter

Posted: Tue, Dec 4, 2007, 7:58 AM ET (1258 GMT)
The first stars that formed after the Big Bang may have been giant agglomerations of invisible dark matter, astronomers said Monday. The study, to be published next month in Physical Review Letters, argues that so-called "dark stars", made of theoretical dark matter particles called neutralinos, formed shortly after the Big Bang, creating massive objects from 400 to 200,000 times wider than the Sun. Because the objects are made of dark matter, they would not be visible at normal wavelengths of light, but would emit gamma rays and neutrinos. Astronomers said they are still uncertain how long dark stars would last, but left open the possibility that they could still exist today.