Overview
- The study, published Wednesday, August 12, 2026, in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by a University of Portsmouth team, reports simulations that produce protoplanetary disks only about 100 million years after the Big Bang.
- In the simulations, pair-instability explosions from Population III stars ejected large masses of heavy elements that mixed into nearby clouds and let those clouds collapse into disks around low-mass, long-lived stars.
- One simulated disk around a star about 0.7 times the Sun’s mass contained several Earth-masses of solid material at roughly Earth-like distances and carried substantial water, only a few times less than early Solar System levels.
- The result revises when rocky-planet precursors and potential water delivery could first appear, but it rests on model assumptions about the first stars’ masses, supernova yields, and how efficiently metals mix into gas.
- If observationally confirmed, the finding would push searches for ancient planets and metal-enriched signatures in very old stars, and it shows how early cosmic chemistry from the first explosions can shape planet formation.