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Life Span: First Stars Compared to the Sun

An illustration titled “Life Span: First Stars Compared to the Sun” shows a long, solid orange bar labeled “10 billion-year life span” to represent the life span of the Sun, and a shorter, solid purple bar labeled “1 million-year life span” to represent the life span of one of the first stars.

A star 60 times the mass of the Sun would shine for less than a million years. If the first stars were all this massive, they would have burned out long ago.

  • Release Date
    February 22, 2019
  • Credit
    Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

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Last Updated
Aug 28, 2025
Contact
Media

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Image Credit

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

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