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In the beginning was darkness.

For the first 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the Universe was dense and opaque. Eventually, it cooled down enough for photons of light to travel freely through space, even though there was nothing to shine in it at the time. This period is called the cosmological Dark Ages. For hundreds of millions of years, in complete darkness, clouds of rarefied gas accumulated and contracted into hot spheres. And at some point, a thermonuclear reaction began in the depths of one of these spheres, causing the very first star to burst into flame, and for the first time in history, darkness gave way to light. It was the beginning of the cosmos as we see it today. It was a period when the chaos of the Big Bang gave way to order, paving the way for planets, comets, satellites, and ultimately life.

Emma Chapman's book sheds light on these dark times, depicting the story of the first stars, hundreds of times larger and millions of times brighter than the Sun, lonely giants that burned violently and died young in massive explosions. The scientist explains how these stars formed, why they were so unusual, and what they can tell us about the modern Universe. She also invites you to take a look at the huge new telescopes that will look back in time to find traces of such stars and bring this period in the history of the Universe from theoretical physics to observational astronomy.