# of star generations needed to produce observed element abundances

In article ,
" writes:
What's the approximate lifetime of these stars
[earliest stars in Universe]

No one knows. Might be a short as 1E6 years if they are as massive
as 100 solar masses. As I wrote earlier, the initial mass function
is not known. Stellar lifetime depends strongly on mass, and it's a
mistake to think lifetime will be the same for all stars of a given
"generation," which itself is a misleading term.

and is there currently
any conflict between the current solar metal abundances and the
# of generations needed to produce the abundance?

I don't think there is any great problem with the Sun, which after
all didn't form until the Universe was already 8E9 years old. That
said, the chemical evolution of the Universe is far from understood.
Even for a local galaxy such as M33, metallicity versus radius is in
doubt. This probably reflects some lack of understanding of how the
metals were formed, though systematic errors in the observations
cannot be ruled out.

Perhaps more mysterious, at z=6, when the Universe was only 1E9 years
old, at least some galaxies already had metallicity not far below
solar. And I am pretty sure the "G-subdwarf problem" has been
mentioned before on this newsgroup.

Try asking again after JWST has been working a few years.

--
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
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In message , Steve Willner
writes

Perhaps more mysterious, at z=6, when the Universe was only 1E9 years
old, at least some galaxies already had metallicity not far below
solar. And I am pretty sure the "G-subdwarf problem" has been
mentioned before on this newsgroup.

Try asking again after JWST has been working a few years.


Assuming it gets off the ground.
--
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT CO dot UK is more likely to be
seen!

Can someone provide some references - preferably at an undergrad level
- for
this topic?

Thanks,

Ted