Animation (18.5 MB)	Supercomputer simulations by Volker Bromm and colleagues show that the first supernovae were incredibly energetic, spewing tremendous amounts of iron, carbon, oxygen, and other elements across thousands of light-years of space. These first supernovae seeded the universe with the "stuff of life." Credit: Volker Bromm (CfA), Naoki Yoshida (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Lars Hernquist (CfA), and Christine Lafon (CfA).
Animation (21.5 MB)	In the early universe, small protogalaxies clustered together into vast filamentary structures. Within these glowing galactic building blocks, supernovae exploded like firecrackers as the first, "greatest generation" of stars rapidly used up their fuel and died. Credit: Christine Lafon (CfA), Volker Springel (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics), and Lars Hernquist (CfA).
	In the early universe, small protogalaxies clustered together into vast filamentary structures. Within these glowing galactic building blocks, supernovae exploded like firecrackers as the first, "greatest generation" of stars rapidly used up their fuel and died. Credit: Christine Lafon (CfA), Volker Springel (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics), and Lars Hernquist (CfA). JPEG (60K) High Resolution JPEG (2.0M)

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