Forget twinkle, twinkle little star-- here are dark stars

London, Dec 6 (UNI) Forget 'Twinkle, twinkle little star'-- the first stars of all were invisible, researchers revealed.

The cosmos could be littered with ''dark stars'' that are 1,00,000 times wider than the Sun, much fluffier and only spit out invisible gamma rays, heat and antimatter.

The peculiar findings emerged from calculations that suggest the first stars to be born after the Big Bang of creation were invisible dark stars.

Prof Paolo Gondolo, who did the study with Katherine Freese of the University of Michigan and Douglas Spolyar of the University of California, said,''The findings drastically alter the current theoretical framework for the formation of the first stars. It is conceivable that gigantic dark stars may exist today.'' The team has named them ''dark stars,'' after the song by the same name unveiled in 1967 by The Grateful Dead, the Daily Telegraph reported.

''Dark matter interacted to produce heat which can counteract the cooling of hydrogen and helium atoms, and so the star stops contracting for a while, forming a dark star. With your bare eyes, you can't see it, but the radiation would fry you,'' said Dr Gondolo.

Dark stars may explain why black holes-- collapsed stars so dense that not even light escapes-- formed much faster than expected.

UNI