Scientific discovery often unfolds in unexpected ways. What begins as a search for solutions to real-world challenges can lead researchers into unexplored scientific territory, where unconventional ideas emerge and spark debate. This dynamic was at the heart of research by Dr. Arthur W. Snow and Dr. Ramagopal Ananth in the Chemistry Division of the US Naval Research Laboratory. Their study aimed to address a pressing need: replacing fluorocarbon surfactants in firefighting foams. What they discovered would take them beyond firefighting applications and into fundamental questions about the nature of water itself.

Before the universe was illuminated by stars, most of its observable matter existed in a roughly even distribution of hydrogen and helium. As these materials collapsed under their own gravity, they would have heated up, initially preventing them from collapsing further to densities high enough for stars to form. As part of a new review, Prof. Dr. Ralf Klessen and Prof. Dr. Simon Glover at Heidelberg University investigate the chemical mechanisms which enabled this primordial gas to cool and fragment to form the universe’s first generation of stars.