View source for Stellar populations

==Population III==
Hypothetically, shortly after the Big Bang, there would have been virtually no heavy elements around as stars had yet to form to create these heavy elements. This would suggest that there should have been, at one time, stars with ''no'' metal. These initial stars would have created the first heavy elements that would have then formed the Population II stars<ref name="abell">Abell, George O., <u>Exploration of the Universe</u>, 4th Ed</ref>. These stars are a theoretical construct as none have ever been observed. It may be that these initial stars were so massive that they were incredibly short lived and that they exploded as supernovae, creating the low metal nebulae that the Population II stars formed from<ref name="bromm">Bromm, V, Coppi, P, & Larson, R, ''The Formation of the First Stars'', <u>The Astrophysical Journal</u> 564:23-51, 2002</ref>.