Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope may have found the first evidence of “monster” stars that existed shortly after the Big Bang, with masses up to 10,000 times that of the sun.

These prehistoric stars, now extinct, likely collapsed into massive black holes, leaving behind chemical “fossils” in the universe.

The discovery came from studying the galaxy GS 3073, 12.7 billion light-years away, where an unusual nitrogen-to-oxygen ratio suggests the influence of these massive stars.

Confirming their existence could help explain how supermassive black holes grew so rapidly in the early universe, Space.com has reported.

These cosmic giants burned briefly, living only about 250,000 years, but left detectable chemical signatures billions of years later, much like fossils reveal dinosaurs on Earth.