This is scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Karen Hopkins. This will just take a minute.

As kids, many of us pondered what stars are made of. Some grown-up astronomers, on the other

hand, wonder about where stars came from. Now, a study serves up a surprise, because

it seems that the smallest galaxies in the

universe gave rise to an unexpectedly large proportion of stars. The findings are in

the astrophysical journal. Most of the stars we see in the sky were formed when the universe was young, just a few billion years after the Big Bang.

So to study stellar origins, scientists use telescopes that allow them to see galaxies that are so far away, they're essentially looking back in time.

Previous observations had focused on the star-forming powers of larger galaxies.

But in this latest study, researchers used data collected by a powerful camera aboard the Hubble Space Telescope.

With this instrument, they could eyeball smaller dwarf galaxies.

And they found that these diminutive dynamos churned out stars at a furious rate, fast

enough to double their mass in only 150 million years.

That reproductive feat would take most so-called normal galaxies 1 to 3 billion years.

Seems the universe is long known what Danny DeVito, Michael J Fox, and Dustin Hoffman later proved.

You don't have to be big to have real star power.

Thanks for the minute.

For Scientific Americans, 60 Second Science Thanks for the minute.

Scientific Americans 60 Second Science, I'm Karen Hopkins.