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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2017
Population III has been invoked to explain the missing mass in the haloes of galaxies, the first heavy elements in our Galaxy and even to explain the whole microwave background. However there are alternative explanations for each of these phenomena. The most compelling evidence for the existence of a pregalactic generation of objects is the observed distortion of the microwave background in the millimetre range, which can be explained as radiation from Population III objects absorbed and re-emitted by dust grains. If the distortion is confirmed, we can probably conclude that the density fluctuations in the early universe were isothermal and that no neutrino can have a mass in the astrophysically interesting range 1–100 eV.