JWST Discovers New ‘Black Hole Star’ Explaining Early Universe Little Red Dots
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered a brand-new class of cosmic object dubbed a “black hole star,” an entity roughly the size of the solar system shrouded in a cloud of gas that could explain the mysterious “little red dots” observed across the early universe.
The discovery centers on a peculiar object existing 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang, identified within the Red Unknowns: Bright Infrared Extragalactic Survey (RUBIES) data obtained with JWST, according to research published Sept. 10 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics led by Anna de Graaff of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. Researchers noticed a sharp jump in brightness known as the Balmer break. This sharpness could not be explained by massive galaxies or typical active galactic nuclei, leading the team to dub the object “the Cliff.”
Additional research published in Nature investigated a little red dot designated MoM-BH*-1, whose light comes from 660 million years after the big bang. Lead researcher Rohan Naidu, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii, noted that the object possesses remarkable physics. The team ran simulations indicating that the light stems from very dense hydrogen and helium gas surrounding a huge, young black hole.
Christian Wolf, an astronomer at the Australian National University, described the finding as the first supermassive black hole teenager humanity has seen.
Evaluating Competing Early Universe Theories
Before this classification, astronomers debated two main models for little red dots. Fabio Pacucci, an astrophysicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who was not involved in the new study, outlined these possibilities to Live Science. One possibility posits extremely massive, compact galaxies with intense star formation, while the other suggests they host overmassive black holes at their centers.
Both hypotheses push the limits of current understanding regarding early galaxy evolution. The newly proposed black hole star model suggests a black hole feeding so rapidly that it illuminates the thick cocoon of gas surrounding it, making it glow like a star. Dr. Naidu stated that his team has since studied 100 other little red dots and found a gas-enshrouded heart similar to MoM-BH*-1 at the center of each one.