Are 'little red dots' seen by the James Webb Space Telescope actually elusive 'black hole stars'?
By Robert Lea published 16 hours ago
"It's an elegant answer, really, because we thought it was a tiny galaxy full of many separate cold stars, but it's actually, effectively, one gigantic, very cold star."
(Main) An illustration of a theorized "black hole star" (Inset) the JWST (Image credit: T. Müller/A. de Graaff/Max Planck Institute for Astronomy)
New research suggests that "little red dots" seen in the early universe may actually be a new class of cosmic object: black hole stars. If this theory is correct, it could explain how black holes managed to grow to supermassive sizes before the universe was even 1 billion years old.
Little red dots are one of the most curious celestial objects viewed thus far by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Astronomers theorize that they are early galaxies that existed earlier than 700 million years after the Big Bang, that are unlike anything seen in the local and "modern" 13.8 billion-year-old universe.
If they are galaxies, these little red dots are surprisingly mature and well-developed for galaxies that exist so soon after the Big Bang, packed with aging and cold red stars. In fact, the concept is so troubling to scientists that some have dubbed little red dots "universe breakers" as they challenge what we thought we knew about galaxy formation and cosmic evolution. This new research, however, could apply some superglue to our broken theories by suggesting a new identity for little red dots and an entirely new class of cosmic object.
Performing an analysis of the little red dots, the researchers suggested that, rather than being ancient, well-developed galaxies, little red dots may be vast spheres of dense and hot gas that look like the atmospheres of stars. However, rather than being powered by nuclear fusion, like stars are, the engines of these objects are supermassive black holes greedily feeding on surrounding matter and blasting out energy.
More:
https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes/are-little-red-dots-seen-by-the-james-webb-space-telescope-actually-elusive-black-hole-stars
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