The cosmos may be speckled with black hole stars, celestial entities that have the properties of both black holes and stars. But only now have scientists discovered one for the first time, which could provide important insight about our universe.
Huge size and energy
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) previously spotted unidentified little red dots in space in 2024 that scientists have now designated as a new astrophysical source, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Deemed a “black hole star,” the celestial object “resembles an enormous star, spanning the size of our solar system,” but also puts out “100 billion times more energy than any known star can physically produce,” similar to a black hole, said a release about the study.
The NASA telescope was used to “look into deep space, back when the universe was a few hundred million years old,” to “look for galaxies that actually formed at those early times,” said the release. While analyzing JWST’s images, astronomers found the red dots that at the time of their discovery had them convinced that “something broke in the James Webb Space Telescope,” said Gizmodo. “Much about the universe’s earliest days remains a mystery,” so “pinning down the true identity of little red dots,” which are “relics from the cosmic dawn,” would “represent a huge advance in our understanding of our universe’s history.”
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Researchers analyzed one specific bright red dot called MoM-BH*-1 and found that its properties were “too intense to be explained as normal star behavior,” said Wired. Instead, they posited that the dot is a “black hole devouring matter and releasing enormous amounts of energy” and surrounded by a “massive gas envelope.”
The energy “would pass through that gas before escaping into space” and “acquire some of the characteristics we would normally expect to find in starlight,” said Wired. The black hole star likely has a “central black hole that is 100,000 times as massive as the sun,” said lead study author Rohan Naidu in the release.
New questions, more research
The black hole star is a “very special thing to find,” as it is an “object with no comparison given the vast stores of data on billions of stars, galaxies and black holes that we have in our archival databases,” said Naidu to Gizmodo. MoM-BH*-1 is perhaps the beginning of “what will likely be the first of more black hole stars to come,” said Popular Science. And “many other red dots lurking in JWST models may soon be explained by the new astrophysical model.” What is unique about MoM-BH*-1 is that the “black hole star is essentially completely outshining its surrounding host galaxy, such that we are seeing pure black hole star light,” said Naidu in the release.
The study’s findings “raise new questions and insights into little red dots and, by extension, the state of the early universe,” said Gizmodo. If the “distinct color of little red dots is caused by gas,” it “could explain why the earliest supermassive black holes are far larger than what’s predicted by conventional cosmological models.”
Scientists are planning further research on the “detailed physics of these remarkable objects,” said Naidu. Perhaps it will answer exactly how “massive” they are and what their “‘stellar’ features tell us about their ‘stellar’ atmospheres.”
