Webb telescope finds best evidence yet of ‘black hole star,’ a new type of cosmic object

Astronomers have identified what may be an entirely new class of cosmic object — a "black hole star" — lurking in the early universe, a discovery that could help solve one of modern astronomy's most persistent puzzles.

The object, designated MoM-BH*-1, was spotted by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope during the Miracle or Mirage (MoM) survey. Its light was emitted roughly 660 million years after the Big Bang, making it one of the most ancient objects ever studied in detail. The findings were published August 12 in the journal Nature.livescience+1

A Star That Isn't a Star

MoM-BH*-1 appeared as an extremely bright red spot, roughly the size of our solar system, radiating approximately 100 billion times the luminosity of the Sun — far too energetic to be powered by nuclear fusion, the process that drives ordinary stars.yahoo+1

"You have something that looks a bit like a star but is 100 billion times brighter," said Rohan Naidu, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii and former NASA Hubble Fellow at MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. "That means you can't be powering this by nuclear fusion, which is the energy source that sits at the heart of all the stars we have."yahoo

Simulations suggest the object is a black hole weighing roughly 100,000 solar masses encased in a dense hydrogen envelope. The black hole's gravitational energy, not fusion, superheats the surrounding gas to produce the extreme brightness. The near-total absence of heavy metals indicates the system formed in a very early cosmic epoch before supernovae had enriched the universe with heavier elements.clickpetroleoegas+1

Solving the 'Little Red Dots' Mystery

The discovery bears directly on one of the JWST era's biggest debates: the nature of "little red dots," hundreds of compact, crimson sources found throughout deep-space images that are too bright to be stars yet too dim to be galaxies.livescience

Scientists have struggled to explain why these objects lack detectable X-ray emissions typically associated with quasars. A black hole star's dense gas cocoon could theoretically absorb high-energy radiation, masking the object's true nature.livescience

"These little red dots seem to be everywhere in the early universe but essentially disappear by the present day," Naidu said. "Every red dot is consistent with being a black hole star."yahoo

One Model, Not a Final Answer

The researchers caution that the black hole star interpretation, while the cleanest explanation for the data, remains a model rather than a direct observation. The paper tested nearly a million parameter combinations, and alternative hypotheses — including a supermassive metal-free star — have not been entirely ruled out. Further JWST observations of similar objects will be needed to confirm whether black hole stars represent a universal phase of early cosmic evolution.spacedaily