The tiny "red dots" that NASA's James Webb Telescope (JWST) discovered in 2022 may not be unusually mature galaxies as scientists previously thought, but rather a completely new type of object: "black hole stars"—giant clouds of gas surrounding a supermassive black hole.
In a study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, an international team including scientists from Penn State University reported that spectroscopic data showed these bright red spots were not caused by the merging of many cold stars, but rather by extremely large balls of hydrogen gas.
At their center is a supermassive black hole that sucks in matter at incredible speeds, transforming it into energy and emitting light.
Joel Leja, co-author of the study at Penn State, commented: "Initially, we thought it was a small galaxy filled with cool stars, but it's actually a massive, very cold star being nourished by a black hole at its center."
The research team spent nearly 60 hours observing with the JWST from January to December 2024 to collect spectra of 4,500 distant galaxies. Among them, an object nicknamed “The Cliff” showed immense mass and emitted light 11.9 billion years from Earth, revealing its nature as a supermassive black hole encased in a massive cloud of hot gas.
According to scientists, "black hole stars" may be the early stages in the formation of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies today.
The JWST's detection of numerous signs of this type of object opens up an explanation for the unusually early appearance of massive black holes in the universe.
Anna de Graaff of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, the study's co-author, said: "This is the first hypothesis that fits most of the data. We will continue to verify it by analyzing the gas density and luminosity of these 'black hole stars'."
However, the team emphasized that the mystery is far from over, as the "red dots" are too far away and too small to observe in detail.
Leja concluded: “The universe is stranger than we imagine. What we can do is continue to follow the clues it leaves behind.”
Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/da-co-loi-giai-thich-cho-su-xuat-hien-som-cua-cac-ho-den-lon-trong-vu-tru-post1061573.vnp
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