Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a brand-new type of astrophysical object — a 'black hole star' — an extremely bright red spot in the early universe that looks like an enormous star but produces energy the way a black hole might. The findings, based on James Webb Space Telescope observations, were published August 12 in Nature.
An Object Like No Other
The object resembles a star roughly the size of our solar system, yet generates about 100 billion times more energy than the Sun, CBS News reported. According to MIT, which led the analysis, its energy production is closer to what an accreting black hole generates — a combination that fits no existing stellar or galactic model. Researchers believe the object could be a supermassive star that formed in the cosmic dawn and is powered in part by an embedded primordial black hole, or a genuinely new phenomenon only now visible thanks to JWST's infrared reach.
What It Means
If confirmed, black hole stars would open a new window on the early universe, when the first structures formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The Nature paper adds to a busy week for JWST: The New York Times separately reported images showing a galaxy with a trio of supermassive black holes, two of them locked in a tight merging dance.
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