Little red dots in the Universe may conceal a previously unknown type of object
With contributions from DTU Space, an international team of researchers may have found a previously unknown type of astrophysical object in the form of a ‘black hole star’, which is a black hole shrouded in an enormous envelope of luminous gas. The discovery has been published in Nature.
In observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers have found a number of unexplained ‘Little Red Dots’ (shown in the yellow box in the image). They have now analysed one of them in detail and discovered what is likely to be a ‘black hole star’. Image: JWST
Friday 21 August 2026
Morten Garly Andersen
The exploration of the distant Universe is advancing rapidly. New telescopes on Earth and in space, combined with greater computing power, are giving researchers entirely new opportunities to investigate the earliest history of the Universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope in particular has opened a new window onto the early Universe. An international team of researchers, including researchers from DTU Space and led by researchers at MIT, has now made a surprising discovery.
The researchers have investigated one of the mysterious ‘Little Red Dots’ that the James Webb Space Telescope has found in the early Universe. Their analysis suggests that a previously unknown type of astrophysical object may lie behind the dot.
“If our analyses and assumptions hold, as we believe they do, this could be a very significant discovery. It would be the first example of a previously unknown type of astrophysical object, which we call a ‘black hole star’,” says Kasper Elm Heintz, Associate Professor and astrophysicist at DTU Space.
“The combination we have uncovered, of a black hole and something resembling an enormous star, has never been seen before, so this is extremely exciting,” says Kasper Elm Heintz.
Resembles a giant star the size of our Solar System
According to the researchers’ interpretation, a black hole star is a so-called supermassive black hole which is shrouded in an extremely dense envelope of gas, making the entire object resemble a giant star.
The researchers estimate that the black hole at this systems centre is around 100,000 times as massive as the Sun, while the surrounding envelope of gas is the size of our entire Solar System.
But there is something about the object that cannot be explained by an ordinary star. It emits around 100 billion times more energy than any known star could physically produce. That kind of energy is far more consistent with an active black hole accreting matter from its surroundings.
Many little red dots and maybe more ‘black hole stars’
The red dot is far from alone. In images of the early Universe from the James Webb Space Telescope, these small, red and extremely luminous objects appear again and again.
But what lies behind them has been one of the major questions since the telescope began its observations a few years ago.
“Our picture of this type of object is evolving very rapidly,” says the lead author of the Nature article, Rohan Naidu, who is a NASA Hubble Fellow and Pappalardo Fellow at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.
The little red dots appear to have been widespread in the early Universe a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, very close to its birth around 13.8 billion years ago. They appear to have largely disappeared from the Universe today.
If the researchers’ interpretation holds, they have therefore not only identified the first possible black hole star. The discovery could also provide a key to understanding what lies behind many of the other little red dots in the early Universe.
“If it holds, it looks as though there could be many of these fascinating objects out there that we are only just beginning to uncover,” says Kasper Elm Heintz.
“These new observations allow us to understand and measure much better how the first supermassive black holes formed in the Universe”.
The object has been named MoM-BH-1. The number one is no coincidence. The researchers expect that it could be the first of several.
A chance discovery and complex model calculations
In fact, the researchers were looking for something entirely different when they made the discovery.
They were searching for some of the most distant and earliest galaxies in the Universe when the unusually red and luminous dot stood out in observations from the James Webb Space Telescope.
To determine what lay behind the dot, the researchers then tested different explanations using complex physical model calculations.
They investigated which astrophysical conditions could produce the characteristic red light. Their results pointed to the unusual combination of a supermassive black hole surrounded by an extremely dense envelope of gas.