Since NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was put into observation in 2022, it has discovered hundreds of mysterious "little red dots" in the early universe. These celestial bodies existed within the first billion years after the birth of the universe. They are small and extremely bright, and are difficult to explain by traditional theories. The latest research shows that they may be giant gas masses driven by black holes, with a volume larger than the solar system. The energy source is not nuclear fusion, but black holes.
JWST observations show that these red spots are extremely small, less than 2% of the diameter of the Milky Way, but their brightness cannot be explained by the dense arrangement of stars alone. Astronomers speculate that their core may be a supermassive black hole surrounded by a dense shell of gas. The black hole's radiation heats the gas, causing it to glow like a star. The gas shell also absorbs high-energy ultraviolet and X-rays, giving it a unique red spectrum.
Astronomers from Princeton University in the United States and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany believe that these "black hole stars" may be a key link in the evolution of galaxies and help explain the rapid growth of supermassive black holes. A theoretical model from the University of Colorado, Boulder, further supports this view. It is believed that after the collapse of giant stars in the early universe, their outer gases may wrap around newborn black holes, forming luminous "quasi-stars."
A team from Tsinghua University in China also discovered similar celestial objects in a region of the universe only 2.5 billion light-years away from the Earth, providing new clues for research. Follow-up observations with the Hubble Space Telescope are expected to reveal more details.
If this discovery is confirmed, it will be a major breakthrough for JWST and open up a new perspective for understanding black hole growth and galaxy evolution.