According to New Scientist, astronomers analyzing data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now believe mysterious objects called “little red dots” (LRDs) are best explained as “black hole stars.” This finding, led by Anna de Graaff at Harvard University and based on a sample of over a hundred galaxies, challenges previous ideas that LRDs were either compact galaxies or supermassive black holes with dust. The team’s spectral analysis shows the light matches a single, smooth surface like a star, not the complex mix from a galaxy. While the core is likely a black hole, it’s enshrouded in a dense ball of gas billions of times brighter than our sun, making the whole object glow. A separate study of a single LRD nicknamed “The Cliff” found spectral features that couldn’t be explained by old models, forcing a new explanation.
Why this is a big deal
Look, JWST has been throwing curveballs since it started looking at the early universe. These little red dots were a major one. They’re too bright and too compact to easily fit our existing playbook. The two main theories—supermassive black holes or super-dense star galaxies—just didn’t fully add up. The light patterns were off.
So here’s the thing: the black hole star model, which sounds like sci-fi, actually simplifies everything. As Anthony Taylor at UT Austin says, it’s a simple framework that explains the observations “really, really nicely.” It’s basically a new class of object. Instead of a galaxy with stars *and* a black hole, you have one monolithic entity: a black hole wrapped in a gargantuan, glowing gas envelope. The energy comes from gravity, not fusion, but the effect is a star-like beacon. Jillian Bellovary notes the idea was considered “weird and out there,” but it’s starting to make the most sense.
The proof is still tricky
Now, there’s a catch. Proving there’s a black hole at the heart of these glowing balls is incredibly hard. The core is completely obscured by that dense, “optically thick” gas. We only infer a black hole because the luminosity is insane—nothing else could pump out that much energy.
One classic way to spot a black hole is to look for flickering brightness on short timescales. As Xihan Ji at Cambridge points out, we see that with local black holes, but these LRDs mostly don’t show that variability. JWST’s limited observation time makes studying long-term changes tough, but a clever workaround emerged. Another team, led by Fengwu Sun, used a gravitational lens—where a foreground galaxy bends the LRD’s light—to get four snapshots of the same object across a 130-year period. Their study found brightness variations hinting at a pulsating object of vast scale, consistent with the black hole star model.
But is that definitive? Not yet. Bellovary is skeptical, saying the variation “could also be explained by some other things.” It’s a promising clue, not a smoking gun. The full analysis of “The Cliff” object also pushed astronomers toward this new model, but the community is still building its case.
A new chapter in cosmic history
If this holds up, it rewrites a piece of cosmic history. We have nothing like black hole stars in our local universe today. So what were they? De Graaff, whose work you can see more of here, suggests they might represent a “new growth mode” for supermassive black holes. Think of it as a rapid-inflation phase, where a black hole gorges on a colossal gas cloud, lighting it up like a cosmic lantern.
But how long did this phase last? Did every supermassive black hole go through it? We just don’t know. It’s a missing link. And that’s the real excitement. JWST isn’t just finding more of what we expected; it’s revealing entirely new chapters in how structures in the universe form. These objects might be the precursors to the giant black holes we see at the centers of galaxies today. Basically, we’re watching a cosmic toddler phase we never knew existed. The latest research continues to dig into the implications, and I think we’re going to see a lot more weird, wonderful ideas come out of this. The early universe was a stranger place than we imagined.
