MIT Astronomers Discover ‘Black Hole Star’ in Early Universe, August 17

Astronomers at MIT have discovered an entirely new type of cosmic object called a ‘black hole star.’ The object, named MoM-BH*-1, existed just 660 million years after the Big Bang and shines roughly 100 billion times brighter than any known star can physically produce. The discovery, published in Nature on August 12, suggests that hundreds of mysterious ‘little red dots’ spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope since 2022 may be this previously unknown class of objects.

What makes this object unique

MoM-BH*-1 contains a central black hole roughly 100,000 times the mass of the Sun, surrounded by an enormous envelope of hot hydrogen gas that spans about the size of our entire solar system. Unlike normal stars powered by nuclear fusion, this object’s energy comes from matter falling into the central black hole. The combination had never been observed before, making it what researchers call a ‘black hole star.’

How astronomers found it

Researchers spotted MoM-BH*-1 using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope as part of a survey called ‘Mirage or Miracle’ (MoM) searching for early galaxies. The object stood out as the reddest and brightest source in a deep-space image. Lead author Rohan Naidu, a NASA Hubble Fellow at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, noted that the object’s extreme brightness ruled out standard stellar processes as its power source.

Solving the ‘little red dots’ mystery

Since the James Webb Space Telescope began operations in 2022, it has detected hundreds of puzzling objects dubbed ‘little red dots’ scattered throughout early universe images. These objects have remained unexplained until now. If MoM-BH*-1 is indeed a black hole star, it could explain the identity of these mysterious sources, which appear frequently in the early universe but essentially disappear by the present day. Naidu stated that understanding what these objects are has been one of the most debated topics of the JWST era.

Implications for early black hole formation

The discovery provides the strongest evidence yet that black holes in the early universe grew much faster than current models predict. MoM-BH*-1 demonstrates that supermassive black holes could have formed and accumulated mass rapidly during the universe’s first billion years, addressing a long-standing puzzle in astrophysics. The research team includes MIT co-authors Robert Simcoe, director of the Kavli Institute, and other collaborators from multiple institutions.

Final Thoughts

The discovery of MoM-BH*-1 marks a breakthrough in understanding the early universe’s most extreme objects. This finding reshapes how astronomers view the formation of supermassive black holes and offers a unifying explanation for hundreds of previously mysterious observations.

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