JWST's mysterious "little red dots" may be stars wrapped around black holes

Astronomers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and international collaborators may have solved the mystery of "little red dots" — unusual objects spotted in James Webb Space Telescope data from the early Universe. A study published in Nature suggests they could be "black hole stars": rapidly growing early black holes wrapped in dense gas. The finding could help explain how black holes a billion times the mass of the Sun formed so soon after the Big Bang.

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