A cosmic mirage or a miracle? The mystery of the black hole star
In short: The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a bizarre red dot in the early universe. It looks like a massive star, but its energy output is impossible for a star to produce. This discovery suggests a new class of object: a black hole wrapped in a stellar cocoon.
Researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and the University of Hawai'i identified a 'black hole star' during the 'Mirage or Miracle' survey. During a quest to find ancient galaxies, researchers spotted a luminous crimson entity originating merely a few hundred million years post-Big Bang. This object has puzzled astronomers because it appears in nearly every deep space image taken by the JWST but seems to disappear by the present day. The team observed a specific spectral drop-off known as a Balmer break. This signature indicates dense gas absorbing photons. This feature is typically found in stars that are a few hundred million years old.
The object is physically massive, with an extended envelope of gas roughly the size of our solar system (about 1000 au). Nevertheless, its power generation is remarkable, emitting approximately 100 billion times the energy that any established star is capable of producing. This suggests a hybrid mechanism: unlike a normal star powered by nuclear fusion, this object likely features a central black hole—estimated at 100,000 times the mass of the Sun—energizing a dense, star-like cocoon of hydrogen. The object's dimensions are comparable to a black hole accretion disk. It is significantly larger than the sun, which is only about 0.01 au. This discovery was published in the journal Nature on August 12.
This discovery provides a potential answer to the mystery of 'problematic quasars'—supermassive black holes with masses of millions to billions of solar masses that appeared too soon after the Big Bang. By understanding how these 'black hole stars' grow rapidly by wrapping themselves in dense gas, scientists may finally explain how the universe's largest cosmic leviathans reached such immense proportions so quickly. When these cosmic leviathans actively accrete material, they can transform into extraordinarily bright quasars. These objects influence the growth and evolution of their host galaxies. They also determine the ultimate fate of these massive structures.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: JWST Just Discovered a Brand-New Class of Cosmic Objects
- Also: Mirage or miracle? JWST finds earliest known 'black hole star' at cosmic dawn
- Also: Astronomers discover a brand-new type of astrophysical object: A black hole star
- Also: JWST spots a bizarre “black hole star” 100 billion times brighter than a star
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