Astronomers identify possible black hole star in early universe

An international team of astronomers has identified what it describes as an entirely new type of celestial body in the early universe, calling it a black hole star, ERR reported. The discovery may help resolve a long-standing cosmological mystery and improve understanding of how galaxies like the Milky Way formed.

The object appears bright and red in images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Comparable in size to the Solar System, it emits hundreds of billions of times more energy than any known ordinary star. The body, located in the Whale constellation, already existed when the universe was just 660 million years old.

The observations initially puzzled specialists. Rohan Naidu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the new astrophysical object emitted energy characteristic of black holes while also displaying several features associated with stars. Its power immediately ruled out ordinary nuclear fusion, instead pointing to a black hole consuming gas at a high rate.

The researchers found the unusual body as part of the Mirage or Miracle project, which initially aimed to search for ancient galaxies that formed several hundred million years after the Big Bang. While analysing the images, the team noticed an exceptionally bright, strongly red point. The object, designated MoM-BH-1, turned out to be the reddest object in the telescope’s image archive.

In space, a red colour usually indicates that a light source is surrounded by a thick cloud of dust. In this case, however, the light spectrum did not match existing astronomical models because it contained almost no signatures of heavier elements, known as metals. Several other dust-related signals were also absent, forcing astronomers to seek new explanations.

The object’s radiation also dropped suddenly below a certain light wavelength. This phenomenon, known as the Balmer break, occurs when very dense gas absorbs particles of light in stellar atmospheres. Naidu said the study’s results showed the deepest Balmer break ever recorded, effectively ruling out the theory that the object was an ordinary star.

The scientists then used computer simulations to determine the system’s nature. The models indicated that the intense red colour and unusual light pattern were probably caused by an extremely dense hydrogen cocoon. Rather than a diffuse nebula, the gas envelope resembles the solid surface of a true giant star. That alone, however, could not explain the object’s extreme brightness.

The mystery was resolved when the team added an active, matter-consuming black hole to the computer model. The simulations suggest that a young black hole about 100,000 times more massive than the Sun lies at the centre of the cocoon. Matter falling into the black hole at high speed emits enormous amounts of energy.