The JWST Little Red Dots Could Be 'Black Hole Stars'

The JWST's Little Red Dots (LRD) could be black holes shrouded in dense gas. Researchers suggest these objects, which were discovered between 600 million and 1.6 billion years after the Big Bang, might be enshrouded black holes. The findings, published in Nature, indicate that LRDs could explain the puzzling discovery of massive SMBHs in the early Universe. The study centers on MoM-BH*-1, an object in the JWST's Ultra Deep Survey that was singled out for deeper observations due to its extreme redness. The object shows a deep Balmer break and other spectroscopic features that suggest it is a gas-enshrouded black hole.

• "MoM-BH*-1" is the object in the JWST's Ultra Deep Survey that was singled out for deeper observations.
• "The deep Balmer break" suggests that the light from the object is interacting with a dense gas envelope rather than a dusty accretion disk.
• "The Balmer break is the deepest ever observed in any object, ruling out 'ordinary' stars as the source."

This research supports the idea that early black holes could have grown rapidly through super-Eddington accretion. The study presents a spectroscopic signal that supports the hypothesis that LRDs are enshrouded black holes. The findings suggest that the early Universe's SMBHs grew so large due to the accretion of massive amounts of gas, even when the gas was not in the form of a dusty disk.

• "The Eddington limit describes the maximum luminosity of an astronomical object when its outward radiative force is in balance with the inward pull of gravity."
• "The object shows a deep Balmer break and other spectroscopic features that suggest it is a gas-enshrouded black hole."
• "The object is about 100,000 times more massive than the Sun and may provide evidence of an early black hole embedded in dense gas."

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