NASA's JWST reveals ancient monster stars that could be the ancestors of black holes
The mystery of the "little red dots," detected by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in the ancient cosmos, might have finally been solved by astronomers. The newest information from the telescope indicates that these objects are, in fact, very large, short-lived stars and serve as "seeds" for the formation of the supermassive black holes, according to the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA).
The American Astronomical Society's 247th meeting heralded the announcement of the study, which was organized by the CfA. These faint, red specks had been a puzzle for years to the scientists. The Hubble Space Telescope and other older probes were unable to confirm their existence since the universe's expansion shifts the light from distant stars into longer and redder wavelengths that only the JWST can effectively capture. There were speculations about the dots being intricate systems with black holes concealed behind thick clouds of dust. Nevertheless, the new research comes up with a much easier explanation: one huge star.
A physical model designed by the team suggests that the stars in question are about a million times heavier than the Sun. These superstars are "metal-free" in the sense that they are composed of the original elements that existed at the very beginning of time, and their distinctive light emissions coincide quite accurately with the data recorded by the JWST.
The revelation is no longer a list of ancient stars only; it is a linking part in the history of the universe. These stars are so massive that they become unstable and end up dying in a very dramatic way. "We're watching some of them be born in real time," remarked the lead author, Devesh Nandal. He went on to say that these stars were the last bright moments before they are crushed by gravity and turned into "heavy seeds" for the colossal black holes that are now sitting at the centers of galaxies. The present results clarify the brightest red dots identified so far, while the researchers are on the lookout for smaller and fainter ones. The discovery of such stars would not only cement their hypothesis but also point out the exact nascent stages of the first galaxies in our universe.
The $10 billion telescope has revealed a new world of possibilities, and the latest discoveries are nothing short of amazing. A similar object situated right at the "cosmic noon" period was detected by the scientists last year, roughly 4 billion years after the Big Bang. The majority of these hazardous spots are tiny, but this one was so enormous, approximately 100 million solar masses, that researchers called it "Big Red Dot" (BiRD) for a while.
The "BiRD" has been discovered by the astronomers at a distance of about 12.5 billion light-years near the brightest and well-known quasar. The area, however, was not seen by previous X-ray and radio telescopes, even after being studied for decades. It was the JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) that illuminated this "Big Red Dot" in the sector as an unexpectedly bright, sharply focused point of light.
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