Researchers solve mystery of universe's 'little red dots'
Phys.org • • general
Key Points:
- Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have identified the mysterious red dots seen in James Webb Space Telescope images as young black holes surrounded by ionized gas cocoons, revealing insights into the universe's earliest black holes.
- These "little red dots" are black holes much smaller than previously thought, weighing up to 10 million times the mass of the sun, and their intense radiation through the surrounding gas cocoon causes their distinctive red color.
- The study explains that these black holes grow rapidly by consuming gas, but much of the gas is expelled due to extreme heat and radiation, making black holes "messy eaters."
- This discovery helps explain how supermassive black holes, billions of times the sun's mass, could have formed within 700
