Astronomers Discover a New Astrophysical Object: The Black Hole Star

MIT astronomers have detected an object that combines characteristics of a star and a black hole. It emits 100 billion times more energy than any known star, challenging current astrophysical models.

• The object, named MoM-BH-1, was observed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.*
• It contains a central black hole with 100,000 solar masses surrounded by a dense cloud of hydrogen.
• This finding could explain the mysterious 'little red dots' that appear in almost all images from the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected an extremely bright red dot in the early universe.

The object resembles a massive star, the size of our solar system, but emits 100 billion times more energy than any known star can physically produce.

In fact, such energies are closer to what a black hole could generate.

The curious combination suggests that the red dot is a completely new type of astrophysical source.

Astronomers refer to it as a "black hole star."

The Discovery with the James Webb Telescope

The team of astronomers from MIT and other institutions published their analysis in the journal Nature.

They used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to observe the universe very early, just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

The bright red dot stood out among the deep space images.

The lead author, Rohan Naidu, a NASA Hubble Fellow and Pappalardo Fellow at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI) at MIT, explained that the image of the object is evolving very rapidly.

According to Naidu, they believe there is a central black hole that is 100,000 times more massive than the sun.

What is a Black Hole Star?

The object is likely an extremely dense gas cloud, driven not by standard nuclear fusion, but by a central black hole.

The combination of a black hole and a star has never been observed until now.

Around the black hole, there would be a very extended gas envelope that appears like a star the size of the solar system.

Naidu emphasized that this envelope is "huge."

The accreting black hole, as a power source, plays the role of nuclear fusion, and the surrounding dense gas acts similarly to a pseudo-photosphere.

The Clue of the Little Red Dots

If the bright red dot is indeed a black hole star, it would help resolve the identity of other mysterious "little red dots."

These dots have appeared in almost all deep space images that the JWST has taken to date.

Naidu noted that these little red dots seem to be everywhere in the early universe but essentially disappear in the present time.

The identity of these objects has been one of the most debated topics of the JWST era.

The co-authors from MIT of the study include Robert Simcoe, director of MKI and professor of Physics, and Wendy Sun, along with collaborators from multiple institutions.

The Search for Early Galaxies

Naidu and his colleagues did not intend to find a black hole star.

They were searching for the most distant and earliest galaxies as part of a study called "Mirage or Miracle" (MoM).

The team used the JWST to look into deep space when the universe was just a few hundred million years old.

Their goal was to search for galaxies that actually formed during those early times.

Naidu explained that there has been a puzzle of many bright galaxies appearing at extremely early times.

A Singular Finding

While reviewing the JWST images, they noticed a very red and very bright dot that stood out from the rest.

Simcoe explained that when something very red is seen in the universe, it is often assumed to be surrounded by dust.

Compared the effect to the smoke from the wildfires in Canada that made the sky in Boston appear bright red.

Astronomical objects can appear redder than their intrinsic color when viewed through a veil of dust.

However, other signatures in the light did not match what physicists expect from dust.

The Deepest Balmer Break

The team observed another strange pattern: the light from the point was extremely bright, except below certain wavelengths.

The light completely disappeared at those wavelengths.

This spectral drop is known as a "Balmer break."

Traditionally, it is associated with dense gas that absorbs photons in the atmospheres of stars a few hundred million years old.

Vega, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, shows exactly this pattern.

An Almost Pure Composition

The break observed in this object is the deepest ever seen in any object.

This rules out "ordinary" stars as a source, according to Naidu.

The pattern led the team to wonder if they were seeing a new type of "stellar atmosphere" on a spectacular scale.

Moreover, the light from the red point contained almost no signatures of metals or elements other than hydrogen and helium.

Naidu stated that the object was "truly singular in many respects."

Simulations to Unravel the Mystery

To understand the source of the red point, the team conducted simulations of different scenarios.

They were looking for what combination of astrophysical features could produce the distinctive color of the red point.

Simcoe wondered if something so red could be made using only hydrogen, without dust.

The surprise was discovering that it can be done if there is an extremely dense screen of hydrogen.

This density would resemble more the surface of a massive star than a faint interstellar nebula.

The Impossible Energy Source

The simulations suggested that the red point could be a powerful energy source wrapped in an extremely dense cocoon of hydrogen.

This would explain the Balmer break that blocks light and the absence of other elements.

However, it did not explain the extreme brightness of the object.

Naidu pointed out that it resembles something like a star but is 100 billion times brighter.

This energy cannot be powered by nuclear fusion, the energy source at the heart of all known stars.

Black Holes as the Answer

Black holes, on the other hand, routinely produce energy at the scales the team observed.

Naidu and his colleagues incorporated an actively accreting black hole into their simulations of the hydrogen cocoon star.

They varied the mass of the black hole, along with other parameters.

Then they compared the resulting brightness of the simulated "black hole star" with the brightness observed by the JWST.

The closest match led the team to conclude that the most likely scenario is a black hole star.

The First Object of Its Kind

The object likely contains a central black hole of about 100,000 times the mass of the sun.

This powerful core is surrounded by a dense cocoon of hydrogen, similar to a star, with a size comparable to that of the solar system.

The team named the object MoM-BH*-1, in honor of the study that detected it.

The nickname "black hole star -- one" implies that it is the first of others.

Researchers suspect that black hole stars could explain many of the other small red points in JWST images.

The Significance of the Red Points

Each small red point is consistent with being a black hole star embedded in a generic early galaxy, according to Naidu.

What is special about MoM-BH*-1 is that the black hole star is essentially outshining its surrounding host galaxy.

This means that astronomers are seeing "pure light from a black hole star".

The finding revolutionizes the understanding of compact objects in the early universe.

The research was supported by the MIT Department of Physics, NASA, and the Space Telescope Science Institute.

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